Scroll the vote buttons on my own posts even though I can't vote for them [closed]

Question

The vote button scrolling feature doesn't seem to be enabled for my own questions and answers.

While this makes sense given the motivation of the feature being to encourage voting and the fact that I can't vote for my own posts, I find the inconsistency a bit disconcerting when scrolling through a page that happens to contain one of my answers, especially when I'm not specifically looking for/expecting one of my answers.

Personally, I would rather accidentally try to vote for a post that I forgot was my own, every once in a while, than have the voting buttons behave in a way that's logically consistent but visually inconsistent.

At least if I try to vote for my own post, there's immediate feedback that explains why my expectation (that I'll be able to vote) is wrong. (I'll wager One (1) Good Beer that the lack of similar feedback regarding the expectation that "vote buttons scroll" explains this recent bug report).

Answer 1

I totally agree with you, I was already filing a bug report when I found your post.

Something that comes in my mind when discussing the usefulness of this feature request, is comments. When you scroll down your post to read the comments, you still like to see how the votes go. Especially when down-voted, you try to reverse that through explaining or editing. Seeing the votes when commenting is very useful then.

So please implement this feature!

Answer 2

I did find this jarring. I still do. It stopped my normal use of the site long enough to figure out what the heck was going on — of course I figured it out — but any interface which behaves contrary to a user's normal expectations should be be reworked.

It's one of those golden rules of UI.

Answer 3

_{Differently from Patrick, I filed a bug (now closed) whitout noticing this one.}

I also agree! And, btw, it's worth mentioning that it also doesn't work for locked posts!

I think that we should have that feature even if we can't vote the post, because:

• It's the principle of least astonishment. If the buttons are there to have a consistent look and feel (see discussions over here, here, here, here, and here), then the buttons should also move with a consistent behavior.
• Even if one can't vote, established users could want to see vote counts in the middle of the post, with the benefit of the new feature.
• I think that it will probably be easier to maintain the code, since there wouldn't be any logic to apply or not the new feature. Keep it simple.