There have been a discussion on why people answering a question don't upvote the question, and why some questions with 0 upvotes have answers with many upvotes. What do people think about the following idea: if an answer gets an upvote, half of the vote (1/4? 1/10?) goes to the question?
See also:
Do you ever not upvote a question that you answer?
Why not just make answer up-votes contribute to the votes of the question? [closed]
Terrible idea. Often times I see a good answer to a bad question, and I upvote the answer to support the user who actually tried to parse a terrible question and deliver a reasonable answer.
The quality of an answer is in no way correlated with the quality of the question.
Votes on Questions and Answers, while they have some things in common, also have distinct reasons for votes. We wouldn't want to make any assumptions on what reason the answer voter was voting for that answer and apply it to question.
I hate this idea. Usually, I will upvote a question if I take the trouble to answer it. However, I know I've answered questions (including this one) that I've also downvoted. I've also come across questions where people have answered them and voted to close the question. Sometimes you come across questions that you feel motivated to answer, for one reason or another, but that doesn't make them a good question, or mean that the question belongs. With the current system it's possible to acknowledge that whilst still trying to help the OP. With your idea, I'd be discouraged from trying to help because any upvotes on answers could make it look the the question belonged...
As stated, this is a bad idea since there's no correlation between a good question and a good answer. However, I think that an alert on top of the page or something making it much easier to upvote the question would be nice.
The reason for this: once you've found what you want, you rarely go back to thank all the people who got you there, like the OP. This is why perfectly good questions are not upvoted when their perfectly good answers are. An alert at the top of the site ("Upvote the question too? Yes or Dismiss") would be the beginning of an okay idea, I think.
I am suprised that this question received so many downvotes and attracted condescending, sometimes vituperative comments and answers. I can understand the criticisms of the question, but as a question it is well phrased and is trying to address a significant problem, the lack of upvotes on questions. People seem to be angry because it is not fitting in with the current Stack Exchange way of doing things. Organisations are able to improve more quickly if they are able to consider ideas outside the cannon without shouting them down.
To me the issue is not whether the question fits in with the established way of doing things, but can it help Stack Exchange to find a better, innovative way of doing things.
The Stack Exchange approach is fantastic, and has done much to promote much better Q&A on the internet. To my mind there is a problem with the way reputation is awarded to questions. In particular it does not reward good questions in the sense that that term is used in the wider community. In the wider community a good question is one that provokes new, useful answers. Often the best people to ask good questions are the newcomers, the outsiders, the young. However on stackexchange sites, the goodness of a question is determined by what the insiders think (because it is mainly only experienced users who upvote). However, experienced users are not the most likely to ask good questions, only the most likely to phrase a question in a way that fits in with the rules and ethos of Stack Exchange sites.
So Leo thanks for asking a thought provoking question and how about a few more open minded answers to it?
