adding an anonymous comment wouldn't help much, you just would get comments like "......". If your answer/question is correct/good it will likely be upvoted (up to the level it deserves (if not more)) resulting in an additional +8 for each downvote: Example for an answer with a net score of +2: what | upvotes | downvotes | NET | reputation ------------------+---------+-----------+-----+------------ without downvotes | 2 | 0 | 2 | +20 with one downvote | 3 | 1 | 2 | +28 ... assuming the system works... I've seen this happening often on Stackoverflow... related: [How do you react when someone votes down your question?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/67207/how-do-you-react-when-someone-votes-down-your-question/67243#67243 "")