6 ms·

Downvotes do cost 1 rep already. They have for almost a decade now.

alkonaut 9y ago
Yes. It's clearly not enough. Perhap if downvotes with comments cost one, and downvotes without explanation cost more? And downvotes should be both signed (by user) AND motivated. Then the community could rate the downvote as well. A poor downvote should be worse for your rep than a poor question.
- shagie 9y ago
  While you are suggesting something stronger (1 rep for with a comment and 1+N rep for without a comment), give https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/276440 https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/276440 a read. The short version of it is it has problems with the design and you'll get even more junk in comments along with disparaging remarks. Down votes are not a problem. They're a form of moderation of content. They are a signal to other readers that this material has an issue. They are a suggestion that the question shouldn't even be read because. They increase the perception of "this is an attack on the person and not a review of the content."
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    I agree it’s a form of moderation and has long term value, there are issues with how voting is applied (quickly and without feedback), leading to questions being buried or closed instead of improved. As an example: I read a poor question where I can decode what the problem they are having is, but it’s not obvious from the question, so it should be improved. Since I know a good solution to this problem, I don’t downvote or close-vote because I don’t want to bury or close the question while I answer. Instead I suggest how to improve the question in a comment, and start writing my answer. When my answer is finished after 10 minutes, the question is -4 and has multiple close votes even though the author has already improved the question, and my answer was accepted. The question isn’t even an hour old, it’s now a perfectly acceptable question with an accepted answer - but it’s now closed and has score -4 with votes applied to a question that looked nothing like it does now. So the biggest issues are - too easy to downvote with no moderation effort - too easy to end up with improved questions still closed - Fundamental improvements doesn’t reset score (why should asker be encouraged to write a new Q instead of changing old?) In short the problem is that everything happens at once, and the system is designed around questions being final when in reality the first 24h sees significant change. So I’d suggest some simple fixes: - close votes and downvotes removed (by moderation queue confirmation) if a question is sufficiently rewritten in the first (say) hour. It should simply count as a new one. - downvotes registered but not shown during the first (say) hour. Herd mentality seems to make the threshold for downvoting lower. - clicking downvote should at least have an optional comment or a selection among issues (like the close votes already have). That the material has an issue is content moderation but it isn’t feedback. I agree with Jon’s goal that the site should aim to make better askers - not just a better Q/A site. It should even be an explicit goal.
    - shagie 9y ago
      The way to get more feedback is to reduce the load of the individual in community moderation. Try going to a tag... lets say Java. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java Now, on each post on that page read it, edit it if it needs editing (this includes things like "i am trying to use a path..." - fix all the grammar (the post I'm looking at is tagged java, c#, android, .net and google maps - https://stackoverflow.com/q/49349444 https://stackoverflow.com/q/49349444 ). Give a comment if additional clarification is needed. Then go back to the tag page and see how many more there are. Repeat. To help the most people possible, and help the people who are answering questions know which are the posts that they can help the most - vote on the questions. Up and down. If you know it is a good question that you can decode - fix it first. People casting close votes don't see that you're trying to answer - they see an unclear post. Whats more, an unclear question (that might be clear to you) isn't clear to everyone else. You've spent a minute or so decoding it - contribute that time back to community by fixing the post. Don't leave it in a comment - fix the question before writing an answer. Consider that if a post is getting close votes there and down votes even with the fix, it might not be a good question for Stack Overflow. Not all good questions are good questions for a particular site. One doesn't ask coding questions on Hacker News even though it may be a good question. That a post is too easy to down vote - by percentage, down votes are a small, small fraction of the total votes cast. Up votes are 8x more common than down votes. Improved questions many still not be a good fit for Stack Overflow. A recommendation question or opinion poll, or something that is "how do you design Amazon" is still a poor fit, even if it has been improved. Close votes expire as it is. If its good enough, it will not get any more and there's no issue. Down votes are a signal to people answering questions that this isn't a good question. Look at a page with 50 questions on it. Decide which one you're going to spend time on - that is likely based partly on which questions have gotten up votes. Rewritten questions don't necessarily mean that the question is good now. In the past, when I've down voted and left a comment I've gotten a dozen angry pings from comments from the person and sometimes half a dozen down votes on my other posts (that then got removed for serial voting). I decided not to leave comments any more at that point. I'm not there to argue with a person about if their question is good or not. The person asking the question has all the time in the world to perfect it before posting. They can see the preview and how it will look. They can run it through a grammar checker. They can notice even things like the red squiggles under misspelled words on any modern browser. There is no reason why they can't post a good question the first time - or at least one that shows that they have put in at least as much time as they're expecting of the person answering.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  It is interesting that after all this time nobody bothered recreating the slashdot metamoderation system.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    It hasn’t exactly made it a model community despite good tooling and good intentions (to say the least).
  - shagie 9y ago
    There is a belief at SO corporate that Stack Overflow is not a social media site. Its a place for questions and answers. In that view, adding features that allow a person to focus on another person rather than the content goes against that philosophy. All moderation on stack overflow is done through votes (up, down, close, reopen, delete) and flags to moderators. Anything else is too personal. Unfortunately, this means that the only form of moderation to use when those tools run out is the social pressure.
guilhas 9y ago
1 rep is a lot if you just registered. I am not the "asking questions" type, so I was immediately blocked of doing anything else on the platform. Maybe I am really dumb, but the solution for me was clearly open a new account, since my reputation was bad and unchanged for more than 2 years. Wanted to help people but was unable to answer questions. Also later being able to, but being terrified that the answer will not comply. Although I am a developer for 8 years and use Stackoverflow everyday, I was never able to contribute much. Mybe it could reset after a while for new people or with low rep?

Yes. It's clearly not enough. Perhap if downvotes with comments cost one, and downvotes without explanation cost more? And downvotes should be both signed (by user) AND motivated. Then the community could rate the downvote as well. A poor downvote should be worse for your rep than a poor question.

shagie 9y ago
While you are suggesting something stronger (1 rep for with a comment and 1+N rep for without a comment), give https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/276440 https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/276440 a read. The short version of it is it has problems with the design and you'll get even more junk in comments along with disparaging remarks. Down votes are not a problem. They're a form of moderation of content. They are a signal to other readers that this material has an issue. They are a suggestion that the question shouldn't even be read because. They increase the perception of "this is an attack on the person and not a review of the content."
- alkonaut 9y ago
  I agree it’s a form of moderation and has long term value, there are issues with how voting is applied (quickly and without feedback), leading to questions being buried or closed instead of improved. As an example: I read a poor question where I can decode what the problem they are having is, but it’s not obvious from the question, so it should be improved. Since I know a good solution to this problem, I don’t downvote or close-vote because I don’t want to bury or close the question while I answer. Instead I suggest how to improve the question in a comment, and start writing my answer. When my answer is finished after 10 minutes, the question is -4 and has multiple close votes even though the author has already improved the question, and my answer was accepted. The question isn’t even an hour old, it’s now a perfectly acceptable question with an accepted answer - but it’s now closed and has score -4 with votes applied to a question that looked nothing like it does now. So the biggest issues are - too easy to downvote with no moderation effort - too easy to end up with improved questions still closed - Fundamental improvements doesn’t reset score (why should asker be encouraged to write a new Q instead of changing old?) In short the problem is that everything happens at once, and the system is designed around questions being final when in reality the first 24h sees significant change. So I’d suggest some simple fixes: - close votes and downvotes removed (by moderation queue confirmation) if a question is sufficiently rewritten in the first (say) hour. It should simply count as a new one. - downvotes registered but not shown during the first (say) hour. Herd mentality seems to make the threshold for downvoting lower. - clicking downvote should at least have an optional comment or a selection among issues (like the close votes already have). That the material has an issue is content moderation but it isn’t feedback. I agree with Jon’s goal that the site should aim to make better askers - not just a better Q/A site. It should even be an explicit goal.
  - shagie 9y ago
    The way to get more feedback is to reduce the load of the individual in community moderation. Try going to a tag... lets say Java. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java Now, on each post on that page read it, edit it if it needs editing (this includes things like "i am trying to use a path..." - fix all the grammar (the post I'm looking at is tagged java, c#, android, .net and google maps - https://stackoverflow.com/q/49349444 https://stackoverflow.com/q/49349444 ). Give a comment if additional clarification is needed. Then go back to the tag page and see how many more there are. Repeat. To help the most people possible, and help the people who are answering questions know which are the posts that they can help the most - vote on the questions. Up and down. If you know it is a good question that you can decode - fix it first. People casting close votes don't see that you're trying to answer - they see an unclear post. Whats more, an unclear question (that might be clear to you) isn't clear to everyone else. You've spent a minute or so decoding it - contribute that time back to community by fixing the post. Don't leave it in a comment - fix the question before writing an answer. Consider that if a post is getting close votes there and down votes even with the fix, it might not be a good question for Stack Overflow. Not all good questions are good questions for a particular site. One doesn't ask coding questions on Hacker News even though it may be a good question. That a post is too easy to down vote - by percentage, down votes are a small, small fraction of the total votes cast. Up votes are 8x more common than down votes. Improved questions many still not be a good fit for Stack Overflow. A recommendation question or opinion poll, or something that is "how do you design Amazon" is still a poor fit, even if it has been improved. Close votes expire as it is. If its good enough, it will not get any more and there's no issue. Down votes are a signal to people answering questions that this isn't a good question. Look at a page with 50 questions on it. Decide which one you're going to spend time on - that is likely based partly on which questions have gotten up votes. Rewritten questions don't necessarily mean that the question is good now. In the past, when I've down voted and left a comment I've gotten a dozen angry pings from comments from the person and sometimes half a dozen down votes on my other posts (that then got removed for serial voting). I decided not to leave comments any more at that point. I'm not there to argue with a person about if their question is good or not. The person asking the question has all the time in the world to perfect it before posting. They can see the preview and how it will look. They can run it through a grammar checker. They can notice even things like the red squiggles under misspelled words on any modern browser. There is no reason why they can't post a good question the first time - or at least one that shows that they have put in at least as much time as they're expecting of the person answering.
marcosdumay 9y ago
It is interesting that after all this time nobody bothered recreating the slashdot metamoderation system.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  It hasn’t exactly made it a model community despite good tooling and good intentions (to say the least).
- shagie 9y ago
  There is a belief at SO corporate that Stack Overflow is not a social media site. Its a place for questions and answers. In that view, adding features that allow a person to focus on another person rather than the content goes against that philosophy. All moderation on stack overflow is done through votes (up, down, close, reopen, delete) and flags to moderators. Anything else is too personal. Unfortunately, this means that the only form of moderation to use when those tools run out is the social pressure.

guilhas 9y ago

1 rep is a lot if you just registered. I am not the "asking questions" type, so I was immediately blocked of doing anything else on the platform. Maybe I am really dumb, but the solution for me was clearly open a new account, since my reputation was bad and unchanged for more than 2 years. Wanted to help people but was unable to answer questions. Also later being able to, but being terrified that the answer will not comply. Although I am a developer for 8 years and use Stackoverflow everyday, I was never able to contribute much. Mybe it could reset after a while for new people or with low rep?