34
votes
Accepted
Downvoting answers to questions asked like "do my homework"
Both questions and answers should be voted on purely on their own merits.
If someone writes a comprehensive answer to a marginally asked question, it's not appropriate to downvote such an answer, ...
slmMod
- 361k
27
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
The problem is that simply dropping a link to idownvotedbecau.se comes across as pretentious and condescending. Compare your comment:
idownvotedbecau.se/noresearch, idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt - ...
terdonMod
- 231k
16
votes
Why did I get down-voted for the first question that I posted and what can I do to improve
Downvotes are by design anonymous and do not require comments. Some people will leave a comment anyway, out of the kindness of their hearts, but it's not required or expected. However, when you hover ...
- 13k
16
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
Teaching how to fish is not considered abusive. Slapping people with a fish is.
You did not teach the asker how to fish. Your comment consisted solely of:
The slap: a pair of links to generic advice ...
13
votes
Downvoting answers to questions asked like "do my homework"
The description for answer vote reads "this answer is/is not useful". If the question isn't great but the answer is clearly useful, the answer should not be down voted.
If the question is too vague, ...
- 14.1k
13
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
I personally dislike the comments with links to the "I downvote because" site because they are not helpful.
Just downvote, and if you feel strongly about it or have a particular reason to downvote ...
KusalanandaMod
- 316k
8
votes
Accepted
I got a down-vote I really disagree with and flagging it was probably a mistake
First of all, mods can't see who voted on what. That is confidential and only available to SE employees. Also, since you mention it, what you did is a clear abuse of the flagging system. As you ...
terdonMod
- 231k
8
votes
Why do we have downvotes?
I would answer your question with your own words:
We downvote because we don't see any value in someone's contribution. That is obvious. It's there for all to see.
In general, votes are for rating....
- 35.2k
8
votes
Accepted
How can I improve my answer?
First of all, consider the fact that only one person downvoted. As a general rule, you shouldn't read too much into solitary downvotes. That said, I can see some problems with your answer:
It is just ...
terdonMod
- 231k
7
votes
How can I improve my answer?
A downvote does not mean the answer is wrong. It just means someone was willing to spend a few reputation points to give it a lower priority, for whatever reason. (On the flip side of that is that an ...
KusalanandaMod
- 316k
7
votes
What's wrong with this answer?
I can't speak for others, but there were some points that struck my eye in that answer.
In itself, there wouldn't be anything wrong in that answer. But answers aren't posted in a vacuum, and that ...
- 130k
7
votes
Accepted
Top answers downvoted at the same time. Someone with an axe to grind?
This was fixed within 24 hours. There is an automated script to detect this kind of abuse and revert the actions of serial voter accounts such as this one.
No moderator intervention is needed, unless ...
- 20.7k
6
votes
need help improving a question
Keep it and accept the bad reputation and good reputation that will come.
I think the question would be bad without your answer (because of lack of research effort) but it's at least decent with the ...
- 18.6k
6
votes
inform about edits after downvotes
it would be nice to be informed of edits to a post which one has downvoted
I had a similar thought, and chased it down through various Metas, eventually landing at Stack Apps: Get a list of posts you'...
- 65.9k
5
votes
why is my question downvoted?
The downvote is from me. While reviewing your post, and applying the bare minimum of markup for code to get things somewhat more readable, I found that your question is still not clear to me (and ...
- 77.8k
4
votes
What's wrong with this answer?
I reckon the answer would be totally fine had it not reproduced previous answers. Was \u40 still not mentioned? Go ahead and add it as an answer. But omit the half of it that was already present in ...
- 18.5k
4
votes
Should we be allowed to change our vote on an answer, if we ultimately go back and mark it as "the" answer?
I'm not convinced that it'd be a useful change. I would encourage you to be careful with your voting. You might get lucky with other answers or answerers, as they might edit their question in response ...
- 65.9k
3
votes
Is it really that bad?
What Mr. Mrozek said; it's only one downvote. You may or may not find someone else that thinks the same way you do. I think you've done the right thing to add an explanation so people have a better ...
- 65.9k
3
votes
Why do we have downvotes?
If anything, downvotes on answers are more important than upvotes. Downvotes are the only way we have of indicating that an answer is bad. "Bad" could mean anything from inelegant, through not ...
terdonMod
- 231k
2
votes
need help improving a question
You shouldn't care too much about votes, especially if they are not accompanied by comments (N.B. negative comments typically correlate with downvotes but don't really imply who actually downvoted).
...
- 7,323
2
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
IMO, there are two sides in the equation, both users asking questions and the people answering are not exactly automatons.
A fine line should be drawn between helping people who are making an effort ...
- 55.5k
2
votes
Should we be allowed to change our vote on an answer, if we ultimately go back and mark it as "the" answer?
I’d agree with Jeff’s answer about being cautious when voting and I imagine that’s the intention of this Stack Exchange feature (locking in votes unless a question is edited).
When I first started ...
- 12.4k
1
vote
Why do we have downvotes?
A point, that @terdon (+1) alludes to, but that doesn't across clear enough: Down-votes are essential to make some answers disappear, (imho)
Especially among the older questions there are some really ...
- 5,756
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible