Preamble: I know that 'give a reason when downvoting' is a very common request, and I assure you that I have read these posts and the discussions in them and my request is very different. This isn't about encouraging people to comment and is more about gathering metrics.  I'd like to see a feature whereby people who are downvoted get some better feedback on why they were downvoted, especially given that people rarely leave comments in practice.  So my suggestion is that when user clicks on the downvote, they are prompted to pick from a short list (No more than 5) of common reasons. It would be a popup that replaces the existing "Please consider adding a comment" box.  The user receiving the downvote would see how many people downvoted them for each reason, but not who did it. It would significantly address the issue of people being too lazy to comment or not wanting to comment (for fear of retaliation or any other reason) while helping to ensure the user gets useful feedback.  Perhaps the downvote could also be weighted based on whether or not a reason is picked.  For questions the list might look something like:   Not a question Not relevant to the subject area Trivial question with no research effort Poorly asked question Other   And for answers, this might be:   Nonconstructive or not an answer Incorrect or dangerous answer Poor explanation Doesn't answer the original question Other
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Note: If you're looking for a simple explanation as to why comments aren't required on downvotes, see .   I used to get "upset" (though that is too strong a term) when I got downvoted without comment. If my answer isn't good enough then I'd like to know why. Not only does it improve the answer for the OP but it improves my knowledge too.  Where the down-vote has been explained I've found it useful &amp; it has improved my answer, or forced me to delete the answer if it was totally wrong.  So is there any way we can encourage people to leave a comment? Perhaps they don't lose rep if they explain their down-vote?  I must admit though that I haven't always explained my down-vote either so you could call me a hypocrite. I've also grown a thicker skin over the months of using SO (it seems to have come with the higher rep score ;-)), so I'm less bothered about this now.
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Before you disagree with me with a downvote, or just want to be funny, please hear me out. From the :  The upvote privilege comes first because that's what you should focus on: pushing great content to the top. Downvoting should be reserved for extreme cases. It's not meant as a substitute for communication and editing.  I have honestly never seen a downvote reserved for an extreme case. The process is usually 1) downvote post if it's bad and don't comment. (Not much of a process, is it?) As you stay on the site longer and longer, you develop a carelessness towards downvotes (as I have), but for new users, it's really discouraging.  question inspired me to [ask balpha to] make , which is a list of users with 1 rep who have the  badge. That's the closest I could get to new users who deleted their own posts after downvotes came in. Don't get me wrong, I know the argument about being nice to new users very well, but I still believe it to be an issue. And since , users are much more inclined to go the lazy route and downvote bad questions. No alternative measures (see below) are taken, for the most part. Personally, I leave a comment and don't downvote until the asker shows no interest in fixing their post. The only other measure taken to discourage downvotes (on answers) is the -1 rep punishment to the downvoter, which is absolutely meaningless and inconsequential anyways. How are we supposed to educate new users when we don't teach them what to do, don't direct them to the FAQ, and discourage them with downvotes right off the bat?  Instead of voting down: If the post is spammy or offensive — flag it. If the question is duplicate or off-topic — flag it for moderator attention. If something is wrong, please leave a comment or edit the post to correct it.  We claim to discourage downvoting, yet I see answers like  that encourage us to downvote first and ask questions later when a question is simply unclear or effortless. It's just an awful chain reaction. A new user comes to the site asking a question, but that doesn't work out too well, so they get downvotes, delete the question in shame, and don't get the help they deserve as a fellow writer of code and programmer. Strip away the quality of the site for a moment: the core functionality of this site, and the only reason I and a lot of other users are (still) on it, is to receive and give help to/from others. I enjoy making sure fellow programmers get the answer they need, because this site has helped me get mine when I needed them. Quality can still be maintained if content is fixed rather than downvoted more often. So can we stop discouraging new users from continuing to use this site and actually start to discourage downvoting? I think we need to encourage effort towards teaching and helping new users understand the system and why their post is bad rather than slapping them in the face with downvotes that they don't know how to interpret anyways. I'm leaving ways we can do this up to others. My first thought was to increase the punishment for downvoting answers and to no longer make question downvotes free, but those wouldn't be well-received, judging by the history of similar suggestions. .
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Sometimes my post receives downvotes with no explanation on what I've done wrong. Even worse, sometimes I just get snarky comments! It seems like this is especially bad for new users, who are made to feel unwelcome by veteran users. Stack Exchange's rules can be difficult to grasp, especially for newbies, and downvotes can feel hostile and discouraging. Several ideas have been proposed for how to fix this, including:  Every downvote should be accompanied by a mandatory comment Downvotes should be accompanied by a mandatory, anonymous comment Downvotes should be accompanied by a reason selected from a drop-down menu The first downvote should be accompanied by a mandatory comment Downvotes should cost reputation points unless accompanied by a comment …and other variations.  However, whenever someone suggests one of these changes on Meta, it gets unceremoniously rejected and (ironically) downvoted without a detailed explanation! Why are all of these ideas rejected? Is it because people here are curmudgeonly trolls who just hate people and don't want new users to feel welcome? This question was originally from . While there are many posts related to this issue which get closed as duplicates of , that question doesn't adequately explain to new users why this is always turned down. The purpose of this question is to be the network-wide community-approved FAQ to be used as a duplicate target for questions asking for mandatory feedback on downvotes.
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The Problem - The Stack Exchange network has so many sites with more being added all the time, a user probably doesn't know that a Stack Exchange site exists to answer a question they might have. In addition, when asking a question, the user might not know the best place to put the question. Asking the question on the wrong site could be downvoted, and it might not be in the user's best interest to ask the question if he/she doesn't know exactly where it belongs.  The Idea - A Stack Exchange site where you can ask any question, and it's up to reviewers of the question to decide which site would be best suited to answer the question.   I don't know much about the process for migrating questions to other sites as they stand today, but I think a voting system would be good, to allow reviewers to vote where the question belongs best, or someone with enough rep is allowed to move it directly.   The conditions that determine when a question is migrated could vary. Some ideas:   After a certain period of inactivity When the vote gap between the #1 and #2 result is large enough   The voting system should also have some way to denote that this question doesn't (yet) have a Stack Exchange site suited to answer the question.   When asking the question, the page could provide a list of similar questions as it does now, and "suggested site" box. This way, if they're writing the question they could see some suggestions as to where the question might belong. They could then select one of those sites and have it submitted on that site. The primary data source for this would probably be the tags. For instance, if the user enters tags that have a lot of followers on StackOverflow, the page would suggest that the question might belong on StackOverflow.  This feature would allow users to ask questions without being as concerned about where it belongs among the vast Stack Exchange network. In addition, this could be a valuable resource in determining what Stack Exchange sites people would like to see. If there are a lot of questions that are filed as "Site Doesn't Yet Exist To Answer This Question™", that would be an indicator that there is a need that Stack Exchange isn't currently fulfilling.  Please comment with any suggestions or criticisms.   PS: I hope that this is the correct place to post this suggestion.  Edit  Maybe a dumbed-down version of this might be useful. Instead of having the review process, just have a page for a user to enter their question, get suggestions to where it might belong, and choose at the end where the question belongs. Right now, choosing where to ask the question is the first step. I think moving it to a later point in the conception of the question would allow the asker to better categorize the question.
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A good question will receive many answers, and much more views than normal.    This level of activity is not reflected in the upvoting of said question. I recently encountered several such questions, which until I pointed this in the comments () stayed in the lower 0-2 upvotes.    My two suggestions:   Automatically upvote any question you answer, with the ability to cancel this up-vote. This makes sense to me, as I answer only questions I like/are good (and I suppose others too). Display popup message similar to:       Have you considered upvoting this question?    Addressing comments given so far: Answers do not mean a question is good, but it does imply you have an opinion on it. So why not prompt any one who answers to express their opinion by voting? (Similar to what happens when you upvote an answer to your own question).
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Possible Duplicate:    OK, I've just got downvoted for an answer that was previously upvoted. I'm pretty sure my answer wasn't the best, yet not the worst. It was also not a subjective question and I got a little upset because... One of the reasons I'm participating on discussion forums or hybrids like StackOverflow is that I want to get some feedback for what (I think) I know. But, there are occasions in here where you have no idea why your response was bad and thus downvoted. I mean, a question is not about who gives the best answer, it is about learning from each other. If you downvote me, give me a reason for it. Don't be a coward or a selfish person that keeps all the knowledge for himself. I've been searching on uservoice and any proposal to enforce some feedback when downvoting was rejected so I believe giving feedback for a downvote should be basic netiquette in here. If the system can't enforce it the we should rely on common sense. So... When you downvote, please give feedback:  Say, &quot;Hey, I downvoted you. It was me, ok? Now you know.&quot; Say, &quot;Hey, -1 because you said that.&quot; Say, &quot;Hey, that what you said is actually the other, -1&quot;  It's not that funny to offer free consultation letting ghosts assess your knowledge. I'm doing this for free so I expect this to be a fair trade by receiving real feedback for free. I'm also convinced I'm not the only one having this problem, so please share your opinions. Edit: I'm a little bit shocked. Within a minute after posting this &quot;question&quot; some people downvoted almost all of my questions (no subjective questions and I may say pretty hard to answer). So, some people are very touchy today although I didn't point the finger at anyone... I wouldn't have believed this could happen.
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On StackOverflow, I've received a couple of downvotes for rather stupid answers and some for controversial ones.  Every time I do I feel beaten with a stick, enraged at the system and disinclined to post again.  Of course, it might just mean that I have a big ego, low self-esteem and trouble with criticism, but that's besides the point.    I think we all feel insulted whenever we receive punishment from strangers after sincerely trying to help or asking for help ourselves.    As I'm not sure that I agree that "insulting users" is necessarily a good design choice,  I'd like to cite Pavlov and propose removing downvotes altogether.  They don't really do anything except let people beat on each other and discourage answers from all but the established coterie.  I understand the "but it's wrong argument" and would like to propose two positive solutions to counter it:   Write the right answer.  Upvote the right answer.   Alternatively, if the previous solution is unsatisfactory, I'd like to propose a much higher reputation threshold before downvotes are enabled to apply and a higher threshold before they can be received.  That way, the wiser users can still beat each other, but us timid newbies are shielded a bit.  UPDATE:  sigh  I suppose I asked for it.  EDIT:  BF Skinner is the experimentalist I was trying to cite, not Pavlov.    Here's a link to some more general articles on the principles:     "punishment [downvoting] only temporarily changes behavior and presents many detrimental side effects."  Basically positive punishment (downvoting) doesn't change the behaviour (ie// It's unlikely I'll post more thoughtful questions and answers in the future because this one has been heavily downvoted) and it's likely to cause "many detrimental side effects".  EDIT 2:  "Evil" in this context is defined as "that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune;"  Downvotes appear to be "Pure Evil" because they a) hurt, b) are encouraged by the system c) appear to be undoable (ie// once you smack someone, you can't unsmack them) and d) don't have an objective criteria to their application (ie// anyone can downvote for unspecified reasons).  They are excused by the theory that they indicate wrong or misleading answers/questions (Here there be sharks!), which I contend is of dubious value given the required criteria for downvoting.
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How about introducing a badge that rewards downvoting, but only of the sensible kind?   A measure for sensible downvoting would be a high percentage  certain number of downvotes on content that has subsequently been   Deleted  Closed (except migrations and duplicates)   Bronze, Silver, and Gold badges would vary in numbers, say     Bronze: cast 50 downvotes on content that was subsequently closed or deleted   This would encourage downvoting (which is great and needed), but of the measurably sensible kind only.  What  good actual numbers would be for Bronze, Silver, and Gold would be a separate discussion. Feel free to suggest numbers in your answers, as well as name suggestions (the only I managed to come up with was Whistleblowerand that isn't really accurate. I'm more imagining the old lady calling the council over some abandoned litter in the streets, or broken windows... but in a good way of course.
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There has been a trend now two persons downvote it then it goes on like that. So let there be down voting but do not display the downvotes till the user votes on it. Else the user reads it with an impression that the question is not good.  Am I missing something?
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Upvotes are easy on both Main and Meta sites. You like something, you vote it up.  Downvotes are trickier.   On Main down-voting a question means that the question is a poor one. Poor meaning badly written or really annoying for some reason (e.g. give-me-da-codez).  Downvoting an answer usually means it's plain wrong.  On Meta, however, many questions revolve around matters of taste (e.g. ). When voting on answers to such questions, I want to be able to push down the suggestions that I disagree with and promote the ones that I think are correct. But I don't want to hurt people's reputation by doing so.   Downvoting on Meta isn't really saying "your answer is stupid and wrong"; it's more like "I prefer we do it the other way". The whole site is basically meant to discuss matters of social preference, etiquette, do's and dont's, etc.  In Main most people wouldn't downvote an answer just because some other answer is better. People generally accept that there may be different solutions to a problem and feel comfortable in letting upvotes alone decide on the most popular one.  In Meta, on the other hand, there might be groups that really care about some issue and would like to see it solved in a particular way. And, in case , voting on answers would really be voting on preference more than correctness.   Should downvote semantics on Meta be different than on Main?   Perhaps the system should not deduct reputation points if your answer gets downvoted, thereby allowing/encouraging more free downvoting.
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Why not make it mandatory to leave a reason or at least a remark of some sort whenever down voting?  You see more and more often questions being down voted while many times they are simply perfectly legitimate, as questions/as people being unable to achieve some desirable result. I am not talking about "Hey, please do this and that for me, thanks :D " posts.  I would like to know what reasons there are for not making it mandatory to leave a reason for a down vote.
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I wrote a question today that, thus far, has received five answers (plus one from me) and zero upvotes. That's fine, it happens. But, this irks me a little, someone actually bookmarked it and (unless someone downvoted me) didn't upvote the question. I realize the criteria for upvoting is &quot;clear and useful&quot; not &quot;interesting enough to bookmark&quot;, but I don't think I've ever bookmarked a question without upvoting it. You obviously like the question enough that you'd like to be able to return to it later, so I think in most cases, an upvote is in order. I wonder if SO could provide one of those little pop-up reminders suggesting you upvote a question if you bookmark it.  Edit: I am thinking something along the lines of:  If you think this question is clear and useful, please consider upvoting it.  So, just a little encouragement to act nicely if it's deserved.
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Each question in SO keeps a list of the users who voted it down. As we all know, the list is never shown to anyone. Only the down voter can see which questions he down voted.   Sometimes, down voters down vote rather hastily. Thats okay because no one is perfect (except chuck norris). But sometimes, the down voter might have a good reason to down vote but may not leave a reason behind. As a result, the poster is left wondering if his question is stupid/bad or okay. To remedy this situation, I suggest a feature below -   The poster should have a button "request down voters for reason" which can be pushed only once. The down voters in the down voter list get the notification and can choose to respond to it. I feel that this can serve as a polite reminder to those who down vote a question which would seem to be an okay (if not good) question to most people.   Example of question which I feel should have at least 0 votes -    If okay, then this feature can be combined with -    Do you agree to the proposal ?  As an aside, do you agree that the SO question above should not get negative points ?
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Simple request, really.  Can we add a detection for the     Please avoid extended discussions in   comments. Would you like to   automatically move this discussion to   chat?   prompt, so that if one of the users in the "extended discussion" has under 20 rep it doesn't appear?  I think a lot of the users this apply to will have low rep and it may take some back and forth to get good info out of them.  New suggestion: how about if a sufficiently high-rep user is clicking on the link, the low-rep user gets a field promotion sufficient to chat? Low-rep users are particularly prone to post questions to lead in this direction of needing to move to chat.
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New users already have a reminder to accept an answer on their question. So I don't see the need in general for this post-answer badgering, even if it is intended to be genuine constructive help (which it almost always isn't). To me it seems like little more than rep greed, especially on a site like StackOverflow where such a reminder comes within 10-20 minutes of posting the answer, and when the comment is clearly intended for the OP to accept the commenter's answer. To me it feels like pressuring the OP to accept their answer before a better answer has a chance to come along (or, as others have put it, rep-whoring).  I know we've talked in the past about , but that deals with the behavior itself. I'm asking about how we should treat the comments after they've come - I'm not sure whether I should send the commenter to the meta question I just linked, flag the comment, or ignore it. Ignoring it doesn't feel right, but saying something in the open might not seem genuine in cases where I have a competing answer.  EDIT I'd like to add something to consider here: the case where a user makes it seem like further discussion or clarification of an answer hinges on an up-vote/accept first. A couple of examples I culled recently, but I don't want to call out the user here (they're both from the same user, on different posts, in response to questions trying to clarify their answer):     consider up-voting my answer if you found it useful first.      up-vote my answer if you found it helpful first.
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Possible Duplicate:          I know that this issue has been raised a number of times in the past, with some improvements being made to reduce the negative impacts it has on discussion, but the problem persists, and I would like to suggest a further change.  I am aware that the need to preserve anonymity when voting is an important aspect of the design of the community, and that making comments mandatory on downvotes would negate that.  What I am suggesting is that downvotes, without comments, should cost the voter the same number of Rep Points as the owner of the Answer. So that, if I were to downvote another user's Answer, I would lose 2 Rep Pts as would they.  I know there is a small notification bubble which pops up suggesting the voter add a comment to explain the vote, but it seems that is not encouraging alot of users to do so. If the same bubble basically illustrated a reward for the voter in adding a comment "If you add a comment, explaining your vote, you will gain 1 Rep Pt." there may be a greater engagement for people to do so.  (Yes, I am raising this as I have had 2 downvotes - and no other actions on my answers - in the last 48 hours with no comments, no explanations and no ideas why they did so. But I still think there is merit in this idea all the same.)
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While working with the Low Quality review queue, when selecting a reason why you believe a post should be deleted, you automatically comment on the post with a canned piece of text explaining why you voted one way or another (if it doesn't already exist from another reviewer).  When you select the same reason as another reviewer and the comment already exists, what would we think about having it auto-upvote that comment instead of just doing nothing?    In the example above, another user had chosen to flag the answer for deletion for the same reason I picked, so I would expect my action to upvote their comment.