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I just wanted to put this on meta.

For those that are familiar with how SE works please keep in mind that when we are entering beta there are potentially a lot of new people that may not be familiar with how the site works and what does and does not make a good question.

When you vote (up or down) it can be very beneficial to let the poster know what they did well or poorly. Doing this can help keep newcomers interested and lessen the somewhat significant learning curve that comes with an SE site.

We are early on, please try and help each other out. Feedback is good.

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    Yes, it's generally a bad thing to downvote without leaving a comment to address the reason why that happened and it happens a lot on every SE site and I don't know why.
    – codingEnthusiast
    Commented Apr 28, 2015 at 19:31
  • @naltipar: I am guilty of that, and my justification is that I'm lazy. Which is probably true for many. I'll try to comment more often.
    – El'endia Starman
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 0:54
  • I would never downvote without leaving a comment, but I'm guilty of doing it with upvotes. Will try and remember from now on!
    – Piper
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 13:59
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    Just to be clear this is by no means a requirement but it is exceptionally helpful while defining the site in this early stage.
    – James
    Commented Apr 29, 2015 at 14:02
  • Comment when upvoting? Sacrilege!
    – femtoRgon
    Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 23:15

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For now, please comment on your downvotes, I promise not to be defensive!

Even for experienced SE users, there's a need to set expectations during the beta of a site. A lot of users might be bringing their expectations from other sites and their disparate cultures, so in the beginning there's a lot of uncertainty as to what constitutes a good post, how much research and effort must go in to it, and so on. Therefore it is crucial that we give each other informative feedback so we can all improve.

When I get 5 upvotes and 1 downvote with no comment on a site I'm used to, I can guess half the time where that downvote is coming from. On a new site like this, I have no idea. I have to treat it as noise.

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