Meta Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for meta-discussion of the Stack Exchange family of Q&A websites. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Sometimes I face this ethical dilemma when I want to downvote a bad answer but I'm not sure whether I should.
On the one hand, there's the chance of a conflict of interest: I have answered the question as well and deep down I want to win the green checkmark ;)
On the other hand, the answer is objectively bad or counterproductive.
Should I restrain from voting and let others in the community take care of the bad answer?
If it is a bad answer and you would have downvoted had you not also answered, then by all means downvote. But, if you're downvoting bad answers you should upvote good answers too.
If you vote—vote fairly and objectively. If you do feel more comfortable not voting on competing answers then that is perfectly reasonable too—there is no obligation to vote.
