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"If you down-vote you ought to be required to provide an explanation"

Here is an idea:

- require downvoters to provide that explanation.

- Use some simple automated method (e.g. run the text typed through a language recognizer, and see whether it thinks it is English) to prevent simple key-banging as a response.

- by default, do not show the explanations, but do show a 'has downvotes' indicator and a 'show downvotes' control (could be a single UI element)

- when showing downvotes to a user, do not show author names.

- allow users to flag downvotes as inappropriate.

- let the powers that be manually check flagged downvotes (hopefully, there aren't many), and take appropriate action against either the downvoter or the flagger, or both.



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