We seem to be over-eager to downvote

Question

Take this question:

Dark matter clumping

This is an excellent question and the answer is not at all obvious. I assume it was downvoted just because it's a duplicate, but is this really appropriate? Downvoting can be used to make questions disappear from the home page, and also to deter people from answering, but neither of those reasons apply in this case.

Re Danu's answer: I mention this question because it's the one that caught my eye most recently, but it seems to me I see an increasing trend of downvoting questions that I don't think deserve it. It also seems to me that once a question has attracted the first downvote a slew of bandwagon downvotes rapidly follow.

This isn't really a question, more a rant, so it doesn't really have an answer. But while I'm here ranting let me urge site members to consider whether their downvote will actually achieve anything.

Answer 1

Alright, everyone, I'm the bad guy: With 2314 downvotes I am the user on this SE with the most downvotes, not counting the Community bot. In only 10 months of activity I've cast more downvotes than any single one of you. I've also cast 1126 upvotes, for whatever it's worth. So I'll tell you why and how I vote, and you may decide if "we" are indeed overky eager to downvote. But let me tell you from the start:

I think that we are too reluctant to downvote and too eager to upvote low-quality questions.

And here's why:

First and foremost, votes are quality indicators. When I pass through and see a highly upvoted question, I think "Oh, nice, this is what physics is about, what physicists find interesting and how questions here should be". When I see a highly upvoted answer (without fights in the comments), I think: "This is probably correct and/or a useful way to think about the question - why else would they all upvote it?" What votes are emphatically not are judgements of the users.

I understand it may be disheartening to get downvotes, but votes are, not counting revenge voters and other "illegal" schemes, really just relating to the post they are cast on. They are no judgement of the user as a whole, and not casting a downvote because you are afraid of the effect it might have on the user just defeats the whole purpose of downvoting in two ways:

1. You let content you do not actually believe to be a good fit for the site slide by without an indicator (the -1) saying so. This, in turn, might invite more questions like it (since people can see similar questions have not been badly received). Additionally, it makes low positive vote counts essentially meaningless - if almost no downvotes are cast, votes in the 1-4 ranges are quite meaningless, because one or two upvotes are often quickly cast on almost all types of questions, even the blatantly off-topic and the really bad ones.

2. By making downvotes rare, you intensify the psychological effect a downvote has when it is actually cast, leading to "Why -1, step forward, cowardly downvoter!"-type comments and accusations for merely casting a downvote. This, in turn, leads to people thinking it is actually a grave decision to cast a downvote (since other don't seem to cast them lightly), and they might grow to use them more sparingly themselves.

I hope it is clear from this why I think that not downvoting because of the effect on the user is a Bad Idea^TM.

Let me finish with personal anecdote time for too eagerly upvoting low-quality questions (just as John's opening post is also rather anecdotal ;) ):

• I very often see blatant homework questions which are just the exercise text pasted into the question box with a "What do I do?" tagged on that have one or even more upvotes. My propensity to downvote is partly so that a positive score might tell me that a question is not of this type. (To be fair, such blatant do-my-work questions usually end up at a negative score, but the fact that they are upvoted at all still bothers me.)

• The general vote score on questions that are technical (or "high-level", but I don't want to use that notion) is very low, and I've seen many worthy questions sit only at +2 or +3. At the same time, I have seen absolutely crap technical questions (no research effort whatsoever, no indication what the question is actually about if you don't already know it, etc.) also at +2 or +3. This is another reason I am quick to downvote - if I, personally, can make a score difference of 2 between these questions, then it is best that I do. That one vote cast is an up- and the other a downvote is tangential.

Answer 2

This isn't an answer, but I can't post it as a comment. Danu's comment "I think it's simply too little evidence to draw any serious conclusions from" reminded me of an earlier post on meta.tex.stackexchange.

Evidence is pretty easy to get using the DataExplorer Query. Here are some statistics on questions:

                neg     zero        pos         total       %neg            %zero           %pos
tex             313     15317       189068      204698      0.1529081867    7.482730657     92.36436116
mathoveflow     1582    12921       145288      159791      0.990043244     8.086187583     90.92376917
ux              811     14175       47473       62459       1.298451784     22.69488785     76.00666037
math            14317   262857      779308      1056482     1.355157968     24.88040497     73.76443707
biology         260     2342        16344       18946       1.372321334     12.36144833     86.26623034
chemistry       411     2913        15248       18572       2.21300883      15.684902       82.10208917
super user      15751   252728      410831      679310      2.318676304     37.2036331      60.4776906
programmers     4917    28655       132933      166505      2.953064473     17.2096934      79.83724212
stackoverflow   738773  10471867    13648708    24859348    2.97181165      42.1244636      54.9072475
physics         4700    29547       101190      135437      3.47024816      21.81604731     74.71370453
English         10230   38334       136987      185551      5.513309009     20.65954913     73.82714186

(Data collected 4/29/2015.)

So, yes: physics.stackexchange users down vote questions more often than other "technical" stack exchanges. [Of course, that isn't necessarily bad, but it might be...I don't know!]

Answer 3

I'm not sure if you're trying to make a broader argument here, but I don't really see any serious issue with the question you've linked. It was only downvoted once, which may just as well be explained in a number of different ways (e.g. someone thinking dark matter is a myth, personally disliking the OP or other kinds of uninteresting stuff).

I think it's simply too little evidence to draw any serious conclusions from: Every experienced user knows that unexplained and seemingly unreasonable downvotes are part of the game, and that's just how it is. To me, it seems clear that there was no excessively negative response to the question. If you think that we're dealing with a larger trend here, then maybe it would be a good idea to address that in another meta post.

Answer 4

I think the content of the Physics Stack Exchange may be the reason for the "unusual" down-vote percentage.

For one thing, I think the Physics Stack Exchange is going to attract more quacks posting personal theories and unanswerable questions than, say, the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange for obvious reasons. This could be what increases down-voting relative to other technical Forums.

Additionally, Physics is also a common "difficult" subject in school and this increases the number of worthless do-my-homework-style question post, which also increases the number of down-votes relative to other forums regarding subjects with typically less difficult homework in corresponding subject courses.

Answer 5

(The mentioned question does not have my downvote, so this is not a response to that. I only flagged it as a duplicate and moved on.)

While any individual user can not (and should not) create an official voting policy which is followed (in general) by others, I would still like to advance my personal viewpoint regarding voting on (obvious) duplicates.

I don't think it is reasonable to suggest that duplicate questions should be sitting on a positive score. Using the search bar on right-top is intended to be a precondition before posting a question, and in the case of obvious duplicates, going through this procedure would lead them to the answer that they want. If that doesn't address the OP concerns completely, he/she can always post a follow-up question (liking to the original, of course).

If people start upvoting (obvious) duplicates, based on the argument that

it is an excellent question and the answer is not at all obvious,

it creates a possibility of gaining unfair reputation from the system in the following manner:

Step 1 - I use the search bar to find "excellent" questions, let us say of around 3 years back (so that only a few (old) users have seen them before. Others can only use the search bar to find out whether that has been asked before, but that's extra effort, which most people won't do. So, chances of being caught reduce.)

Step 2 - I rephrase them in my own words, making them the proverbial old wine in new bottle.

Step 3 - Wait for John Rennie to visit my post! There will be at least one upvote. (And/or) If an occasional answer comes along, even better. I'll upvote it/accept it, and the post won't be deleted then.

Thus, by carrying out the above procedure, I have shown no research effort, yet I get a positive score (+5, or +7, depending on whether or not it got answered.)

Caveat - maybe if I keep posting duplicates, I could be in trouble with some automatic scripts on SE. But all such scripts come with certain thresholds, and one such "game" post, followed by three/four normal posts, can always escape detection.

---

Please note - When I say duplicate questions should not be sitting on a positive score, I am not suggesting that they deserve to be sitting at -1 or -2 either. The right score for them is 0, no gain and no loss. Therefore, the best policy here seems to be:

Flag, and move on!

Answer 6

Don't be afraid to downvote. Downvotes:

• quickly notify someone that their post is not good, and enough downvotes should get them to either:
  • remove a bad question/answer, thereby cleaning this site up of clutter, or hopefully;
  • edit their post to be more suitable, and appreciated
• should encourage more thought put into an answer or question the next time. Hopefully people learn from their mistakes.

Obviously some people will be a bit too sensitive, and take umbrage. I have on occasion, especially when I first joined, but hopefully they will develop a thicker skin, pick themselves up and continue using the site, but be a better poster for it. In extreme cases, they may be scared off, which is a shame, but you can't pander to everyone's sensibilities. There are lots of new visitors each day, so if some get lost in downvotes then so be it, they will be replaced, and maybe they can find a home on some other site, where they feel more comfortable.

It goes without saying that downvotes should always be accompanied by a comment, else how will people know what they have done wrong. However, if a suitable comment has already been left pointing out the error, I see no harm in adding to the downvote cont, without having to repeat the comment, unless more info can be added.

Answer 7

I have a controversial opinion about this. I think there isn't any harm in answering questions that have been answered before. There are usually multiple ways to answer and many different styles of presentation. But it should be acknowledged that the question was answered before.

Answer 8

The question is subjective, but as I'm human, I appreciate being down-voted because I ask stupid questions all the time. I drove my college professors crazy, along with the other students. Should my question be real stinker, I delete it quickly. It is a means of providing feedback to someone.

Answer 9

I haven't enough experience on Stack to have formed a view about down-voting in general, but as personal testimony I was really put off Stack for quite a while - I've only just returned today - by a down-voting event I was at the receiving end of. I will obviously link to the question I had asked at the bottom, and for that reason I won't give details that are available there, and will assume anyone taking an interest in my answer will obviously want to check my account by looking at the question itself.

What happened was I asked a question that was commented on by a user with significant reputation effectively dismissing the question. The user had already been given a significant ++points for his comment, and my question and been down-voted and stood at -1. When I returned, I pointed out that I was literally quoting (well, paraphrasing) a very senior cosmologist and provided the YouTube link. I also pointed out that my question actually supposed what the cosmologist said had to be false and gave my reasons. So even without clarifying, just in the question itself, there were no grounds at all for being dismissed. This matter got sorted out in the question/answer process, in that the answers all confirmed the cosmologist's position.

All of that was fine. But my negative down-vote was not corrected - even back to 0. Nor were the generous number of points awarded the initial commenter who got it totally wrong.

I felt like this totally invaded and violated my integrity. OK I'm just making that up tee hee.....if an isolated event it's doesn't really matter I can see that. But the reason I suspect it isn't, is because that kind of patter, I would imagine, corresponds to one aspect of the negative dimension to any kind of social reputation system. Which o the whole is obviously a great idea and even if it wasn't, it's just a reality for humans anyway. But there are down-sides that should be well understood and taken serious so as to minimize their effects.

One example is over-trusting people with higher reputation. Not a problem for beginners and casuals...but becomes a potential problem for more senior people, such as those with moderating rights in context of StackExchange, if they have the power to down-vote beginner questions based on high-value users if they comment.

Another example is - and this is relevant to the question above - a kind of statistical tendency for people to play it too safe. Reason being there's a lot of cranks and agendas out there, that aren't really very scientific at basis. So there's a need to keep StackExchange scientific in line with its goals, and that tends to make it necessary to quote consensus positions only. And this then tends to intersect with the reputation system with the result the basis of reputation, the higher up you go, becomes all the more squeezed into very conservative non-risk taking positions. Which leaves a lot of questions unanswered or answered in a way that implicitly rewrites the question to exclude components that speculate beyond what is safe.

I want to really emphasise here, that in hindsight I think leaving stack for weeks over this was an over-reaction. I think the system is really fabulous and I haven't observed a single incident involving a moderator or anyone else that can reasonably be called 'badly motivated' Everyone wants to teach and learn and share and that's terrific.

So for that reason I want to conclude by suggestion a solution based on the above personal experience - which may be biased and probably is so please go look - and personal thoughts about 'reputation' which may be wrong and probably is. Furthermore my solutions, for all I know are already in place, in which case....whatever!

My suggestion is for three new workflow components. Both of these changes assume the good-will and best intentions of moderators and others, which I've observed. It's still down to their personal judgement.

1. Alter the Stack-exchange application, such that a 'down-vote' action is changed from a simple control event, into a process that begins with the down-voting event, and completes a few days later when the task shows up on the same person's 'to-do' list, to simply review the decision based on subsequent events if any. At that point they can either confirm the down-vote, mark it for second-opinion, reverse the decision, change it, whatever.

2. Have a new status for questions that defaults to something like "answerable within consensus", but other statuses like "speculative/risky" and then "tagged for deletion". Include an explanation about the reality of the world being full of non-scientific explanations and agendas and the need for stack-exchange to maintain scientific integrity.

3. add a new status to individual comments/answers that corresponds to the status of the question at the time. So in other words, it becomes possible to give a risky answer to a risky question. It's still going to be more risky than answering within consensus, and there are good reasons why it should be. But it will allow people to take measured risks...in the knowledge that anyone judging will have sight of the context that the question itself was risky. It's still down to personal judgement, how risky is reasonable, and how much is too much.

Concluding remarks I think changes like this will have a small but compounding effect. Over time and over many many events and people, the impact will continue to grow and eventually it will become dramatic/striking. This is because it directly mitigates the down-side of reputation without diluting reputation. And reputation is fundamental to human society, so the impacts are larger over larger intervals. Thank you for reading.

The promised link: Why are orbits around black holes stable?

Answer 10

I wouldn't usually downvote a duplicate, but it seems to me that people should be checking for duplicates first, before they upvote any question. I've been trying to do that more myself recently. In response to The Dark Side's point: if a question is flagged as a duplicate, then are any reputation gains for upvotes on the question reversed? If not, maybe they should be?

Answer 11

Contradictions, contradictions everywhere!

Firstly, note that this is a forum, not a scientific institution. The majority of people use a forum because they want to obtain a solution to a certain problem in cooperation with other people. Facts and solution to most exercises or other scientific data can be found on databases, books etc. If merely I wanted to obtain a solution to a problem there is no need for a forum like this. It is far more valuable to work out the solution under guideance of experienced people step by step, than rather looking it up. It is the responsibility of the commenter not to give a way too much of the solution, but let the questioner think and get the solution himself.

Also, what is wrong about discussions? Again, for example I for myself, joined this forum to discuss and to solve problems with other people. The topics I have seen already in Physics or Mathematics are mostly basic undergraduate matter which can be looked up easily. It indeed are discussions itself and getting to know the view of other, maybe more experience members, that make forums useful.

And people who downvote a question, not formulated perfectly: Every thought about people posting who are, say 14 years old and go to school? Formulating questions and answers understandably for others also needs some pratice. People who try to contribute or extent their knowledge are discouraged if they see like 5 downvotes on their posts. How about teaching or showing them their mistakes and helping them to formulate their questions correctly? This also is a valuable process of learning. Or have you written your first publication with perfect style and experience? If yes, I would really appreciate reading it!

Concerning duplicates: If the question is not completely identical, why downvote it? The above said applies and by the means of a forum, help them people solve it step by step.

I have joined various scientific forums and the quality of the answers are comparable, if not better, although no downvote system is implemented.