Uncontrolled and excessive downvote punishment to feedback posts

Question

Supposedly someone gives a feedback on MSO pertaining to SE web-application (addressing to SE developers). Then other MSO users think that its not constructive or not worth the effort, they will show their concern (with snarkiness or otherwise) in the comments. They might down vote OP and move on.

If the disagreeing user happens to be more credible than the OP, most of the visiting users will follow his/her lead and start down voting the OP (probably just for the fun?). Moreover, it seems like the forthcoming users won't bother to read the comment/justification by the OP (even if the OP is able to addressed the concern or even negate the critic's point-of-view with proof). They will just shoot -1 to OP and +1 for critic's comment.

In other words:

Mr.A has identified and reported a legit problem in SO system.

Mr.B thinks, its not necessary due to XYZ reason ("its very petty/its very unlikely/its a waste of time and effort"), so he post a comment and down vote.

Scenario A:

Mr.A argues with ABC reason which evidently answers the XYZ ("here is a solution, it requires a very less effort probably a copy/paste").

Mr.B never admitted or denied, but the following visitors will follow the set pattern, downvote Mr.A (until his negative scale is exhausted) while upvoting Mr.B's comment even he was owned by Mr.B.

Scenario B:

Mr.A considered Mr.B's point is valid and closed the question.

Normally feedback is supposed to be 'either take it or take a pass'. Exploiting and start bashing the person giving feedback and convert it into a dispute (or even personal vendetta) is certainly not a very sane idea and it looks very unpleasant unless it is so affirmative that "if someone doesn't agree with your idea, then you can't argue with them unless you are equally reputed (here on meta)".

To avoid this puzzlement/ugliness, should there a separate view for the feedback posts with no negative vote option? In my opinion, when the dev team members review and decide that a feedback's worth a try or not (on the basis of feedback itself, votes-if-any, comments and justifications), they may update its status (probably by tagging it?) accordingly; Active, Under Review, Started, Closed, Won't Fix.. (similar to uservoice.com?)

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about your first Meta question.

I agree getting downvoted massively for a well-meant technical suggestion stinks, but then, MSO is somewhat of a special case because it's populated by developers who may have their own opinion on technical issues.

Also, Meta holds SO's devs in high regard. They occasionally make mistakes and bad decisions like every one of us, but you can usually assume that if they do something in a certain way, they have thought long and hard about it. I think your post was interpreted as telling those experienced devs "You're doing it wrong!!!!1", mainly through some of your (possibly completely innocent) word choices. That was probably the main reason why your post attracted so many downvotes.

rather opening a faucet of downvots on the feedback itself, they can just change the status to Won't fix and put a stop on it because its not meant for discussion or debate with SE support.

That kinda already happens: at -8, a post disappears from the front page and will have a harder time attracting new viewers.

You were unlucky enough to experience a lot of downvoting on a technical suggestion in your first Meta question, and I agree that's not a great experience. And in general, this happens very, very rarely on Meta Stack Overflow and I don't think it justifies what would be a deep and massive change in the way the system works.

Answer 2

While we cannot completely rule this out as a remote possibility, I'm almost certain that questions and answers that have significant negative votes have them because the community explicitly disagrees with the proposal or feedback, not just because those users get some sick sense of joy out of watching the negative number on your post get more and more negative.

Most, if not all, of the regular contributors to Meta sincerely want this platform and this network to continue to succeed. If a feature is something the community supports, it will get upvoted, and if it's not something it supports, the material will get downvoted.

What's most interesting though, and the point that should hopefully help clear up your doubts on this particular issue, is that there is quite a bit of controversy on Meta SO in regards to how we should do things. You don't have the established user privileges yet, as it takes 1000 reputation, but it's not uncommon for a particular post to have 20 upvotes and 20 downvotes.

This suggests to me that the people on Meta SO are voting based on how they feel about the issue, and there is no need to make changes to this part of the system that works so well, as it has been for almost 4 years.

Before you post feedback, consider the following guidelines:

• Post a clear title
• Include plenty of detail in your post.
• Be objective and keep emotion and accusations out of your post. If you're negative in your post, you'll likely attract negativity.
• Make sure what you write is clear and concise. Include just enough detail for clarity, but don't post a rant.

Many of the downvoted questions I see are rants, or contain negativity without an attempt to learn how the system works. If you avoid these pitfalls, the community will most likely respond to your feedback objectively, and with a positive approach.

Remember, Stack Exchange is run by the community, so what you're proposing would go against those very same goals.