Encourage new users by upvoting questions -- reward this behavior

Question

Reputation is primarily, from the system's perspective, about encouraging positive participation. If that's so, wouldn't a lower (personal) bar for upvoting questions make more sense when those questions are by users new to the system. I don't think that questions by new users automatically deserve an upvote, but I will typically upvote a question by new user in cases where the value of the question is marginal. I think that getting this early rep can have a tremendous impact on whether the person buys into the site(s).

I suggest that we reward this type of behavior. I suggest a bronze "Encourager" badge that is awarded after a person has upvoted 50 questions by users who have been on the site for less than 1 day. To reinforce this, similar badges could be awarded at the silver (Cheerleader) and gold (Motivator) for 400 and 1000 upvotes respectively. A flagged comment by the voter on any such question would disqualify that question from being counted in the total.

Update: The names are just suggestions, don't get hung up on them. I'm certainly open to alternatives.

Update2: An alternative would be to have this apply only to users with a rep of 1 and only on the day the question was asked. That way we're not encouraging massive upvotes of marginal questions, but still giving new users a small boost.

Update3: I know I'm probably wasting my breath, but let me explain my thinking. First, while answers to questions are valuable, the most value I have found on the site is through answering questions. Reputation is the key to driving this behavior; if you want reputation points, the only way to accumulate significant points is to answer questions. Getting people "hooked" on the reputation system, then, is a way to encourage people to participate in learning in a way that simply getting an answer to your question isn't. "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry."

Simply handing out reputation at the start doesn't accomplish this, but getting that first vote does. Whether you think we live in a culture of self-congratulation (we do) or not, you can't deny that when someone affirms you, it has a positive effect on you and your attitude. The idea that I posit is that the bar ought not be so high when voting on a new user's first question -- a tiny bit of encouragement at this point, if at all possible, can start that user on a path that leads them to be a collaborator within the site rather than a consumer of the site. The latter isn't bad, but the former is better.

I already practice this behavior. If I see a question by a user with rep 1 that I feel I can upvote, then I do so. It hurts me (and the site) very little, actually not at all, and it may result in a new collaborator for the site. I'm simply trying to think of a way to encourage this type of behavior on a more global scale as I think it is a net benefit to everyone.

So far, the arguments are primarily with the mechanics of how to go about this. Ok, I'm flexible. Let's try to fix the mechanics so that it satisfies your sense of propriety. What if, to the restrictions above, we add that the question cannot also have received any downvotes or be closed within 24 hours, i.e., it can't be a bad question or in the wrong forum. To summarize, a question would need to fit the following formula before it would be eligible to count towards a badge.

1. OP's rep is 1 (i.e., only first voter gets credit)
2. Not community wiki (has to grant rep)
3. Vote is cast within 24 hours (no mining old questions)
4. No down votes or closed within 24 hours (not a bad question)
5. No abusive/offensive comments on question by voter (consistent with goal)

Answer 1

Definitely against this. I hate the fact that we live in a self-esteem generation and that we must give back pats and gold stars out to everyone simply for putting forth the effort. News flash everyone, the real world isn't like that.

If we are wanting to "encourage" new users, why don't we just give them more rep when they join? 50, 100, 3000? I don't see how this is really different then people voting them up just because they don't have any rep to begin with.

We should be looking at the content of their question, not their rep score. Truth be told the name and number at the bottom of the question is the very last thing I ever pay attention to when it comes to voting.

Answer 2

I am very much against this idea.

The entire purpose of votes is, as you mentioned, to encourage or discourage certain behaviour. That is also the purpose of badges.

What your badge is encouraging is a dilution of votes. People earn badges by just spraying votes at as many new people as they can find. There is no way to check if the vote was a carefully though out one, or if it was simply to earn the badge. This encourages users to ignore the quality of a new user's question and upvote them anyway.

Answer 3

We already have a badge to encourage voting (Civic Duty.) I'm against attaching any gold badges to voting. Whatever the count is, it would be too easy to get. A bronze might be suitable. However, there's a negative side to it too. We don't want crap questions to be voted up indiscriminately.

UPDATE: After thinking about it a bit more, I think I'm against the idea. We should be voting on stuff regardless of the author identity. If our goal is to enable everyone vote, we would just remove the minimum rep requirement. And honestly, 15 rep is very easy to get. An couple average questions or a good question is very likely to get you to the minimum.

That said, my main point is the fact that any kind of encouragement (not just new users) to vote based on the identity of the author should be avoided.

Answer 4

Given that we can all agree that new users do not read the FAQ, how would you expect a new user to even find out about badges in general and this badge in particular?

The most likely method for a new user to earn these badges is to perform the up votes of their own volition. Then they get the badge, but now what? They already are more likely than the average user to vote on questions and are well on their way to the Civic Duty badge.

So, I guess my answer is that adding these badges wouldn't have a substantive effect on the user's voting habits or the quality of the questions and answers on the site. Its a no for me.