Negative Ratings with Reason

We have recently received several mails from users and authors who have obtained negative ratings for their posts, replies and articles on our site, but were unable to explain how this rating came about, as the posts in question were correct in terms of content and topicality.

To these circumstances, we have now reacted: While positive ratings are still be counted immediately after clicking on the rating button, when clicking on the button for a negative rating, first, the following message appears:

Before we count your Vote...

...we would like to ask you to tell us the reason for your negative rating so that we can improve our content. Does the post contain errors? Is important information missing? Is the post incomprehensible? Or do you just have a different opinion than the author?

Additionally, there is a text field in which any reason for the negative rating can be entered as a feedback for the author. The negative rating will only be counted after the button "Send negative Vote" is clicked in a second step.

Initially, we made it voluntary to give a reason. This means that you can also leave the text field blank and continue to assign negative ratings without giving any reason by just clicking on the confirmation button. We would first like to observe how this new function is received and how it affects the rating behavior before we may make a justification mandatory in the future.

What do you think about this new feature? Feel free to write a comment.