Does the fact that comments aren't anonymous discourage people who downvote from explaining why?

Question

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has been puzzled (and at times a little annoyed) at being downvoted (both questions and answers). At the same time, I accept people's right to do that and I think voting (up and down) should remain anonymous.

This doesn't change the fact, though, that downvoting without leaving a comment is of no benefit to anyone on the site, least of all the author of the post that has been downvoted. And herein lies the problem: How does one provide what could well be useful feedback whilst retaining the right to remain anonymous when downvoting? Unless I'm missing something, I don't think it can be done on History SE.

Shouldn't this be changed to encourage downvoters to leave anonymous comments (but ONLY downvoters can do that)? I guess at least some downvoters don't really have what most other users might consider a good reason for downvoting - so be it. Equally, I suspect that some do have an interesting point to make but are reluctant to do so for fear of being victimized.

There may well be a downside to what I'm suggesting (anonymous comments allowed for downvoters) so I'd be interested to know what others think.

Answer 1

I very rarely downvote, so I'm mostly putting guesses on other people here, but I think the reasons for quiet downvotes mostly are (in rough order of poster culpability):

• An existing comment(s) covers user's objection to the post.
• User can't think of a good way to express their problem with the post without violating our Be Nice policy.
• User objects to content of post for ideological reasons (that are probably obvious from content of post).
• User suspects any response will just invoke an argument or an attack rather than being taken constructively.
• User highly suspects the post was not made in a good-faith attempt to participate on this SE constructively, so suggestions would fall on deaf ears.
• Post is so bad its not even wrong.

As a poster, you can't do anything about the first 2, and if you are hit by the last 2 you've probably got issues you can't or don't want to fix. The third is generally something you shouldn't call down on yourself on a whim, but when you have to you have to. Just take your licks.

But what you can do something about is this one:

•User suspects any response will just invoke an argument or an attack rather than being taken constructively.

In particular, try hard to treat each comment as an honest attempt to improve what you wrote. This is one I will admit to struggling with. When you spend time writing something, its pretty natural to instinctively growl when you see it being attacked. Its work to turn off that lizard brain and accept what people are seeing that you didn't see in your head when you were typing it.

But of course if a user sees you aggressively pushing back on other users in your posts comments, they'll think twice before voicing their objection. This goes for the content of your post too. If you use aggressive or judgmental language in your post, its pretty clear to voters how you are amped up to react to a critical comment. Nobody is going to bother, without first girding themselves for battle.

Answer 2

I've said it repeatedly, but my observation is that downvotes generate more personal abuse than corrections. I am strongly motivated to leave no comments on a downvote because of the number of times that people have replied with ad hominem abuse.

What you propose isn't a solution to a problem as much as it is a method for enabling greater hostility. You're asking the kids to register their lunch money so that bullies can use their time more efficiently.

I'd love to live in a world where we all followed the rule of be nice. But we don't live in that world; we live in a world full of trolls, and our reality is shaped by the presence and activity of those trolls. Trolls consume idealism like a fat man eating pasta; it doesn't satisfy him, but the activity is familiar and comforting.

Answer 3

Part of the reason that the down vote feature does not require comments, to the frustration of many users (myself included sometimes), is that SE/SO prefers to prevent the bun fights / pissing contests that are so common on the internet.

The SE model desires and requires a favorable signal to noise ratio, which is almost unique on the internet. It's why I bother to participate at all. (I am active on 5 SE sites).

Each down vote in the ideal world will be obvious in motive: either the question "shows no research" or the answer "is not helpful / does not answer the question"

Of course, we are not in an ideal world.

We are using flesh-based input to operate the sorting algorithm that the voting system is meant create: get the cream/best answer to rise to the top. In some cases, a comment will begin a non-productive back and forth exchange, which degrades site quality by increasing noise with no added signal. In other cases, a comment will result in what comments are built for: improving the question or answer in play.

Each person down voting needs to apply their judgment on what they think will be the outcome of a comment for a given question or answer. Give the users some credit, eh?

This SE site, and any other SE site, Isn't A Discussion Forum.

What that means is that if the answerer or asker does not meet the minimum quality standard outlined in the Help Center, the system is built to provide negative feedback. While stated in a variety of more flowery terms (see Be Nice rules), the message that needs to be sent clearly is "No, your input isn't good enough, raise your game." A favorable signal to noise ratio requires that kind of feedback to get the quality content the SE system desires.

There's the rest of the internet to make noise: at an SE site, signal is valued.

See also "Optimizing for Pearls, not Sand" at the home site.

I'd also recommend reading Shog9's answer here on a very similar discussion from early in the site's beta period.

Answer 4

I'll admit that I've not given this question a lot of thought. That may be partly because I don't feel especially motivated by reputation scores and badges (heresy on SE, I know!).

I try to give the "best" answer that I can to a given question, and let people upvote / downvote / ignore as they see fit. Indeed, on half-a-dozen or more occasions, I've actually expected downvotes when I've challenged what I assume to be "cherished views" (generally involving religion or politics) with inconvenient evidence. Sometimes I've been surprised at how few I've actually received.

Most of the time I'll either comment, or upvote someone else's comment, when I'm downvoting. In general, the reasons tend to be on Mark's excellent list Why did I get a downvote? here on meta. I've even contributed a reason to that list myself (in fact I've just noticed that my answer there has attracted a downvote. Perhaps that's just one of those "idealogical" votes that @T.E.D. mentioned in his answer! ;) ).

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However, one problem that I would anticipate with allowing anonymous comments for downvoters is that it would potentially provide an opportunity for people to bypass the "Be nice" rule with impunity. At the very least, this would mean an increased workload for moderators.