What ways do you use to decide a question is 'good'?

Question

I just got a reminder (while upvoting an answer) that I hadn't upvoted a question in a while.

As it turned out, I had explicitly chosen to go to that particular question with the intent of upvoting the question (because I was already aware that I hadn't done so in a while and was looking for a question I felt worthy of an upvote). Nevertheless, that shows that the reminder was 'reminding' me appropriately - it had been long enough that I already knew it was true.

To be honest, I don't think I upvote a high enough proportion of questions.

My overall record is fine (about as many questions as answers have been upvoted; I think several answers upvoted for every question would be okay), but I seem to be finding it much harder to upvote questions lately.

When I read an answer, it's easy to find reasons to upvote; some good, helpful points that address the question (or important aspects of it), no major errors, and I am happy to vote up... and when I really don't think I can upvote, I can make suggestions that would make the answer better and perhaps upvote later. Indeed, I sometimes find it hard to wait until I have finished reading a well put answer before I upvote.

When reading questions, however, I don't very often feel like I am reading a good question. I don't so often think a question satisfies "shows research effort, is useful and clear".

Generally it seems like there's some problem that makes me hesitate - the question has pretty much been asked already, or the poster hasn't really thought about what they want to ask - indeed, likely hasn't even googled their question or checked Wikipedia. Maybe it's a question that wouldn't be widely useful, or (oh, so often) the poster hasn't even bothered with basics like layout or spelling. [Not everyone can spell, but computers are pretty good at it; as I type this question, I get a little wiggly red underline under misspelled words, which I assume is my (pretty standard) browser checking what I type -- it doesn't like upvote, googled and wikipedia above; the last I have now capitalized.] It is sometimes worse, like when people can't even bother to spell a word wrong the same way twice in a row.

Perhaps my standards for questions are too high, or perhaps I am missing some other opportunity to upvote questions.

The only thing that occurs to me is to be more diligent about coming back and upvoting questions that the OP is willing to improve. That doesn't seem like it would increase my upvote rate enough.

If one - or quite often, 3 or 4 - of our diligent editors makes a poor question into something approaching a decent question, giving reputation to the original poster for someone else's work (often needing a lot more effort than the original took) seems misplaced.

What are some good reasons to upvote a question? When might I think about upvoting?

Answer 1

Upvoting

When you answer a question, or think you could answer it if you had the time, that's strong prima facie evidence the question is good enough to be upvoted. Please do it.

When you do not feel comfortable answering a question but feel that you at least could understand it and the O.P. has taken the care to make it as short, clear, and focused as possible while providing any necessary details, then it deserves your positive vote.

Some questions are badly put but their intent is clear and they are interesting: they may suggest some novel way of looking at a concept, for example. I upvote those.

Factor in possible difficulties with English: when a question comes through sufficiently clearly but the English is stilted, look beyond that and consider upvoting it (and editing it for grammar and usage if you have a few minutes to spare).

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Not voting

When a question needs clarification or other improvement, please leave a comment to guide the O.P. and do not vote the question up: save your vote as a reward for the improvement.

Because most of us look primarily at questions we think we can answer or about subjects we may be interested in, the fact that you have looked at it suggests you should either upvote it or write a comment suggesting an improvement.

If, due to lack of knowledge of the situation or terminology, you feel you cannot tell whether the question has been clearly formulated, then don't vote. You probably won't be spending much time with such questions anyway.

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Downvoting

Because downvotes can discourage people, especially newcomers, save the (rare) question downvotes for just that: they go to people who have been shown what needs improvement and how to improve it but (after a suitable period of time) have not made the necessary changes. In fact, those are the questions you should vote to close, so save your downvotes for people who violate site norms (become belligerent, attack people, repeat their own questions, and so on).