Protect anonymity of 'no comment' down voters - while allowing other users to down vote them

Question

As there are hundreds of comments on the issue of users down voting a question without leaving a comment - I believe it must be a serious issue to many users.

Since some users don't feel it is important to explain why they are down voting a question, the OPs are unable to learn anything from the down vote... stifling the growth of useful questions on StackExchange.

I realize that many down voters are afraid of retaliation down voting - (and many trolls should be)... but I believe there is a viable solution that would solve the problem without opening up anonymous down voters to such retaliation.

Why don't we?...
- Have the system automatically add a comment for every anonymous down vote that simply states, "down vote with no explanation - @anonymous"
- Have the system internally track the anonymous commenter's userid
- Allow other users to down vote such an anonymous down vote comment and have the system apply the down vote penalty to the anonymous user's account
- Not allow the question's OP to down vote such a comment

Question down voters can still remain anonymous and safe from retaliation voting if they want to... but their reputation can now be made to suffer, just as if they actually did comment about their down vote, if other users disagree with them.

This would also overcome the issues concerning an unenforceable "requirement" that a down voting user add a comment that explains their reasoning... without requiring moderator monitoring and intervention to make such a solution viable.

I believe this solution would stop a lot of trolls and lazy commenters - and really aid in improving the quality of questions by getting users to provide valid feedback, thereby educating the OPs in how to create better questions. All while getting StackExchange back to a much more user-friendly environment.

Answer 1

• Have the system automatically add a comment for every anonymous down vote that simply states, "down vote with no explanation - @anonymous"

That would be extremely noisy. In the past 90 days, it would've generated at least 948 comments, comments that explain nothing, take up valuable space for every reader, and perpetually rub in the face of the author that someone downvoted their post.

These would likely be flagged and deleted by moderators within minutes.

Also... If I'm interpreting your proposal correctly, it would strip anonymity from voters who do comment first: if there's a downvote and a comment and no auto-generated comment, then the author of the comment is guaranteed to be the downvoter.

• Allow other users to down vote such an anonymous down vote comment and have the system apply the down vote penalty to the anonymous user's account

There's no support in the system today for downvoting comments. So, that's a whole big thing we'd have to add.

Also, there's no reputation granted by comment upvotes today, so presumably that's another thing we'd have to add. Ignoring for a minute how we probably don't want to do that because it would incentivize answering in the comments, this is already turning into a massively complicated system for something that - as I explained above - wouldn't actually preserve anyone's anonymity.

• Not allow the question's OP to down vote such a comment

So not only are we putting this world-visible black mark on the author's post, one that no quantity of edits or upvotes can obliterate, but we're also depriving them of the one bit of catharsis they could possibly have hoped for?

That is, assuming they weren't flag-deleted as noise, which they would be. Probably by the voter themselves, because who in their right mind would want a comment laying around the only purpose of which was to cost them reputation should anyone find it?

And you haven't even touched on the larger problem, which is that the vast majority of readers don't vote at all.

Answer 2

I am concerned primarily about this part:

Question down voters can still remain anonymous and safe from retaliation voting if they want to... but their reputation can now be made to suffer, just as if they actually did comment about their down vote, if other users disagree with them.

Nobody's reputation should "be made to suffer" for their voting or reviewing decisions. Attempting to reduce (or increase, for that matter) the reputation of a specific user - as opposed to simply voting on the quality of a post - is never permissible. Revenge downvoting and overappreciative upvote sprees are both targeted voting:

...intentionally voting merely to reduce or inflate another user's reputation is considered abuse.

Originally, downvoting a question or answer removed one point from the caster as payment (not a penalty) for the use of the downvote privilege and two from the post owner. To encourage poor questions to be identified as such, the decision was made to make question downvotes free as a test, and apparently the test was judged a success, for question downvotes are still free to the caster. There will, unfortunately, be some users who carelessly downvote decent content, but in a system of this size, there's so much going on that these people will be on the whole drowned out by the thoughtful voters.

It's also worth noting that there isn't a requirement of adding a comment when downvoting. Doing so is suggested because it helps the poster improve, but unfortunately some post authors respond rudely to these comments, which discourages helpful people. I would love it if all downvoters would explain their reasoning, but I sympathize with those that don't.

Speaking of getting helpful feedback, you've come to the right place! One function of meta is to allow people to ask about why a post received the community decision that it did. For best results when inquiring about a question, I suggest gently pointing out how the question adheres to the guidance in How to Ask.