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IMHO asking a good question is far more difficult than giving a good answer, especially because SO is so big and full of possible duplicates.
On the other hand, I think a Q&A site probably should incentivate answering more than asking (just check how many questions remain unanswered).
So, should the question upvotes gain the same rep as the answers?
I don't really have a fixed opinion about this.
On the other hand, I think a Q&A site probably should incentivate answering more than asking
Yes, that's what we think too. It used to be that upvotes for either questions or answers gave you 10 rep. We changed this as we see good answers to be more valuable than questions.
The problem we are trying to solve is the answer problem - so people want to answer more than to ask. A question without an answer isn't really helping anyone...
Stack Exchange is a Q&A site where we can easily get solution for our problems. The value of a Q&A site is based on problem solving(ie, get answers for users' questions).
So, it is clear that solutions are better than problems. Surely a good question deserves more reputation. 5 reputation is a decent far enough one.
@gnat stated the reasons why this is like it is:
From https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/03/important-reputation-rule-changes/:
While we value good questions (and asking a great question is absolutely an art), we want to explicitly encourage people to provide the best possible answers. Without people interested in providing good answers, the questions are moot. We know that answers have more intrinsic value than questions, and the reputation balance should reflect that.
The question asker already enjoys a substantial benefit beyond reputation gain from upvotes on their question — namely, they get great answers to their question! Thus, the asker shouldn’t need as much reputation gain.
Maybe, modyfing the rep gain to equalize answering and asking upvotes has more sense here on Meta. Why?
Because, here on meta, a downvote has become a sign of I don't agree with the question, suggestion, feature request, bug, etc. being described in the question, rather than the question is unclear or not useful. So, a good question has even more importance.
