How should we vote on neutral discussions? [closed]

Question

As you probably know, "Voting on meta is used as an expression of agreement or disagreement on contributions, rather than to point out a lack of quality or helpfulness".

However, this doesn't seem to apply to discussion in cases where the OP is not leaning to any particular side.

Let's suppose we have this discussion "Should we explain downvotes?":

• If you agree with having them explained; are we supposed to downvote?
• If you disagree with having them explained; are we supposed to upvote?

But what if the user modifies the question to "Should we not explain downvotes?"?

It will swap negative/positive score if we voted based on dis/agreement.

How should we vote on neutral discussions then?

Answer 1

I don't like the "[dis]agreement" thing they push. That's only relevant to a small number of posts. Here on Meta, there are a multitude of factors that play into whether or not a post is good, not just agreement.

• Research Effort is probably the most important factor that will get you a barrage of downvotes right off the bat. This most often occurs with duplicates where the answer could have easily been found elsewhere, but also for questions which complain about things without providing any examples or evidence to support their claims. If there's no research behind the discussion, then there's not really anything to discuss in the first place. Your example question "Should we not explain downvotes?" would probably still be downvoted because it's been explained so many times before.

• Interest is another major factor, especially for neutral situations. You may not have a stance on agreement with the topic, but if you find it interesting, you might vote it up, and if not, you might vote it down. If "Should we explain downvotes?" were asked for the very first time, I would personally upvote the question. At that time, it's a valid question and I would be interested in what people had to say about it.

• Phrasing is also a key component. The tone of your argument can make you or break you. Using positive (politely asking things and expressing your desire for knowledge) and negative (ranting and accusing) tones directly correlate to up and down votes, respectively.

• Usefulness, believe it or not, is still a component that should be considered, even in a discussion. It's just slightly different. By useful, I mean something that contributes to the community. Oftentimes with feature requests, usefulness and agreement go hand-in-hand. You agree or disagree with something because you do or don't believe it will be useful to the community. In discussions, usefulness comes into play when the answer contributes to the overall understanding of the topic.

• Agreement should be the final tie-breaker component that you consider for a post.

Answer 2

The tooltip for the down-vote button on a meta site still says "this question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful."

If you asked "Should aliens be allowed to answer questions?" the question could be down-voted because it is not helpful. It would also be voted to be closed as not constructive.
If you asked "Should we explain down-votes?" somebody could down-vote you because the question has been raised many times, and re-hashing the same topic is not thought to be productive; somebody could disagree with the premises of the question, or the conclusions shown in the questions.
The same could apply to "Should we not explain down-votes?"

As for editing a question to change it from "Should we explain down-votes?" to "Should we not explain down-votes?" if the edit is not limited to changing the title of the question, but it changes the meaning of the question, then the edit should be reverted, if there are already answers.
If there aren't answers, you cannot pretend users go back to the same question, and revert their vote. It is more probable most of the users would not know any change in that question; they would probably notice the question has been changed if an answer has been added.

Answer 3

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with a neutral position causing ambiguity. Even the two "neutral" examples you posted (aliens & explaining downvotes) would seem to be clear cases where votes can be used to express agreement or disagreement:

Should aliens be allowed to answer questions?

• Upvote = For - Yes aliens should be able to answer questions
• Downvote = Against - No it's a ridiculous idea

Similarly:

Should we explain downvotes?

• Upvote = For - Yes, it's a good system and should be implemented
• Downvote = Against - No, let's not do that

I just don't see where the confusion comes in.

You're quite correct that those two questions don't in themselves lean to either side, however votes can just as easily and straightforwardly be used to express an opinion on the issue as if they were phrased "We should prohibit aliens from answering questions" or "People should be forced to explain downvotes". The outcome is the same.

Finally, to address your reversal concern:

Here is another reason why this can lead to confusion, the user could modify the question to "Should we not explain downvotes?". Which will swap negative/positive score if we voted based on dis/agreement.

You're right that this could possibly swap the tallies, however I would anticipate that such an edit would be spotted fairly quickly, deemed malicious (or at least not in the democratic spirit!) and rolled back without further incident.

Answer 4

How should we vote on neutral discussions?

Down.

What makes a man turn neutral?