I would like this feature too. I might not use it much, but it would be cool to have.

I disagree. If you want the poster to know why you didn't like the node, post or send a private msg via the chatterbox. As a poster I like the idea, but there are already plenty of ways to let the poster know

I do this too usually. I can't do it easily here at work because of the wrapper functionality we use to do templating. But I'm not sure the extra volume would be worth it here on perlmonks, which is sometimes slow during the day already. And I'm assuming that there is already code to handle this possibility on the back end.

i think if for "--" vote monk must explain reason, and this reason will be /msg-ed to author of node (from "anonymous voter", of course) when author can take into account these reasons for future posts

Time to lose some XP...

First of all, no, I don't agree with your statement at all. My reasons for disagreeing are as follows:

• As pointed out above, it would unecessarily flood the inboxes of people who are downvoted. This can be alleviated somewhat by having a feature to turn off these /msgs but would also result in YAF (Yet Another Faq) and countless "why am I getting these messages" questions in the chatterbox.
• I'm not going to bother giving responses 9 out of 10 times. In the remaining 10% of cases, I already /msg the author with suggested improvements, I also do this when I don't downvote them. So 9 out of 10 times my 'reason' would be "because" and that isn't very constructive. Better just to implement my 'checkboxes before you post' idea to avoid several of the most common reasons why I downvote.
• Occasionally I downvote nodes that I think are just way over-valued. This is a big no-no with some people, but as I see it, many people aimlessly upvote nodes just to get voting bonuses, so I'm just adjusting the reps to more representative numbers :). Oh, I also never vote for a certain political party, I vote against the others.
• People are waaaay to sensitive about their XP already. It is a meaningless, silly number and doesn't say anything about your Perl knowledge or contribution to this site. If vroom implements a XPexchange system I will gladly donate all my XP to Alex the Serb to prove this point =D.

So once again no. Please feel free to downvote this node and, more constructively, reply to it if you disagree :).

i think if for "--" vote monk must explain reason, and this reason will be /msg-ed to author of node (from "anonymous voter", of course) when author can take into account these reasons for future posts