Help new users in understanding bad posts with more then just downvotes

Question

DUPLICATE QUESTION

I did not realize this was a question that should be posted in the Stack Exchange Meta, @HDE 226868 found the question for me in SE meta here, if you are interested please take a look, the first answer looks like a good option to me.

Issue

I was reading through the answers to a question I was interested in and found one answer that the author said was downvoted. I understand that downvotes are a good way to organize data by removing data that is not helpful. However, I thought the answer was helpful and more importantly I don't want to make the same mistake when posting an answer of my own if on a similar question. The problem is it was downvoted and I don't know why so I am at risk for doing the same thing. Is there a way we can change this?

Existing Encouragement within Open Science

When going through the Tour and FAQ I did not find anything (maybe I missed it) encouraging users to help users learn how to make better answers/questions as opposed to just downvoting.

Summary

Can we encourage users to post why they downvoted a question/answer, maybe not as important as the Open Science community matures but at this point in beta it would really help the new members (like myself) learn.

Update: I do not expect us to force anyone to explain them selfs for downvotes, this would be counterproductive in many ways. Also I realize that this may be a Stack Exchange (SE) meta topic as @HDE226868 linked the same issue in meta, is this something can be me customized in our subsite or is it worth something at the higher SE level?

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Comments

We could potentially encourage this though some wording changes to the FAQ (if that is possible)?

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See http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/135/encouraging-people-to-explain-downvotes and especially links therein.

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The top rated answer on that question would help, do we have that currently in place? (Rather is at a SE thing and not a sub-page issue?)

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That is in place.

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I would make as duplicate but is says it must be an Open science question to be marked as a duplicate.

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*mark as duplicate not make as duplicate.

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Answer 1

This is in a sense a reword of "Vote Early, Vote Often".

Voting is crucial during beta stages, especially the private beta. However, it is important to note that many questions are artificial, and they may also be experimental and scope testing. Just like I say with close reasons, you explain why you close. Likewise, explain your downvotes as well, so that people may learn.

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Comments

+1 I agree vote often is important for a lot of reasons, however the other half is there a way we could encourage (not make mandatory) a comment for downvotes (like change the FAQ or something)? I find that in the quest for knowledge more information is always welcome.

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You can't force people to explain why they downvote, but generally in a community with experienced users, it should be expected. You can't force them too, if they downvote, but don't explain, don't waste any energy on it.

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Correct definitely not mandatory (force), I see my question is a bit unclear here, I will update.

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