I would like to see an "explanation" textfield added to the voting radio buttons, so that people (or perhaps just the author of the original post) can see why people are voting them up or down. The ratings could still be anonymous-- in fact, I think they should be, to avoid the possibility of people retalliating for -- votes.

I know from experience that it is distressing to see your posts modded down without knowing what you did wrong so you can act differently next time. By the same token, it's nice to know what aspects of my modded-up posts were useful to people. I think this change would have the further positive effect of separating discussion from meta-discussion; too many comments I see nowadays say only, "Great post! You were really clear on X, and I like the idea of Y." I think this praise is valid and useful in its own right, but I would rather not see it mixed in with more technical replies.

What do you think? Does this make sense? I guess I'll know if this comment gets modded up. ;)