> **Possible Duplicates:** > [Encouraging people to explain down-votes](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/135/encouraging-people-to-explain-down-votes) > [Proposal: Require anonymous comment with downvotes](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/31302/proposal-require-anonymous-comment-with-downvotes) <!-- End of automatically inserted text --> I asked a question today and it was downvoted by someone within five minutes! No reason given. Personally I think downvoting without giving a reason is pointless and rude. You're causing the poster to lose 2 points. I believe my question was clear enough. If there's another reason and you don't tell me about it, I have learned ZERO from you and I lost 2 points and you lost one point. So who's benefiting? Is there any kind of incentives in the current system to leave a reason for downvoting? Maybe the downvoter should lose more points for downvoting without a reason than with a reason. This means the current -1 should increase.