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Take a look here. I have answered the question providing all the necessary information and a piece of working code to illustrate the results. However there is another answer providing the same logic with mine but it isn't quite correct and produces wrong results moreover if someone else read it they will get the wrong impression about a well documented function.

In particular the line of code

index = generator.Next(0, List.length - 1)

Is wrong because according to the documentation here the second parameter is exclusive which means that the second parameter will never be returned by the function instead the parameter - 1 will be returned. So in that example, as a result, the last number of the array will never be returned. The correct code should be:

index = generator.Next(0, List.length)

This causes two errors. First the code doesn't produce the desired OP's results and second, as I said above, if someone reads it they will get the wrong impression about how the function works.

Of course I did comment in the wrong answer providing details about what's wrong.

Nevertheless, because of the above reasons I feel that I need to down vote the answer, however I have answered the question as well and I don't want to get misunderstood that I am down voting because of competitive reasons or something like that.

My question is: Is it OK if I down vote it?

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  • 3
    meta.stackexchange.com/a/321553 TL;DR: Yup.
    – jscs
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 22:34
  • 1
    If the answer is incorrect and unhelpful due to the error, issue a downvote up until the point, the answer is improved.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 22:36
  • @JoshCaswell I was going to link that in a previous Q&A, and then it turned out that link leads to the previous Q&A.
    – TheWanderer
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 23:15

3 Answers 3

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20

It is always OK to downvote an answer that is not useful.

If you believe an answer to be wrong, which is the worst type of not useful because it is likely to mislead, then just follow the advice on the downvote tooltip.

It does not matter whether you have answered the same question.

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13

The answer is yes. If there's a valid reason to downvote (low quality, wrong information, etc.), then it's completely fine to downvote another answer to a question you answered. You should not downvote just to make your content be seen above theirs, though. That could be considered abuse of the voting system. But if you are downvoting for a good reason, there's no reason you can't downvote another answer to a question you answered.

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  • One doesn’t necessarily need a “valid” reason to issue a downvote.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 22:37
  • @Ramhound I just meant not downvoting just to cause your answer to show up first. But your right, the term "valid" is very, very broad.
    – Picachieu
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 22:38
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    @Ramhound You need to feel that the post isn't useful. It doesn't matter why you think that the post isn't useful, as long as you do in fact believe that.
    – Servy
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 22:45
  • To borrow from Dr. Ian Malcolm, @Ramhound: just because you can vote for any reason at all doesn't mean that you should.
    – jscs
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 23:18
  • @JoshCaswell - I am aware of that fact. Suppose my issue is that I have seen, users mistakenly believe that since they believed their contribution was wonderful, it didn’t deserve a downvote no matter what another users reasons might have been.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 0:20
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As others have noted, you have the right to use you downvotes as you see fit (provided you aren't targeting specific users). If an answer is wrong that is a perfectly valid use of your vote, even if you have posted a competing answer.

What has not yet been mentioned is that no one can know whether you have downvoted or not. The answer will only display the total number of upvotes and the total number of downvotes; it will never say who the voters were. As long as you don't announce that you downvoted, no one will ever know.

If you downvote and leave a comment explaining that the answer is wrong, it is possible that people will be able to guess that you have downvoted, especially if they match up the time of the downvote to the time of your comment. If you truly do not want people to be able to guess that you have downvoted then you can simply downvote without commenting.

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