Should voting be limited on a question said user also answers? [duplicate]

Question

Consider...

• A "downvote" will move an answer farther down the page, (an upvote, vice versa).
• According to the instructors of this Udemy course, internal social media research found that posts are more likely to get more engagement the higher up they appear in lists.

So... A post is new, it has one other "zero-rated" answer, post an answer yourself, vote down another answer, you get prime real estate... That smells like a conflict of interest.

It wouldn't fly for an athlete to sit on a judges' panel while also playing in the same game. Should that principle apply here?

I'm sure there are algorithms and system checks on people who do this. But, frankly it shouldn't be allowed at all, unless there is a good reason, which I would sincerely invite (honestly).

Ideally, all voting "should" be disabled when answering, including up/down-voting on the OP itself. But, the world isn't perfect, I respect that there may be lots of snags with that, and it might be under discussion already.

I'm just a new guy looking for wisdom from the high-reps. Teach me and teach us all...

Should voting—on other answers or on the question itself or at least down-voting—be disabled or automatically retracted on a question that a user answers?

It would solve this issue: If you just witnessed tactical downvoting, is it a reportable offense?

And addresses in more detail this: The answer to tactical downvoting problem?

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After 20 downvotes, I have decided to keep this question up without regret because the discussion and answers show that many users on SE want to be both plaintiff and juror, athlete and ref, explaining why they believe this to be fair, and knowing that is very useful.

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After this question was closed: This is indeed above my head, though I hold that this is a unique question because it addresses the larger matter of "conflict of interest" in having a say in too many spheres; it's not a "pure dup", only a "near dup". BUT as the user who asked, I now see that this may be a "bad" question for two reasons: 1. It heavily is subjective, depending on an individual's view of "fairness" and how many spheres/means of influence are "too many". We humans don't seem to agree on what "justice" even is, so we can't act as though we discuss "justice and fairness" objectively. 2. The matter really can only be answered with a clear yes or no by an employee who sees the algorithms and also is a mod who has dealt with the problems; that's a tall order. As the new guy, while I indeed feel this needs to be at least discussed directly, I also think I deserve the downvotes merely on account of having so much to learn.

Answer 1

So... A post is new, it has one other "zero-rated" answer, post an answer yourself, vote down another answer, you get prime real estate... That smells like a conflict of interest.

Well, one of the reasons downvoting an answer costing one reputation is to prevent the Slowest Cheater In The East effect. That is Stack Exchange's remedy against what you're describing, and it's working quite well so far.

On the other hand, upvoting competing answers is actively encouraged; there's even a badge for it.

As for voting on the question, I usually vote up any question I've answered^*. Any question good enough to be answered is good enough to be upvoted. From time to time, you see featured posts on per-site metas with a similar call; questions get voted on less than answers, in general. Preventing answerers from voting would be a step in the wrong direction, if you ask me.

^{*: unfortunately for you, feature requests and discussions I disagree with are the exception... Why? Voting is different on Meta.}

Answer 2

OK, let us consider the consequences of what you suggest.

Let's say that I'm in a low-traffic tag, so it doesn't get a lot of views or a lot of experts. Someone has asked a question, and someone has provided an answer. However, that answer is wrong; maybe it's even actively dangerous due to a security flaw. And I know what the right answer is.

Under your rules, I have two, mutually exclusive, choices:

1. Write a correct answer.

2. Identify the incorrect answer as being incorrect by downvoting it.

Now I'm sure you can say that you could just comment on the wrong answer and explain why it is wrong. But the whole point of having voting of any sort on answers is so that there is an immediate identifier on them as to whether the community sees it as a good idea or not. Voting is a vital part of making good information identifiable and bad information easily recognized as such.

So your question ultimately boils down to this. Which is more important: that users are free to vote on bad content appropriately, so that it can be scored as such? Or that there remains a possibility for people to abuse that right for their own ends?

Do you see enough people doing the latter to make up for the former? I rather suspect not.