Downvotes appear to be pure evil

Question

On StackOverflow, I've received a couple of downvotes for rather stupid answers and some for controversial ones. Every time I do I feel beaten with a stick, enraged at the system and disinclined to post again. Of course, it might just mean that I have a big ego, low self-esteem and trouble with criticism, but that's besides the point.

I think we all feel insulted whenever we receive punishment from strangers after sincerely trying to help or asking for help ourselves.

As I'm not sure that I agree that "insulting users" is necessarily a good design choice, I'd like to cite Pavlov and propose removing downvotes altogether. They don't really do anything except let people beat on each other and discourage answers from all but the established coterie.

I understand the "but it's wrong argument" and would like to propose two positive solutions to counter it:

1. Write the right answer.
2. Upvote the right answer.

Alternatively, if the previous solution is unsatisfactory, I'd like to propose a much higher reputation threshold before downvotes are enabled to apply and a higher threshold before they can be received. That way, the wiser users can still beat each other, but us timid newbies are shielded a bit.

UPDATE: sigh I suppose I asked for it.

EDIT: BF Skinner is the experimentalist I was trying to cite, not Pavlov.

Here's a link to some more general articles on the principles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Types_of_reinforcement

"punishment [downvoting] only temporarily changes behavior and presents many detrimental side effects."

Basically positive punishment (downvoting) doesn't change the behaviour (ie// It's unlikely I'll post more thoughtful questions and answers in the future because this one has been heavily downvoted) and it's likely to cause "many detrimental side effects".

EDIT 2: "Evil" in this context is defined as "that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune;" Downvotes appear to be "Pure Evil" because they a) hurt, b) are encouraged by the system c) appear to be undoable (ie// once you smack someone, you can't unsmack them) and d) don't have an objective criteria to their application (ie// anyone can downvote for unspecified reasons). They are excused by the theory that they indicate wrong or misleading answers/questions (Here there be sharks!), which I contend is of dubious value given the required criteria for downvoting.

Answer 1

I disagree completely.

Downvotes are an incentive to get it right. If you've posted a "rather stupid answer" then that deserves the downvotes. Either edit your answer or delete it - otherwise your answer is going to be there in its "stupid" form, misleading people forever.

Downvotes with no explanation are certainly annoying, as they give you no indication of how to improve the answer (assuming it's an honest attempt to answer the question to start with - if it's an answer which just tells the OP to get lost, then it's pretty obvious why that will be downvoted). But downvotes with a comment are useful, IMO... not just to you, but also to anyone else reading the answer later.

It's perfectly possible for wrong answers to get upvotes - downvotes are necessary to provide a counterbalance, IMO. Yes, I may have already written or upvoted the correct answer - but I still want to be able to say that a given answer is just plain wrong. It's even better now that you can click on the aggregate to get the separate upvotes/downvotes tally.

If you have trouble with receiving criticism, that's not beside the point at all - in fact, that's a good reason to keep downvotes. Over time, hopefully Stack Overflow will help you to deal with criticism better (just like it helps us to communicate better) - and it does this in a harmless environment, compared with having to learn via getting annoyed with your manager, for example.

The fact that you think it's insulting users is part of the problem. It's not - it's insulting a user's post. If someone downvotes me, that doesn't mean they disrespect me - it means that on this particular occasion, they think I'm wrong. They may have just upvoted another of my answers elsewhere.

EDIT: So, you've said it's not the reputation that's important. It sounds like you want somewhere you can express an opinion and no-one can tell you you're wrong. Well, if that's what you want, get a blog and disable comments. That's not what Stack Overflow is for.

Personally, I like the fact that people can tell me I'm wrong (and in what way). It means I can learn. It also means that when I'm wrong, other readers know I'm wrong. It's good all round, basically.

If you don't have a thick enough skin to either gracefully accept criticism when you're wrong or defend yourself when you're right, Stack Overflow is not the place for you. As Jeff has said many times, there are people for whom Stack Overflow is not appropriate (in terms of posting answers). People who want to be able to write dross and not be accountable for it fall into that category, IMO.

Answer 2

but... you posted a wrong answer? Downvotes are the community's way of warning people "This is not right". A 0-vote answer could be new, or ignored, but a -1 answer probably ain't great.

And really, a downvote is -2 rep. That's nothing.

Answer 3

I don't mean to be blunt, but there is apparently no way to respond to this without causing you to feel slighted, so I feel the direct approach is best:

Of course, it might just mean that I have a big ego, low self-esteem and trouble with criticism, but that's besides the point.

No, actually, that's all it is right there.

Answer 4

If you get that worked up at being downvoted, then you probably want to stay away. It's no fun to be downvoted with no explaination, but this is the real world - it's not fair and there are people who don't play nice.

Without downvotes, we only have a way for 'right' answers to bubble to the top - we have no way for 'wrong' answers to sink to the bottom. And yes, in a QA site like SO/SF/SU, having wrong answers sink IS valuable. While a few questions get a lot of people looking at them (and voting) most questions only have a few viewers and a few voters. We need those votes to count toward getting the right answer. Sometimes that means we get our feeling hurt, and that's just a fact of life.

Answer 5

Most of the times a down vote mean that your answer is not helpful - face it.

Like other day when I tried to be fastest gun in the west and answered a question on sql-server with mysql syntax. Next person answered it in the correct syntax, down-voted me and put a comment stating why he did it. I promptly added a note to my post saying though this is correct in mysql, this is not what OP is after, and up-voted the correct answer (by the one who down-voted me). Now if you can't do this, then you are right, you have a big ego and trouble with criticism.

Answer 6

If you think downvotes are evil now, wait until they get put on steroids!

Seriously, though... if one of your questions or answers gets downvoted, it will barely make a dent in any Rep you have gained from upvotes. And if you've only gotten downvotes, then there is probably something wrong with the post. If the Rep loss bothers you so much, you can either correct it in the hopes of gaining upvotes (you would probably only need 1 to cancel the Rep loss from downvotes) or you can just delete it, have a Rep recalc, and it will be like nothing ever happened.

Answer 7

Downvote means two things:

1. This is bad and wrong
2. I don't like this

This is why I suggested two kinds of vote.

Answer 8

I can count on one hand the number of times I've had an answer downvoted when I legitimately thought I was right (excepting the wild, wild west that is meta)... pretty much all my downvotes come from snarky stuff which is, let's face it, a legitimate target, and the only thought that came into my mind was "yeah, I deserved that one". If you want people to stop saying "you're wrong", perhaps you just need to stop posting wrong answers?

Answer 9

The downvote, although described as an "extreme measure" (per the faq), is a vital part of how this site functions.

It is a form of communication between users, for one. If a post gets downvoted, other users will be more mindful of whether the post is of good quality.

For questions, a downvote warns users that the question has little to no signs of previous attempts from the asker for solving the problem, and poor effort in wording the question or the asker's ability to communicate their problem effectively.

For answers, downvotes either mean that the answer is incomplete, doesn't answer the question properly (in which case a flag may be more appropriate, but it depends on the circumstances), was written with little or no effort, or the voter doesn't agree with the answer, whether it be the techniques used or the overall answer.

The downvote is also the first step towards closing questions (and this ties in with the previous part). If a question gets downvoted multiple times, it is (most often) an indicator that it is unfit for the Stack Exchange network for whatever reason (or for the specific site it is on at that moment, in which case it would be moved) based on the input of our diverse community. Since the downvote privilege is awarded when users achieve 125 reputation, the judgement of the pool of qualifying downvoters should be trusted.

And whether or not you like it personally, it is an integral part of how this site continues to work. Downvotes aren't (at least, not most of the time) personal attacks against specific users, but rather the community's judgement of the answer that's been given at that specific moment. I personally don't take into account a user's past history when voting for answers because I advocate fair distribution of reputation.

Answer 10

IMHO Jon Skeet's opinion about comment downvotes are applicable to answers too:

If a comment is wrong, respond to it with another comment. That provides a lot more information than a downvote which could mean anything.

I completely agree with the "undo an accidental upvote" idea, but I don't see any much point in downvoting comments.

In terms of the value of upvoting comments: if a comment indicates that an answer is wrong, the upvotes on that comment indicate support for the reason given. They're almost like downvotes for the answer, IMO - just without rep getting involved.

An upvote can mean "I agree" or "I find it helpful", it doesn't demand further discussion.

But...

• If an answer is wrong, then we should explain why is it wrong.
• If an answer is offensive, spammy, we can flag it.
• If you simply don't agree with an answer, probably the whole question is close worthy, as questions that encourage posting opinions and discussion in general doesn't fit into the site's Q&A format anyway.
• Did I miss something?

Good answers get their share of upvotes anyway.

In general, positive rewards encourage more participation, while negatives scare users away.

Answer 11

Downvotes are bullying, I think the guys want show they are better it is competition! Everyone here is not in the same level studies then why downvote if you don't know what if the answer is really like. $\int$