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I'm thinking about why some communities don't have the down vote option nor "close" or put "on hold" the content created by the user.

Just having an up vote option, or "like" for that matter, would be enough to give more exposition to good content, and its creators, while having a down vote option and the possibility of closing ones question just scares the heck out of most newcomers.

It seems to me that having a voting system with just a "like" option, and leaving all questions open while they are not spam, or have questionable behavior, would leave at the end of the day the same amoung of good content and users with good clarifications, but most importantly it would be more friendly to newcomers and current members.

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  • 4
    How do you propose we handle questions that are completely unclear?
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:18
  • 5
    And if you don't provide feedback to the user, how will they know it needs to be improved?
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:19
  • 3
    I'd argue that sites which only allow upvotes are actually less common than ones that allow both up and downvotes. Reddit, Slashdot, YouTube, and Disqus all have options to vote things up and down. How else can you express that something is inappropriate or wrong?
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:35
  • Hmm... I'm having lots of down votes, -10 so far, that is what I call "drastic", so, is my question not legitimate? it seems a joke, rather.
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:43
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    @LowerClassOverflowian - And people wonder why we have a reputation barrier to overcome before you can comment.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:44
  • @BradLarson Maybe the word drastic have a negative connotation for most people. Seriously, I can't find the illegitimate part on my question.
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:48
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    @rraallvv - People are voting this down because they disagree with your assessment that we should remove downvotes. The reasons why are explained below. On Meta, disagreement about proposals is expressed through downvotes. There's nothing personal about them, and they usually don't indicate a poorly written question.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:50
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    @rraallvv I don't see anything wrong with your post, except that I disagree with your ideas, and that is why I downvoted. This voting pattern is common practice on Meta.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:51
  • @psubsee2003 Got it, thanks for the aclaration.
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:55
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    @rraallvv Having said that, your question does demonstrate a lack of research effort, which can contribute to the downvotes. It is widely discussed just why the site has downvotes, why closing is important, etc. Proposals to remove these have been made many times before, and have been repeatedly shot down very strongly. Had you properly researched your question before posting it, you likely wouldn't have needed to ask it at all.
    – Servy
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 20:10
  • @Servy I really didn't investigate, it was rather a question shot from the hip, but was very enlightening, at least for me.
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 21:21

1 Answer 1

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SE is what it is because it doesn't tolerate crap. It's the reason experts come here, and stay here. It's the reason the site has so much higher quality content, and that such content is much easier to find.

Removing the ability to indicate to readers that a post is of very low quality, actively harmful, not a working solution, a poor quality question, etc., harms the site's quality.

Removing the ability to prevent answers to inappropriate questions greatly harms answer quality, as well as encourages further low quality questions.

It is reasonable to require that people coming here to ask us to solve their problems for them to spend some time and effort in forming their questions. Quite simply, that's what it takes for them to get a quality answer, so they'll do it, whether they like it or not. On the other hand, if you let in all of the crap then the experts will just leave. They have no incentive to stay if most of the questions are of very low quality. That's how SO got to be what it is; the experts had no loyalty to other q/a sites because SO made being a subject expert a much more enjoyable experience.

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  • So, you agree, it's too drastic?
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:22
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    @rraallvv No, I don't. I think that it is drastic, and that's what makes it work. That it's drastic is what makes this site great. It's a shame that other sites don't do these things, and one reason why so many of them have struggled to compete with SE.
    – Servy
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:23
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    +1 "it doesn't tolerate crap." Please make that a banner on the front page.
    – Kermit
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:25
  • +1 I totally agree SE is drastic for most standards.
    – rraallvv
    Commented Feb 13, 2014 at 19:32

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