I've noted the same user on several occasions asking in comments (rather rudely) about who downvoted his answer. Is this acceptable behaviour?
Just an example:
@xxxxx: Are you the downvoter?
and one minute later when there was no reply
@xxxxx: You did not answer the question!
This kind of behavior is rude and unacceptable.
On the other hand, asking for a reason for the downvote is reasonable as long as no accusations are made.
I'd like to take a moment to say that downvoting is not inherently bad. Both upvoting and downvoting have played a very important role in the day-to-day operations of the site.
While there are many reasons a user might downvote a question/answer, the thread binding them all together is that the user does not like an aspect of that question/answer. Perhaps it is technically incorrect, or unjustified, or shows no effort, etc. Regardless of the actual reason, the downvoter found something wrong enough with the post to downvote it as a sign to the community that there is something wrong.
But a downvote alone does not fix the problem. Downvoters should let the OP of the downvoted question/answer know how his or her post should be improved. Usually, this is done with comments. And in this way, downvotes aren't usually anonymous (at least, not some).
I should also mention that it might not be necessary for every user who identifies a particular question/answer as wrong to downvote that question/answer. Piling on downvotes can be incredibly discouraging, and can get away from their purpose, which is to increase the quality of the site and help others learn math.
With all that said, I see no reason why a user can't ask what was wrong with their post, causing a downvote. The goal of this action is to learn what's wrong and correspondingly fix it. But to go after the downvoters aggressively is poor and, in my opinion, unacceptable.
No. You should remind the user making such comments that voting is anonymous for a reason.
This is of course opinion based:
No. While it's perfectly reasonable to ask why one's question (answer) has been downvoted, I think one should still show proper etiquette (especially when demanding such from others). I would suggest to respect the anonymity of voting in general (which is there for a reason, example given below), and instead ask: "I can see that my question (answer) has gotten some downvotes, would anyone explain how I may improve my question (answer)?"
I think explaining a downvote is good etiquette, but not explaining one is not necessarily bad etiquette. At least I think there may be cases where it's still understandable that one wish to remain anonymous. There may e.g. be cases where an answer is rude and perhaps condescending, or witty and technically correct, but not likely to be all that useful for the OP; where this answer has still gotten lots of upvotes, even though there's a more polite and pedagogic answer further down. I've constrained myself from downvoting such answers, but can see how you would, and not wanting to explain yourself.
Also, and this is very opinion based: I feel it has become even harder to criticize people in general these days. Criticism is more rarely taken constructively, and people seem more eager to judge you based on a kind of "for or against" basis, and there may be many reasons why your wish to avoid such confrontation outweighs your wish to follow good etiquette.
The comments "why the downvotes?" do not contain anything of value for others users. To them they are nothing but annoying clutter. It's unfortunately not uncommon for an OP to add a forgotten assumption in the comments. But in order to find that assumption, readers have to go through questions about OP's accept rate, about how it's rude to not accept good answers, how it is rude to demand answers to be accepted, questions about who downvoted, mentions of how it is rude, or perhaps that it is rude to say that downvoting is rude, etc.
I wish people would show less emotional attachment to their posts. A post is not a baby or a puppy, it is an entry in some SQL table, contributed to the site under a certain license. There's a "votes" field in that SQL table, which provides a way of sorting entries.
To anyone reading this: when you come across any of my posts (such as this one), feel free to upvote if you liked the post; downvote if you did not like it; comment if you want to; don't comment if you don't. Simply - and rudely - put.
I think instead of asking who voted negatively, people who ask or answer should focus on improving your question or answer. A negative vote is not given on a whim.
