Is rep discrimination OK or not?

Question

Many times when I'm reading a very poorly written question, I look at the asker's rep. If it is low, I usually go on with my day because "they are new and haven't gotten the hang of things."

However, every once in a while, I'll come across a >1k user. The most recent one was a 5k user asking the equivalent of "please help. Give code to mke unicorns" (typos and obvious mistakes included). I instantly downvoted because he was just being too lazy to ask a good question. Sometimes, I'll click through to see their profiles and discover other real put-offs like a record of over 500 questions asked and fewer than 20 answers given.

Is it right to discriminate against high-reputation users like this? Pretend for a second that someone asked a poorly formatted question, which, while not so bad as "gimme teh codez," was difficult to read or missing vital info such as an error message. Is it right to downvote it if a high rep user asked it and leave it alone if a low rep user asked it?

Answer 1

If the user has 5k rep and hasn't learned anything -- including how to ask and answer questions -- you should vote their posts down.

Additionally, I would flag posts like this for moderator attention so we can take a look at users who fit this pattern. It's a big reason why we reduced the value of question upvotes.

I'm not shy about wanting to remove egregious cases of users who are posting lots of questions and show no evidence of improvement. If you're not even trying to learn, then from my perspective, you forfeit the right to participate here with us.

Answer 2

I don't think that there's anything wrong with having a forgiving or charitable attitude toward newbies. When I see a newbie writing a good question or answer, I will take care to upvote it.

However, a bad question is a bad question, and there's nowhere near enough downvoting as it is. There are only four reasons why I won't downvote a bad question:

1. It looks like the author was really trying but just lacked the vocabulary to express it properly, and/or doesn't use English as a first language. In this case I'll usually try to edit (if I'm feeling up to it).

2. The user just registered (0-5 questions, no more than 20 or 30 reputation). In this case, it doesn't always seem worth my 1 internet cent to downvote because they probably won't get the message (and may not even come back).

3. The question is bad enough to warrant closing - no sense in wasting a vote if it's going to get plonked anyway.

4. I'm out of votes for the day.

So, is it "right" to discriminate against higher-rep users? Sure - they should know better. Would I personally do it? No - lack of experience on Stack Overflow isn't an excuse for poor communication, and indicating to other users that the question itself probably isn't worth reading is more important than penalizing the person who asked it. If a question's bad, I downvote it. But I won't think any less of you if you want to hold the newbies' hands.

Answer 3

The reason they got to 5K is because people pitied them.

Now they have 5,000 reputation and haven't learned a thing.

"Discrimination" is something every human does, it's not a bad thing. Discriminating for the wrong reason is a Bad Thing™

Just think, if more people hadn't pitied this user, they may not have gotten as high as they have with reputation, and we'd all be better off.

Upvotes for this type of user normally fall into one of three categories:

• Sympathy Upvotes - For when someone rightly downvotes their questions
• Edit Upvotes - they receive upvotes because an editor made their question better
• Popularity Upvotes - they receive upvotes because it's a Bikeshed question.

Answer 4

If I followed standard Meta protocol, I'd have downvoted you because I disagree with discriminating people by reputation. I've said as much countless times. However, I don't think it is "not OK", so to speak.

This boils down to your own moral choice, as far as I think. For any user, a vote represents their own opinion. If you think that such bad questions deserve the downvote (and indeed, that kind of question generally can use a good downvote), then there is nothing wrong with finding the downvote. If you find it strictly more disappointing that a high reputation user asks that kind of question, then it's perfectly fine to focus your efforts there. It basically shapes your "opinion" that "these questions are bad, these people should know better so I'll focus my downvotes towards them".

There's nothing inherently "wrong" or "right" about this practice. It's purely in your own hands and heart, whether or not this feels okay to do. As far as the system is concerned, bad questions are getting voted down. To the system, it doesn't matter that this happened because you focused your rage on high rep users and spared the low rep users.

Answer 5

How many people can get 5K rep without giving good answers these days? I thought it'd be one or two outliers with very thick skin.

Answer 6

You may be an expert in one field though and a learner in another.

Plus you gain reputation often by answering technical questions in your area of expertise. Does not necessarily mean you are good at asking questions.

I am expert in C++ and not in other technologies, and perhaps have to learn how to do something in an area where I lack and my first inclination may be to jump onto stackoverflow.com and shout "help, where do I start?".

If it's a business issue I have to solve that is also likely to be far more important to me than the possible loss of a bit of reputation.

Answer 7

Is rep discrimination OK or not?

Rep discrimination is not acceptable. Note that the upvote and downvote hints do not mention a user's reputation:

• This question is useful and clear
• This question is unclear or not useful

^{_{Emphasis added}}

If you have the time to fix it, fix it. If you don't have the time to fix it, you may instead choose to leave a comment if it's salvageable, or a downvote if it's an unredeemable question.

However, in all cases your votes are yours to do with as you please. If you feel that high rep users should be held to a higher standard, then you may choose to downvote their questions if they fail to meet your standard.

If you do downvote, I would strongly recommend leaving a comment as well, as in most cases high rep users get a lot of 'noise' downvotes and may not link the downvotes to poor contributions.