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If one sees people downvoting a not-so-bad question, should one upvote it to nullify it in that same not-so-good question?

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    While it's frowned upon to upvote to offset a downvote, the choice is yours. Nobody can tell you how to vote as long as it's not abusive.
    – Mysticial
    Apr 24, 2013 at 19:23
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    Do you think that the post is helpful/useful? If so upvote. Do you think that the post is not helpful or not useful? If so, downvote. If you are not sure, or cannot decide, don't vote at all.
    – Servy
    Apr 24, 2013 at 19:27
  • It would need far more downvotes for me to consider adjusting the score of this question.
    – Daniel Fischer
    Apr 24, 2013 at 19:30
  • Is there a particular question you had in mind?
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Apr 24, 2013 at 19:59
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    These are called sympathy votes. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/93356/… - meta.stackexchange.com/questions/38595/…
    – Mike B
    Apr 24, 2013 at 20:00
  • If you do, you should leave a comment along the lines of "+1 because although this question something-or-other-based-on-downvote-reason, I don't think it deserves so many downvotes". This way the point the downvoters were trying to make is still clear, and the OP knows that the upvote was only because you think the score is wrong, and not that the question is good and doesn't need fixing.
    – Rachel
    Apr 24, 2013 at 20:19
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    I'm sorry "I don't think it deserves the downvote" is a cop out. You've decided not to figure out for yourself if the question is worthy of an upvote and instead just blindly canceled out the opinion of someone who took the trouble.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Apr 24, 2013 at 23:24

2 Answers 2

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It's your decision. There are no rules for upvoting except that you can't serially vote/vote maliciously.

In my opinion, however, I think you should not, as upvotes have more weight than downvotes (they are worth more rep).

Also, the mouse over text for the upvote button mentions many things, but not "this post does not deserve downvotes."

In summary, technically you can, but it is generally frowned upon.

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Well it depends. Some questions/answers are simply downvoted because they don't follow the basic F.A.Q rules. Some are downvoted because of the content which is totally of subject or misleading.
It may not be a good idea to go against the downvotes in such a situation.

But there are so many different possibilities that we can't simply say you should or should not upvote a previously downvoted question/answer. So it's totally up to you.

Also, it is to be noted that on a site like Meta, some questions can be answered with an opinion which is more likely to get different reactions (good and bad) from users. Take one of my answers as an example :

enter image description here

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    Needs more inception
    – Brian Webster
    Apr 24, 2013 at 20:31
  • @FrankstonRalphingtonIII haha thought about it for a few seconds too... I wanted to go change my answer for triple answers in answer...
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Apr 24, 2013 at 20:34

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