Timeline for Why do people downvote old questions and answers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 15, 2018 at 9:54 | history | edited | Nick Cox | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited body
|
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:44 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://stats.stackexchange.com/ with https://stats.stackexchange.com/
|
|
| Feb 7, 2017 at 9:14 | comment | added | nekomatic | Reputation points are the worst way of encouraging people to contribute quality content to a Q&A site, apart from all the other ways of encouraging people to contribute. They are a reward and they do work, if imperfectly - witness the success of Stack Exchange sites where others have failed. Maybe we just don't like being confronted with the evidence of our own shallowness ;-) | |
| Feb 1, 2017 at 9:09 | comment | added | Xi'an | I have noticed on a recent occasion how emotional people can get about a single downvote. Getting reputation points seems to be the ultimate goal then, which could be the problematic issue. When I spot an old answer to an interesting if old question and I deem it poor or inappropriate, there is no more reason for not downvoting it than upvoting other answers. Or than answering old unanswered questions. Or than calling for closing old uninteresting questions which OPs have vanished from the forum after asking this single question. | |
| Jan 31, 2017 at 4:16 | comment | added | gammer | "his answer has 4 times more upvotes, and I do not think this difference is pure noise :-) Not sure why @MichaelChernick decided to accept your answer over Glen's." -- thanks for that. What I'm not sure about is why your uncertainties are germane to this discussion. To answer your Q: Sure, I like Glen's answer. Honestly, I didn't read it all, but I agree that downvoting old posts is fine, and that's why I upvoted it. However, I took Michael's question to be about what systemic changes should occur to combat this "problem" and I like my answer -- "None" -- better. I guess Michael did too. | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 9:35 | comment | added | amoeba | Everything you said in this answer is correct and it's very true that upvotes are noisy, but I feel that your answer sidesteps the actual issue here, which is fully addressed in the Glen_b's answer. Incidentally, his answer has 4 times more upvotes, and I do not think this difference is pure noise :-) Not sure why @MichaelChernick decided to accept your answer over Glen's. But given that, it would be good if you explicitly formulated your opinion on what Glen_b wrote. Do you agree? Or do you disagree? | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 4:37 | vote | accept | Michael R. Chernick | ||
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:15 | comment | added | gammer | Untoward voting patterns are automatically reversed by the system (as indicated by the old post you linked). It is possible certain items were downvoted with reason. It's really impossible to tell. As my answer indicates, I've received some hard-to-understand downvotes recently (and I know who issued one of them and, no, he wasn't a troll..He was just mad at me, I think) but, the fact is, it resulted in a grand total of a 4 point loss of reputation...Hardly important...Rather than arguing that "downvoting is broken" and needs to be fixed, maybe some people need to get a grip... | |
| Jan 30, 2017 at 2:08 | comment | added | Carl | @gammer I get the distinct impression that some people are trolling. I am not alone in that meta.stats.stackexchange.com/questions/2198/… Downvoting is broken. It needs a fix. | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:33 | comment | added | Michael R. Chernick | That would make sense but it wouldn't be fair. I made some comments along with you on Carl's post. | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:25 | comment | added | gammer | It sounds like you're suggesting disallowing voting on posts after they reach a certain age, which is not how I interpreted your question. If I had to vote for or against that proposition, I would vote against it. | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 22:22 | comment | added | Michael R. Chernick | You make good points. I do think it is appropriate for people to upvote or downvote recent answers even if they are a year or two old. But I don't think upvotes or downvotes on posts from five years ago are not appropriate. I am human and thereforee prefer upvotes to downvotes. | |
| Jan 29, 2017 at 19:55 | history | edited | gammer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 145 characters in body
|
| Jan 29, 2017 at 19:50 | history | answered | gammer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |