Downvoting to order?

Question

I have stumbled with the following in a user profile.

I use downvotes to organize answers to a question. By voting up I bring up the answers that I consider more important, useful, or that I think should be read first. By voting down I also do the same. If I downvoted your answer, it might not be that I think it is bad, but that I think other answers should be on top of yours in the list.

I strongly disagree with this idea. What's more: I think it is inappropriate to "order" answers in any way. Of course, upvotes and downvotes surely order answers, but downvoting just to "order" a list of answer seems simply wrong. The order should be the consequence, not the cause to upvote or downvote. In any case, one should upvote the question one deems more useful than the other, but if an answer is less useful than another, that doesn't entitle to downvote it. Do you agree with the quoted phrase? Why? Why not?

If the above wasn't clear, Pete has read my mind:

The question is whether downvoting answers just because one finds other answers to be better is acceptable behavior on the site. If I understand and remember correctly, users have previously been suspended for such behavior, so at least in the past this behavior has been viewed as unacceptable. In case we are revisiting this issue again, I would say that it should not be acceptable to downvote answers for any reason other than a sincere belief that the answer is (in some way, at least) incorrect.

Answer 1

Let me present a different voice here (from the other moderators).

If you hover your mouse over the up/down-vote arrows for an answer, the caption that pops up is "This answer is useful" versus "This answer is not useful". And considering that we are a Q+A website, I am uncomfortable with a strict correctness-based approach to voting.

Let me expand a little bit.

While mathematics is indeed one of the few subjects lucky enough to have universal truths (Yes, Asaf and other logicians/set theorists, I know what you do but I'm explaining at a lay level here), the doing of mathematics is still a human endeavor. As a professional mathematician, when I read a proof I don't just think about whether it is logically sound, I also try to figure out its thematic purpose (how I can appropriate the technique and train-of-thought that led to the proof for other uses), and when doing so, I am very appreciative of authors who explain things clearly.

I feel that the same should be (allowed to be) extended, to a certain extent, to voting on Mathematics StackExchange. After all, Math.SE is a human activity. And one of the great things about Q+A websites is precisely the intangibles provided by the human element. Given the same question, one may give a machine checkable answer, or one may give a human readable sketch that skips some minor steps and outlines only the important ideas. The latter, while incomplete, I think would be generally more useful to readers than the first, strictly correct answer. And if a user chooses to use votes to voice his opinion of this fact, I don't see why it should be a problem.

(This is to say nothing of the inherent tax built into the system for downvotes: a downvote takes 1 reputation from the voter. If anything it is more self-regulating than the blatant inflation of reputation driven by the free upvotes.)

Lastly, let me repeat what I often say:

Voting (and usefulness) is subjective. And a user is never obligated to explain publicly their votes.

(Though I generally prefer it when people leave constructive criticism in the comments.) If a user has a really high bar for what is useful to him and what is not, and if he applies this consistently across the board (as opposed to targeted voting), I don't really see how it is any of our business how he chooses to use his votes, even if he explains rather poorly his motivation for doing so.

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You'd note that I haven't really addressed the question yet.

My personal opinion of the use of votes for ordering is: why? Isn't that basically futile? A user is free to choose on which tab he reads the answers, and I, for example, read SE sites on "active" instead of "votes". And considering that this is a one user effort I really wonder more at the efficacy of this voting method than anything else.

Answer 2

This (downvoting answers you know to be correct because you think others are superior) is not an acceptable use of downvotes. The official guidelines for downvoting are located here in the privileges section of the FAQ. There is however one exception, and that is community wiki questions (as well as of meta posts of course). In fact, one of the main reasons questions are made CW is to allow users to use voting as an ordering.

Edit: Here is the text of the "When should I vote down?" section of the FAQ page:

Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.

You have a limited number of votes per day, and answer down-votes cost you a tiny bit of reputation on top of that; use them wisely.

Answer 3

After I wrote the comment that Peter has quoted in his question, I rethought it a little bit, and now I think I said something subtly stronger than I meant to. Instead of

[I]t should not be acceptable to downvote answers for any reason other than a sincere belief that the answer is (in some way, at least) incorrect.

let me backpedal a bit to the following stance:

It should not be acceptable to downvote answers that one sincerely believes are correct.

The difference concerns answers that don't say anything incorrect but do not answer the question either. This is a gray area where I think the decision whether to downvote depends a lot on the context and in particular, the potential voter's evaluation of the amount of good faith exhibited by the answerer.

(Let me also reiterate that my personal policy is that one generally should downvote answers that one believes are incorrect. I don't hold that this should be a site policy -- anyway it would be impossible to enforce since who knows who is reading answers and evaluating them as incorrect? -- and other regular users of the site have disagreed with it. But I will say that if everyone followed this policy as well as the one advocated above then the meaning of downvotes would be completely clear, which would be a good thing. Every once in a while one receives a downvote for no apparent reason, and this is a bit frustrating.)

Answer 4

I am sort of new to this site but some might know me from a place close by. I find this discussion very interesting on abstarct grounds. It never is quite clear to me why there is such a, in my opinion, huge difference between upvotes and downvotes in peoples perception. Don't get me wrong, I do not downvote a lot myself, neither do I like to get downvotes either, but why such a strong reaction against downvotes.

The user whose text has spawned this debate in my opinion votes both ways, as many do, for up, namely to a considerable part also on the relative merits of an answer (against other answers).

Now, some, in particular Pete L. Clark seem to put forward an idea of some 'absolute' correctness based voting, which he seems to apply (upvote everything correct).

First, this raises the issue that what is prominently propagated as one of the sites principles that the 'best' answers raise to the top would not work well or at all anymore; two answers that are both correct while one is better would more or less inevitably get the same score (except one is given earlier perhaps, but then more often then not a better answer might come latter as mentioned by others so that it would even be worse and the better answer would always stay behind).

Second, as he also acknowledges, this is not viable for people that view a lot of question. And, third, it is certainly not what happens in practise that much I think, otherwise some very simple answers would have to have a lot higher scores. In addition, if this principle was really followed the simpler an answer the higher the score (as more people can judged its correctness), assuming comparable number of views, which is sort-of reasonable.

So, how do (many) people actually vote (I think), or at least how do I vote (up).

At least I typically vote on perceived merits or usefulness if you like. If I think an answer is good I vote it up, if it is just correct but sort of standard, I might still vote it up if its score is low, and if not then I just leave it. But here is the first point where my voting is not absolute in any way; whether or not several other people already upvoted the answer does not really change its usefulnes. Still I feel that there is something like a reasonable score for some type of answer (with all the vagueness attached to this). Observation of voting patterns confirms that this is not isolated (though there are some other effects to consider, namely that people follow others in voting; like, this looks good but I am not sure it is correct, but well 7 others thought so alread so it should be fine +1).

Now, there is a second point where my (up) voting is not absolute. Namely, if there are several answers I might only upvote the one (or the two or more) I consider as best and not all, in particular if the relative score distribution is not as I think it should be. And, even if I tried not to do this, it might even be hard to avoid. For if I see a question and I see one answer that only gives a partial answer then I might objectively find this more or less impressinve depending on whether there is another answer next to it that gives a full answer (in particular in a case where I had not known an answer myself). So, again, my up voting depends on the other existing answers.

Now, in OP it is claimed the order should be only a consequence of and not a cause for the votes (mentioning both up and down). At least implicitly postulating some voting based on the merits of the answer looked at in isolation. I doubt many people really vote (up) like this. Judging each answer on its own merits not taking other existing answers (so the relative quality) into account at all not even indirectly. Yet as soon as one does this, one already votes for the purpose of sorting. Again, I think for up-votes this type of voting is at least not uncommon.

Now what does this user do that is so questionable, in some people's opinion, they use up and down votes in more or less the same way, and not with quite different meanings as is the standard way it is used up vote everythng you like there are no very clear rules and hardly any questions asked (except for voting fraud) but downvote only for serious problems, like incorrect.

I know it is like this, but it is not quite clear why it must be like this (in the sense that somebody wishing to deviate from it faces quite severe opposition, including more or less threats to be suspended).

Sure, one looses points via downvootes, but also one does not get any by non-upvotes or gets unjustified ones by unjustified upvotes; and the stakes are higher for up-votes (2 against 10 as we are talking answers).

Therefore, my opinion is, if one does not also impose strict guidelines and norms when to upvote, I do not see why this must be so different for downvotes.

Again, sure the one is something positive and nice and the other not and so it is not quite the same, and perhaps it is soemhow good it is like this that downvotes are rare. All I am saying is that the reasons for it are quite vague and rather in the realm of emotions. Therefore, in my opinion, quite a bit of tolerance should be excercised towards those that for one reason or another deviate from the standard, since this standard is sort of arbitrary.

Analogies are always difficult, but if somebody downvotes a lot (but not in spiteful or ad hominem ways) the worst (I do not say one should do even this) I think one may think is this is a bit of a grumpy or unfriendly colleague; not unaccaptable let us fire(ban) them already (if they do not change their ways instantly), in particular not if in other ways this colleague is competent and supportive.

Answer 5

There is a lot of discussion going on here about whether or not it's so bad for someone to use their voting privileges outside the prescribed guidelines. And while there is something to be said of a user's ability to vote however they please (and the inability to stop them from doing so), I think that that voting outside the prescribed guidelines is a detriment to the site. And it's one that we can't really do much to prevent, as I'm sure many will be eager to remind me. But I do think it should be discouraged. Here is why.

The voting arrows, when rolled over, say the following:

This answer is not useful.

A lot of the current discussion seems to focus on the idea of this being prescriptive for the voter. But in fact this (and the FAQ) reads more as being descriptive for the reader of the answer. In other words, imagine I'm the reader of a question. I see that it has 3 downvotes. I wonder "hmm...what does this downvote mean?" so I roll over it and see the above description. Moreover, I check the FAQ and see much the same description. So I will conclude that this is a bad answer, and is inaccurate or incomplete in some way.

This is where voting outside the prescribed guidelines becomes a problem. When it happens, the FAQ and rollover text less accurately describe the nature of votes. If a perfectly good answer is downvoted into oblivion because another answer was better, newer users who are familiar with the FAQ or who check the rollover text will be mislead to believe that the answer is simply not accurate.

Some have argued that people are more likely to simply read from top to bottom, rather than taking the votes into heavy consideration. But this will only be the case for users who have not familiarized themselves with the FAQ and the way the site works (which by the way, is something that seems to be extremely strongly encouraged here, so it's reasonable to assume that 90% of users indeed have).

So something important to consider is that the voting guidelines are not only prescriptive of expected practices, but also descriptive to readers of the meaning of votes. It's on us, the community, to make sure that this description is accurate as possible.

Answer 6

I honestly don't see such a use of downvotes as a major problem worthy of a public trial of a specific user (which is what this thread is about to turn into). A few points that occurred to me while reading this discussion.

1. The FAQ may say whatever it says, but we didn't sign an affidavit to follow the letter of the FAQ when registering, did we?
2. The stated goal of this voting policy is to improve the relative pecking order of the answers. I fail to see how this is such a bad thing. One may argue that we don't know whether this user is actually following this policy, or whether is he using this as an excuse to cast downvotes left and right. As of today his upvote/downvote ratio is 5:2 (with less than 100 downvotes). That ratio is lower than with most, but not extremal (we have seen worse). It does sound like he is exercising this policy in moderation - not worthy of this kind of uproar IMHO.
3. There is so much variation in the voting policies of members anyway. If you look at the stats of the top contributors, you will find a lot of variation in the both the upvote/downvote and question/answer ratios as well as with the overall level of voting activity (say, per reputation points). This policy is uncommon, but I don't think we should try to enforce even a clear majority view on this issue. The input of a single user will be lost in the crowd noise anyway.
4. [I removed this point as it was making an uncalled for comparison. I was being a drama queen. I apologize to those offended by it.]
5. I kinda like the idea of this user putting his hard earned, if not money, then at least his reputation, where his mouth is. Instead of just whining here occasionally how relatively weak answers rake in a lot of upvotes simply because they could be followed by the masses, or some other such woes affecting/originating from the reputation game. Tomorrow I may regret including this point, and admire the gall less, but today is what it is.
6. I must add that I hope this user is not downvoting "competing" answers except in the most clear cut cases. IMHO that would be bad sportsmanship.

It is quite possible that I am underestimating the ill effects of a handful of downvotes. I am simply bad at psychology. Also, I wasn't here in the beginning of Math.SE, so I don't know, if it is written in the constitution that thou shalt not downvote a correct answer. My own observations have rather supported the point of view that people are free to vote according to their chosen policy. For the record: my upvote/downvote ratio is 70:1 or thereabouts. I am not considering adopting this kind of a policy myself, but if somebody wants to do it that way, so be it.

Answer 7

I am not sure if this is useful and it does not directly answer the question: but my strategy to deal with downvotes that are in my opinion not justified is the following:

• If it is me who is downvoted, I leave a comment asking for clarification what is wrong with the post.

• When I detect such downvotes of posts other than mine, I counter them with a +1 and again leave a comment that I see no need for a downvote to reassure the OP that there is nothing wrong with his post in my opinion.

In particular leaving such corresponding comments may at the end even lead to a higher score of the downvoted post than it would have obtained without it, if people agree that the downvote was not justified ...

Answer 8

I will explain how I see it (slowly adding the ideas. I need to save because my browser has a glitch and I lose it if I don't save quickly).

small point $1$: There is a design problem (perhaps 'design conflict' sounds more accurate) if the software allows for voting down however one pleases, while at the same time it is wanted to give the votes a meaning that goes beyond "I want this answer to move up and/or this one to move down". Not all design conflicts have a solution at the level of software, of course.

Point 2: This is a website where answers to questions are given and stay here for further reference. As in all websites in which answers are given and rated, in the long run the answers start getting organized according to those ratings. What is important is that this order goes with the main goal of the site, which is to educate, to inform. It is a fact that we read from top to bottom (usually), so whatever is further up is read first. For that reason, it is of the interest of Math.SE to bring up more useful answers and down the less useful ones.

Point 3: I have been told about the 'written rules' (as opposed to the 'built-in rules', e.g. a user with reputation $1$ cannot downvote) on when to downvote. But I think that in the same way a user can be told (more like suggested) only to downvote in certain ways, a user can be told (and this is more easy to achieve) how to interpret a downvote. Afterall, see point $2$, the content and the form of that content that gets created in this site is of more importance than the game of reputations, or egos, or interpretations of votes.

Point $\pi$: Even if I stop using votes this way or prevented from doing it, votes and specifically downvotes that do not follow the expected prescription will occur. So still the pad down in the shoulder while saying "don't worry about the downvotes" is being necessary, and is being used anyway. The reason for this is point $1$, there is a design conflict.

Point 4: Solutions: and of course I don't have a polished finished big idea just some small ideas that the rest can take, leave, or adapt and enrich, ...

Point 4.1: Not do anything. After all, the effect of a single person (me) gets averaged out, in the long run. The effect in the long run (the ordering of the answers) is what I think is important, and I understand the effect of only one person is negligible, so I am at peace with my effect disappearing.

Point 4.2: Another solution could be to instead of frowning upon, or making some downvotes seen as bad, with the aim of giving guidelines on how to downvote (or vote in general), it is much easier to tell people how to interpret receiving a downvote. Currently the latter is being done. People are told that sometimes there are crazy downvoters. Of course because downvotes occur that may not be explained with the conflicting guideline of downvoting when there is a flaw.

Point 4.3: Another possibility is to not have negative downvotes. There maybe many ways to actually do this, but what is important is that the effect of downvoting is not putting an ugly negative sign next to an answer, but to move it down in the list. A negative sign is aggressive, punitive by nature. By just getting rid of it you can make the users of this site happier users. Simply moving answers down in the list has the desired effect of giving them less relevance.

Point 4.4:

Point 5: A quote.

"The downvotes are functionally inexplicable ..." (Arkamis). 

They are functionally inexplicable, and yet the FAQ tries to gives them an explanation that goes beyond their actual effect, organizing answers to a question. This reminds me the greeks defining point as adimensional entities and what not ..., and then mathematics making the transcendental step of defining them as whatever behaves as a point does. The power of defining something just as it behaves have yet to get to the voting system in this website.

OK, done. Perhaps for the moment.

WHY THE DOWNVOTES???? ARRRHHHGGGG!!!

Wait ... Nevermind. hehe!

See, it is impossible to try to control how people downvote, if they are free to choose. But how to read downvotes, and what the actual effect is, is easy. The effect doesn't transcend the placement of this answer in the list of answers.