Then we (and in extreme cases, you) could at least review it and point out if the reasons where nuts (i.e. if an answer has 5 downvotes for wrong then we can factcheck it and point it out)
I'm mentioning lobste.rs for the second time in this discussion, but lobste.rs has this and it works kind of well IMO, both to think twice when I downvote and also to try to figure out why someone was downvoted.
Then again, lobste.rs is a different community and there is a reason or maybe several why I hang both here and there :-)
Perhaps asking users why they are downvoting could help. Maybe not necessary to show their reason to others, but add friction and force someone to think twice.
When my comments get downvoted, sometimes I can figure out why. It's frivolous, off-topic, just plain wrong, etc.
But quite often, I have no idea whatsoever, and I'm always curious about what the issue was. I think potentially valuable information and personal learning is lost.
I hate it when I don't know why I'm being downvoted---did I make some kind of error? did I word things wrong? or do people just disagree with me?
What if there were a separate "flag" that people could click for trolls and spam, but when you downvoted someone, you were forced to post a reply explaining why?
I think this has the potential for going down an infinite rat-hole, but I always think it would be interesting if downvotes required justification (e.g. a "why?" popup that included stuff like "rules violation", "trolling", "this is wrong", etc) and then other people were allowed to evaluate specific downvote reasons for whether or not they seemed reasonable. You could then weight downvotes based on how legit the reasoning of the downvoter is (does everyone think you're full of shit when you say it's trolling?) and also based on whether you tend to downvote for reasons that are not actually worthy of a downvote (you just disagree with the post).
It's a bit like when you have a survey and you have 5 or 6 options ranging from 'hate it' and 'love it'.
The difference is often very small and just adds not really necessary options which makes making a choice harder.
How about checking if a user downvoted more than e.g. average number of comments on some post, resulting in his downvotes carrying very little weight if it is true. Unless it's being done already.
Downvotes are sometimes useful for getting users to fight spam. One interesting solution I encountered on lobste.rs is to ask for a reason (out of a small list) before allowing me to downvote. It sure stopped me from censoring stuff that I find annoying.
Yeah I think it could only be implemented on a new forum, right at the start. No doubt it would bring a different set of problems for moderators.
To those people (not you) "who see downvoting as a legitimate way of showing disagreement" I would say that it's too lazy. Better instead to try to explain why something is wrong. Then we can look carefully and objectively at the explanation rather than at the score or the expert/layman status of the author. Also many disagreers would find themselves unable to explain why they don't like some idea and might even change their minds.
I kind of wish there were a link you could click on each post to see a list of the people who downvoted it.
I don't expect that to ever be added and I can imagine many ways in which it would backfire, but nothing annoys me more than silent downvotes (downvotes but no responses) to posts that are perfectly reasonable if maybe mildly controversial.
If you disagree with a post (that isn't just obviously a troll or otherwise clearly meant to be offensive) enough to downvote, respond with why, it is much more useful for everyone that way.
Maybe a 2D vote. The up-down dimension we have now, and another to say why the up/down vote. This would combine the up/down with a Slashdot-like Troll~Insightful dimension. That would be some useful feedback.
Sometimes I don't know if I am being downvoted because I am being too vicious (I get carried away from time to time) or because I am just completely wrong.
Also it would be interesting to test adding a compulsory text field when someone downvotes to include why you down voted.
Then add votes to down-vote reasons. Over time you would develop a good database of people who add value through downvoting (vs I disagree mentality) and weight these accordingly for better auto-moderation.
I'm mentioning lobste.rs for the second time in this discussion, but lobste.rs has this and it works kind of well IMO, both to think twice when I downvote and also to try to figure out why someone was downvoted.
Then again, lobste.rs is a different community and there is a reason or maybe several why I hang both here and there :-)
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