I think that leaving some kind of note that is not a full new argument would be a great because 1) it would help prevent karma bombing and 2) it would help the person improve their future arguments.

If you are worried about people getting mad there should be a way to make the comment anonymous.

Yes, considering that a (-) or a (+) affects the argument's total score. Let's say there was a debate called "Cheese: Good or not?"

Now, twenty people said cheese was good. Ten said cheese was bad. A person who voted "bad" could vote down each and every one of the arguments for "good." And so, the final tally would be: Bad:10, Good:0.

Now, that ain't good.

A debate over a month old, last posts 12 and 45 days ago and I get two more down votes on 01-01-2009 from the anonymous toothless fairy. Happy New Year...I hope ya get run over by a bus.

Unequivocally YES...and they should be unable to leave the debate until they do! If CD hasn't made the rules for up or down voting crystal clear they should do so and not allow people to get away with this nonsense.

I just feel so sorry for those who don't want to seem like a bad guy but vote you down anyway....AWWWWWWWWWW. What a bunch of crap that is. If you have the balls to vote someone down you should have the guts to say why!

No, sometimes, it's not even an argument, just someone spamming or being stupid. Or, you can vote an argument down because you feel their argument has already been rebutted elsewhere in the debate. There's no need to have them make the same argument again.

However, I do think (and it was discussed at town hall) that there should be a list of predefined reasons for which one can down-vote an argument. Such as logical fallacies, spam, etc. Like tagging, it shouldn't be necessary, but if we practice it in general I think it would be more helpful.

No, for the simple reason that there are many cases where there's really no explanation needed. I really liked the idea of optional "vote tags" where the voter could put one or two words in explanation for a vote. For anything beyond a few words an rebuttal should be more than sufficient to outline the argument's flaws.

Does anyone els think its odd that you can downvote yourself? Why would you want to do that?

I don't think that a reason is needed for many reasons.

1) You have to leave a 14 character comment, so you cannot type some thing simple such as "Well said" when you want to vote some on up. This is why the pre-set selections for voting someone up for down that you can pick from would be great!

2) Some times you are voting down a comment so inappropriate and rude, that it does not even deserve a response. It not worth any more of my time that the single click it takes to give it a down vote.

No, but I think that it is a nice gesture. Especially if you up-vote.