I apologize if this has already been asked. I searched for information but couldn't find any. I was wondering why reputation isn't given when somebody marks your answer as a favorite. I have a question that has been marked more times as a favorite then given up votes. I would think the amount of times the answer was marked as a favorite would at most be equal to the number of up votes. If a user marks a question as a favorite, I would think the question would automatically get up voted. Maybe there's a reason for not having it work this way?
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6 Answers
Because Favorites more or less act as bookmarks and not always because it was of special quality. I know some of us don't even like the idea of awarding badges based upon how many people mark it as a favorite.
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17Also, due to the fact that you can't favorite answers (yet?), I sometimes favorite a question that I consider stupid because there's an answer that has extra info I find useful or interesting.– SeanCommented Jul 23, 2009 at 13:44
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I often use it as a temporary bookmark to questions that I've requested more info from the OP. I don't want to reward me having to check back on the question to see whether or not I can actually answer it yet.– EricCommented Jul 23, 2009 at 14:36
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Sometimes a question will be marked as favorite because of an answer to that question.
There might be some really horrible questions out there that still manage to attract a great response. It would be folly to give rep in that case.
answered Jul 23, 2009 at 14:06
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I can't really see how a question with a great response would be considered a "horrible question". If a "bad question" attracts some very useful answers, then how can it be considered a bad question? Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 18:47
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Doesn't the fact that a question has a "great response" give the question some value? Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 16:53
As I see it, marking a question as favorite is a rather temporal thing. I mark questions as favorite when I'm curious about the future answers, but when my curiosity has been met, my problem been solved, I usually unmark the question.
I would rather see people upvote questions they favor, as this will be more permanent. This will be encourage soon, as it seems.
The word "Favorite" imply that user likes it, but all people, answering this question, are using favorites as bookmarks. So the current name is confusing and BOOKMARK will be a better name. There is a change request Rename "favorite" questions to "subscribed" or "following" unfortunately declined due to misunderstanding.
If favorites will be renamed to BOOKMARKs , or if bookmarks will be created additionally to favorites, it will avoid confusion.
answered Jul 3, 2011 at 8:46
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3Internet Explorer has used "Favorite" as a synonym for Netscape's "Bookmark" since the early days of the web. I doubt anyone is really confused. Commented Jul 3, 2011 at 10:12
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One favorite use-case I have - the most frequent one - is to mark a post that has problems I can't address properly because I've run out of flags. If the OP gets rep for my 'favorite' I don't really mind, as long as the rep is taken back when I 'un-favorite'. But from the OP point of view, gaining rep, then having it taken away again a day or two later doesn't sound like great fun. In any case, we already have voting to show 'favor', or not.
answered Nov 26, 2011 at 15:39
I agree with OP. When someone puts a question in his favorites, it's to find it easily, so it has a strong interest in this question. It may be for its own projects, general culture, etc.
The question is useful to this person.
I see things like this:
- up-vote for the quality of the question
- up-favorite for the usefulness of the question
So I think we should get points when someone marks our question in favorite.
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And in the common case where I downvote and favourite the same question? Commented Jan 17, 2012 at 11:49