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We can vote up and down for Questions and for Answers, but we can only vote up for comments. As some comments are worthy of down votes, this is a feature suggestion to add the ability to vote down on comments.

One question for this feature though: What should the minimum reputation level be for a user to be able to cast a down vote on a comment, should such a feature be added? I'm thinking that it might be wise to have a higher reputation requirement than for voting up.

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This has been suggested before and . The Team's position is that the main focus of the site is questions and answers, so they usually deny comment-related feature requests.

I believe there could be a usage scenario for this, but don't personally feel that we're missing out on much by not having downvotes on comments. Also, downvotes on comments might lead to even more bickering and arguing, which we try to avoid. The current comment system seems to work for what it was designed to do.

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  • Thanks. I looked through the list of possible similar questions and only saw issues regarding votes for questions/answers, not comments. Should I delete my question?
    – Randolf Richardson
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 5:38
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    @RandolfRichardson you don't have to - I'm sure there'll probably be future users who wonder this, so it'll be good to have this here to refer them to the discussion on MSO. Thanks for asking!
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 5:39
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I think we must not forget that comments that are

  • unconstructive (i.e. obsolete)
  • offensive
  • or plain spam

can be flagged for moderator attention anyway. So I guess if you feel the need to downvote a comment, I'd probably flag it as inappropriate or just write a follow-up comment that will most probably be upvoted.

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  • Although rare, I do think it's possible for a question to be both constructive and unhelpful at the same time; if someone makes a valiant effort to add to an answer (with a comment) based on misinformation that they genuinely thought was right, voting down that comment could actually be more helpful and then additional comments could host a small debate that everyone can learn even more from (which does seem to happen on occasion) -- could this qualify as an advantage of the community-oriented approach?
    – Randolf Richardson
    Commented May 30, 2011 at 22:12
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    @Randolf In that case, yes, that would make sense. But in such discussions comments that clarify or correct are mostly upvoted anyway, so I guess the community makes sure these are seen. And they're made sticky as well. Don't get me wrong, I think you have a point with the suggestion! But I've never encountered a case where I'd deemed it necessary.
    – slhck
    Commented May 31, 2011 at 5:46

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