Should the weight of downvotes be increased?

Question

When we started Stack Overflow, we wanted to make sure that downvotes were more of a visual and psychological motivator than a punitive action. That's why

• upvotes are +10
• downvotes are -2, and cost the casting voter -1

However, recently, I've seen Marc Gravell and Jon Skeet both say similar things:

IMO, downvotes don't quite carry enough... -5 downvotes and +1 upvote (for sympathy) yields zero points overall; or it could even yield +10 points for a new user! I'd prefer to see, say, -4 points? -5 points?

I am starting to come around to this way of thinking. There are some users who ask a lot of questions that get downvoted heavily, but over time these users end up with a fairly sizable amount of reputation.

This doesn't feel right.

We are considering changing downvotes to -5, with the same -1 cost to the casting voter.

There really aren't that many downvotes in the system, so the net effect of this change would be to reduce rep growth for users who tend to get downvoted as much as they get upvoted. (Yes, I realize this is no panacea: over time, we'll still get rep inflation for marginal users based on sheer quantity; this is only one of several changes we are considering to help mitigate this.)

The other downside to this change, besides the obvious minor loss of rep for most users, is that it would force a global reputation recalc for every user. I think we're due for one of those anyway.

Answer 1

If you were to do this I would increase the cost of casting the downvote to -3 (not -2, you increasing the downvote score by 5 after all) and make people explain. Some downvotes are simply vindictive and you'll be making those more effective.

Answer 2

I think that the penalty for downvotes should be less when the downvoter leaves a comment. Maybe -2 without comment and -1 with a comment.

Answer 3

As I (just now) mentioned on this thread, I think the weight of a downvote should increase non-linearly, the way that upvotes are now - only instead of starting out high and getting lower, it should start out low and get higher!

Answer 4

I think if there are a lot of downvotes AND upvotes then that tends to indicate that it is a religious or other contentious issue. Why penalize them overall for particular questions?

I think it is a serious mistake to keep the -1 for the down voter.

Leaving it with -1 only makes it MORE enticing to do "strategic" downvoting or retribution voting.

If you're going to ding someone for 5 hitpoints then it should probably cost you a little too.

One of the reasons why there may be so many downvotes (there are pile-ons - it would be interesting to see the statistics on downvotes) is that they are essentially "free". Maybe the problem really is that it is too easy to cast downvotes.

Answer 5

Just let users with large amounts of reputation down-vote for free. Also you could limit the amount of free down votes for these users (maybe 10-20 per day). This way users who have proven themselves over time will get a tiny bit closer to being moderators.

Answer 6

What if downvoting was changed on users who consistently get downvotes? This would include posts deleted by others. This would mean users who consistently post bad content lose a lot of rep. Here are some numbers I came up with, but they will probably need some changing to become a good idea.

1. If a user has less than 20% of votes on their posts as downvotes, they won’t be affected.
2. For every 10% of downvotes on a persons post after 20%, the downvote weight is increased, not sure how to increase it though.

This will prevent users from posting controversial content for rep (which I’m fairly certain is a real problem it at least one site, e.g., Politics).

This isn’t already solved by question or answer bans because a post with a lot of upvotes and slightly fewer downvotes won’t trigger it as far as I know.

Also, the rep loss might need to say something like “extra rep was lost from this/these downvote(s) because of consistent low quality or controversial posts”.

Answer 7

Don't increase the penalty-points per downvote. Instead consider using one of the following:

• increase incrementally the penalty-points per consecutive downvotes

2 downvotes received one after the other causes the weight of the penalty-points carried by the 2nd downvote to increment by say +1 (i.e. 3) and so forth. This increment gets reset to 0 whenever an upvote is received.

• increase incrementally the penalty-points per downvote based on total number of downvotes

After 9 (total, not consecutive) downvotes are received then the following downvotes would each carry an incremented weight of say +10 (or whatever) penalty-points, which will again be incremented by +10 on reaching 100 downvotes and so forth

This could also be applied to serial downvoters. The more they downvote (either consecutively or in total or a combination thereof), the heavier the penalty-points.

You may also have to keep in mind the total points each user already possesses, as it would really hurt newcomers to be hit by a tsunami of downvoters. Maybe a little red pop-up box could remind them that when they withdrew their answer/response, the weight of the negative points would be withdrawn as well. This way they can keep the answer up until they get sufficient explanation via comments as to why their answer was considered incorrect or inappropriate. Then they can defend their answer, or edit their answer to clear up any misunderstandings, or just delete it (and put in a new answer).

Answer 8

Rather than going through and majorly dropping all question points by half, why not just make upvotes on answers equal +15 or something? Then no one loses any abilities they've worked for.

Answer 9

Allow multiple down votes by the same user at a cost to both parties of 1 point to a maximum of 10 down votes. It should always hurt to punish even when punishing the people who deserve a lot of punishment.

Answer 10

The proposed change might roughen the pleasant atmosphere I associate with Stack Overflow. So here's my 3 cents against increasing the penalty:

1. It's good to know what's wrong is as well as what's right. An increased penalty will cause more wrong answers to be removed, along with the comments explaining why it's a wrong answer.

2. Some answers are controversial. They are not wrong, or unhelpful, but they still get a lot of downvotes. Increasing the penalty would discourage people from expressing what they really think.

3. Quality of information is ensured by a negative feedback loop:

Negative feedbacks tend to dampen or buffer changes; this tends to hold a system to some equilibrium state making it more stable.

By increasing the penalty, the constant in the feedback loop changes from 0.2 (one upvote = 5 downvotes) to 0.5 (one upvote = 2 downvotes.) This 150% increase will remove the "feedback" nature of downvotes. Downvotes will be a smack in the face rather than a gentle push in the right direction.

4. People will be very upset if you lower their reputation retroactively. It's like saying "a penalty kick is now worth 7.5 instead of 3 points" and reordering the rankings at the end of the Rugby year.

Answer 11

Why not increase the downvote value according to the user's rep?

ie, Joe N00b joins and starts downvoting everywhere - it'll be carnage. However, if his downvotes don't count much (-1 if that) then it'll be fine; If Jon Skeet decides you've gone too far (or answered incorrectly) then your rep penalty from his downvote should count more. He's an obviously more responsible user who would only downvote (hopefully) for things that really needed it.

So if the downvote penalty ranged between 0 and -10, a user with 2000 rep might cost you 2 points, a user with 10,000 rep might cost you -5 points.

Answer 12

An eye for an eye...

If a downvote inflicts -5 hit rep points, it should cost 5 mana rep points.