
Ask HN: No downvote without explanation? - nyc111
When I&#x27;m downvoted I never know why I&#x27;m downvoted. Did I say something wrong? Did I offend somebody? Was I off topic? I think it would be very helpful and constructive if anyone who downvotes is required to leave a brief explanation why they downvoted. What do you think?
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dang
It would lead to a surge in noise and quarrels on the site, so we're not going
to do it.

Getting downvoted doesn't feel good, but it happens to everyone. What works is
to look over your comment as objectively as you can and try to find what might
have evoked a downvote. If you find something, correct it for next time. If
you don't, remember there's such a thing as a misclick.

Usually—not always, but at least 2/3 of the time—it's fairly obvious to a
neutral observer why a comment was downvoted. Try to be a neutral observer in
your own case.

~~~
kjeetgill
Absolutely agree, explainations might be useful for the poster but not the
community.

Does karma do anything past something like 500? I think a lot of people see
voting as curation more than punishment. Humor get buried pretty readily
because it's fluffy and "reddity" not because OP is a monster.

Or factually incorrect statements. Even made in good faith they usually get
buried if the answer is in a sibling but not when the answer is in a child
post. It's not always personal.

~~~
dang
Downvoting kicks in at karma > 500\. I can't remember if there's anything
beyond that, but I don't think so.

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stareatgoats
No, it fine the way it is. Losing karma because of a comment is not the end of
the world, and there is usually an obvious reason. Maybe because the comment
was too absolutist or similar. Sometimes because people misunderstood, and
sometimes because people simply disagree. Sometimes it's just the dynamic of
the thread that results in a down-vote. Sometimes it's just impossible to
understand, without assuming that some people use their down-voting privileges
frivolously, but it's all part of the socialization process here to try and
understand which, and just deal with it.

For this reason I sometimes wish that people could stop complaining (with
varying level of irritation) about being down-voted without been given reason,
a fairly common occurrence. OTOH, helpful people will sometimes (probably not
the down-voter) provide a reasonable explanation, which is OK too.

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Sylos
I think, the reality is that lots of people just downvote, because they
disagree with an opinion and don't feel like arguing their position. So, if
this explanation would only be visible to you, I imagine you'd get lots of
"explanations" just saying that you're wrong/dumb/etc.

This could be a decent solution, though, if their explanation would need to be
public. Basically leave a comment in order to downvote (with an indication
that this comment was made in connection with a downvote), and therefore then
also the ability for others to vote on this person's reason to downvote you.

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jitl
This is how similar site Lobste.rs works. From the “About Lobste.rs” page
([https://lobste.rs/about](https://lobste.rs/about))

> ## Downvote Explanations

> Often on other sites, a user would have his or her comment downvoted without
> explanation and then edit their comment to ask why they were downvoted. On
> this site, voters must choose a reason before downvoting comments and those
> votes are tallied and shown to the original commenter.

> For submitted stories, downvoting is done through flagging (also requiring a
> valid reason) and these flag summaries are shown to all users.

I like the limited cardinality of Lobsters downvote options because it reminds
me of acceptable reasons of downvoting, because “I disagree but don’t want to
write a comment” isn’t a choice.

~~~
dang
On HN, downvoting for disagreement has always been fine.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314)

------
dictum
Cherish your downvotes. There's boundless fun in being a _determined_
contrarian crank.

If "everyone else is wrong" is not your thing, cherish your downvotes too:
we're all wrong sometimes.

------
oldmancoyote
I was once down voted 3 times for pointing out that two abusive political
comments looked to be computer generated.

There should be consequences for down voting to suppress abuse of the
privilege.

If explanations of down votes are not acceptable, then a cost of say 100
reputation votes per down vote would discourage misuse of the privilege.

