Problem : Comments are anonymously down-voted for no evident reason.
Idea : The names of the commentors who down-vote should be visible. If a person down votes a comment, it should cost them karma points to do so unless an explanation why they choose this action is made.
The names of the commentors who down-vote should be visible.
That would probably be an improvement (though there's a risk of increasing focus on meta); However -
If a person down votes a comment, it should cost them karma points to do so unless an explanation why they choose this action is made.
... would be quite bad: adding more tedious and repetitive explanations would just increase the noise, especially if the OP then answers to the explanations with even more nitpicks.
(unless you mean that downvoting would include an interface with a set of choices, but that would be cumbersome and probably incomplete)
The recent implementation of a -5 karma penalty for replying to comments that are at -3 or below has clearly met with some disagreement and controversy. See http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/eb9/meta_karma_for_last_30_days/7aon . However, at the same time, it seems that Eliezer's observation that trolling and related problems have over time gotten worse here may be correct. It may be that this an inevitable consequence of growth, but it may be that it can be handled or reduced with some solution or set of solutions. I'm starting this discussion thread for people to propose possible solutions. To minimize anchoring bias and related problems, I'm not going to include my ideas in this header but in a comment below. People should think about the problem before reading proposed solutions (again to minimize anchoring issues).