Explanation's not needed because, in general, it's simple. You got modded down because what you said was interpreted as contributing nothing. How can you say something and contribute nothing? There's many ways:

- Trolling (examples: "you're clearly a mac fanboy", "you want fries with that?")

- Be trite or redundant (examples: "lol", "i agree", "+1 interesting", "upmod parent")

- Personal attacks (examples: "I bet if you were him you'd say 'go away customer, I only write my software in Rails/LISP/Haskell'")

- Poor attitude (examples: "shut the f*ck up", "that's dumb")

- Being incoherent, in jest or in seriousness (examples: "mahler called, he wants his symphony back")

- Rambling on without saying anything (examples: "then i went to see my dentist, but that's a whole another story...")

- And, last but not least, disagreement. Theoretically, you will not be downmodded for saying something disagreeable. In practice, however, downmodding on disagreement does happen. Some misuse is to be expected, and all we can do is live with that.

should users with enough karma to down mod comments explain why they did?

Personally I think everyone should be required if they're going to downmod to at least give a reason why. Press the down button, a small, unobtrusive text area comes up and (perhaps a bare minimum of 140 chars just to keep it simple) the user explains why they think the comment doesn't hold it's worth.

It feels almost like something personal when someone just votes you down and doesn't help you understand their viewpoint, or share what they think about the matter. Almost

Great submission. +1

I think this is a bad idea, for the following reasons:

1. Threads about moderation tend to be really boring. People discussing things on a forum can be interesting, whereas people discussing the forum on which they're discussing the forum tends to get pretty old pretty quick. If every downmod is followed by a thread about why it got downmodded, including the occasional "oh come now it wasn't that bad" type comment, signal-to-noise will drop considerably, and signal-to-noise is the exact thing which the whole moderation system supposedly exists to increase.

2. Usually when I see a downmodded comment it's pretty obvious why it's been downmodded. Occasionally a worthwhile comment will reach 0 due to the action of one person (in which case, life's tough, suck it up) but severely-downmodded comments always seem to be either belligerent or content-free.

3. Doing so would, as someone else said, discourage downmodding. But rampant downmodding isn't a severe problem at present, and a lack of downmodding potentially could be.

Telling someone why he was down modded may help improve an already civil place.

Would love to see this on HN.

I already explain (usually) but then again, I rarely down-mod. I quite honestly don't see the point in down-modding if you're not going to take the time to organize your thoughts to write a sentence or two. It's just the decent thing to do.

I think the right way to handle this is an anonymous messaging system. Click a button under one of your comments that has been downmodded, and the people who downmodded it will be notified. They can then reply anonymously with an explanation.

Seems like it would be worth at least trying out this idea; it's hard to know a priori if it would be liked or disliked by most people.

I don't usually downmod for it, but I generally find meta-discussion distracting. Saying something like "This might be controversial, but..." in place of "I'm going to get downmodded to hell for this, but..." just sounds more natural. Could anyone imagine saying the latter in person?

Also, reflecting on ones' comment usually leads to irrelevant commentary (like comments I come across with 10 points and an edit asking why they were getting downmodded). I mean... anybody could be voting on your comments.

I'd almost (but not quite) prefer it there was no visible point count and votes just factored into the sorting of comments on the server.

I've been modded down for explaining why I've modded someone down... so I've mixed feelings

If I have something thoughtful to say about why I up/downmodded a comment, well, that's what "Reply" is for. When I up/downmod without replying, it's either because I don't have time to put my thoughts into words or don't have much to say beyond "I disagree" or "This seems trollish or mean". Forcing me to enter a reason won't suddenly make my thoughts more interesting or take less time.

For moderation, Slashdot uses a menu that not only indicates the up/down vote but a one-word description for why. The author can then see a breakdown of their comment's score. That's quick and easy for the moderator, yet it gives good feedback to the author.

It would look far less minimalist than the up/down arrows, which for many would be a downside.

I like this idea a lot. I would even like a reason to be mandatory.

Over on reddit, I downmod people pretty arbitrarily. Sometimes I like to push a post at 0 to -1 and watch it get sucked down to -20 by the groupthink. Other times, I disagree and don't feel like typing a response. Sometimes I just don't like the guy's username. Basically, I downmod just because I can, which doesn't make for a very good community. (I don't bother doing that here because it's not as amusing. Usually downmodded posts that are good get upmodded, unlike on reddit.)

Anyway, making it harder to downmod someone would be a good idea. It would make a punishing action "harder" on the downmodder, so people would only bother to downmod if they had a good reason. It would reserve downmods for spamming, not disagreeing.

I think.

Seeing people's reasons for up/down modding on a page other than the main item?id=xxx page might be ok but I don't think such comments belong on that page for the same reason pg gives - they simply don't make for interesting reading.

I really think it would be better if we just got rid of karma per user or at least get rid of the leader board. It just encourages karma whoring and ends being counterproductive. Slashdot figured this out a long time ago.

I think feedback would help newer users, but any explanations could/should be anonymous.

Some people can't handle criticism, and there's no need to allow them to turn comments into their own personal griefing grounds.

I thought everyone could downmod comments?

If there was a cost for downmodding - a downmod costs the moderator half a point, for example - there would probably be a different experience.

I'd be interested in the modeling of alternative karma economies like this.

I'd also bet that if people were required to leave an explanation tied too their handle, there would be a lot less downmodding.

should users with enough karma to down mod comments explain why they did?

No, it would make the transaction too time consuming.

Why just downmodes? Upmodes too, and with a unique post robot on the top.

I'm another vote for this feature.. please implement if possible.

Cheers