5 more downvotes....awesome

Loud,

I don't think votes should be anonymous. I understand that one would want to voice whether they support an opinion, and that perhaps fear of personal reprisal would deter some from voting their mind.

But I think that is against the spirit of the site. While a closed ballot is great for electing officials, the point here is not to pass policy, but to have an open discussion.

And I think that if everyone knows their vote will be seen by the person they're voting against or for, it would encourage us to actually ad to the argument, instead of simply disappearing after hitting the little arrow.

The down vote option should come with a mandatory comment from those who down vote explaining why. This will not only add to knowing who downvotes you but also the reasoning behind it.

Is this at all possible?

When I am downvoted (excuse my language), I usually am downvoted with no response. The downvoter clicks and does not respond to my argument at all. I have no clue what I did that makes this happen. If I know who downvotes me, I could have the chance to confront the person as to why they downvoted me. Now I don't mean "confront" as to maliciously go after them because of the downvote, making the site a pretty hateful and mean place, but I mean to go and debate with them further to create an understanding as to why they did what they did, and for the both parties to have the chance to greatly increase the exposure of his/her opinion.

I'd support ideas one and three but since it appears you're looking for a single choice I'll go with three. In the end that seems to be the more effective strategy for prevention of down voting. Then again something like that has already been implemented if I'm not mistaken and clearly there is still an issue. For a long time I was utterly opposed to removing the anonymity of down voting but as time goes on I've come to the other way of thinking. Something needs to be done to turn the tide of blind voting that seems to have taken hold. Although I have not suffered tremendously from this, it seems apparent that some have. You suggestion of a box that shows who recently up/down voted you without actually linking him or her to a specific argument is a good one. This would be somewhat of a middle ground between tagging every vote and keeping the votes anonymous.

As for the second efficiency score that seems to defeat the purpose of the efficiency score in the first place. If anything one's enemies should count for more in one's efficiency. After all is not the purpose of debate to convince someone who disagrees with you of the validity of your point of view? Stripping one's enemies from the efficiency rating would be akin to taking a approval poll of the President but only allowing members of the President's party to have a voice.

I think one thing that should be done is forcing timed debates. This way, votes can be made at the end of the debate, arguments are made for and against during the open period, which would promote actual debate instead of all debates basically becoming popularity contests. It would also give more incentive to revisit "old" debates. With new members come new arguments, so timed debates would promote participation by new members as well.

There could be a voting breakdown at the end for people who are interested in who voted for what, if that would make people feel better, but I think the above option would yield better results.

Honestly, I don't care enough anymore to let these sorts of things get to me. I'm not even looking for votes up, so why would I complain about votes down?

All three sound good to me though.

1. There should be a way to see, from your activity page, all of the people who have voted you up or down. It could be set in some universal preference to only show the vote, or the last 10 votes up or down...

2. The second efficiency score would be based on what?

3. Maybe down voted any person repeatedly. I don't know about anyone else, but I'll usually only down vote two arguments in a debate, and then add an argument, and be on my way... I'm not going from page to page, or sitting on people's profiles, while voting things down.

I'm tired and it's time for school.

I think out of the choices, number one is best.

I personally would like ideas 1 and 3 put together if it is at all possible.

I would say 3 Luda and Kuklapolitan dont go I have not had the pleasure in agreeing with you in anything yet.

I'm down with # 1.

And I think people should:

1) Stop taking it personal.

2) Worry less about their efficiency and more about their actual arguments. Because seriously, it's a number on the Internet. That's it.

3) Stop assuming and accusing people when they receive down votes. People tend to accuse whoever they are arguing with at the time of their down votes when they have no proof assuming it a conspiracy.

But yeah I'm all for #1, I have nothing to hide.

I think that the idea you had for downvoting is great, number three and one combined. It would be great if that somebody kept on downvoting the same person over and over, like the brief period of time in which duncer and I settled our differences :P got kicked off of CD for at least 48 hours. I also like the idea of it being in recent news on people's home page. Also, I don't think anyone gors on Town Hall Chat, please please please think about that LiveChat feature. Thanks.

I feel the same sometimes, but I think there could be a way to fix it.

I used to strive for a high efficiency, but I fell into a trap on a debate about POOP and lost it all (I swear, it was a trap!). I went from a 93% level down to where I am now, the mid 80's. It really pisses me off. I tried to make a comeback, but I have so many arguments it would take forever to go up 5%. Oh well.

Kuklapolitan, seriously. Don't go. You're one of the best.

I love it...they probably don't know what color cyan is! This 50 character thing is about as valuable as a piece of chewed gum.