Is there any good to keep the your answers with $0$ votes or it's better to delete them?
I've answered some questions lately and some are left without a comment or anything. What's your experience with this issue?
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28$\begingroup$ This happens sometimes. One answer of mine got cited in an arXiv preprint — but hasn't received any upvotes anyway. $\endgroup$– Grigory MCommented Jan 21, 2014 at 20:52
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$\begingroup$ Wow! could you provide an arXive link of such incident? $\endgroup$– SpockCommented Jan 21, 2014 at 21:00
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3$\begingroup$ @Spock: for a slightly different case, see reference 4 in shameless advertisement. Of course I did upvote the answer, so that's slightly different from Grigory's scenario. $\endgroup$– Willie Wong ModCommented Jan 22, 2014 at 8:09
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1$\begingroup$ @WillieWong Apparently, the list of references is not available in the free version. $\endgroup$– Tobias KildetoftCommented Jan 22, 2014 at 10:00
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$\begingroup$ @GrigoryM: That (not receiving upvotes) was because it was not really an answer (I still ends with "I'll try to fix it"), although it was a nice and ultimately fruitful idea. But of course I was glad to have read the attempted answer; I might upvote it just for that. By the way the preprint has now been published. $\endgroup$– Marc van LeeuwenCommented Jan 30, 2014 at 10:39
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1$\begingroup$ Dear Marc, I haven't meant you had done anything wrong — and glad that my [unsuccessful] attempt somehow helped you. I just thought that the story illustrates the point «0-upvoted answers are [somewhat] useful sometimes» well enough (and sounded funny enough) to share it. $\endgroup$– Grigory MCommented Jan 30, 2014 at 11:37
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$\begingroup$ @GrigoryM: I'm glad you shared it, and I didn't (and won't) feel guilty about this. Maybe my comment was just a pretext show I recognised the case, and to post the link. $\endgroup$– Marc van LeeuwenCommented Feb 1, 2014 at 15:21
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4 Answers
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An answer with $0$ votes does not hurt your reputation. If it is a good answer, it helps the site and someone may discover that it is a good answer and upvote it in the future.
If it is a good answer, leave it.
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11$\begingroup$ There's also the allure of the badges Tenacious and Unsung Hero. $\endgroup$– hardmathCommented Jan 27, 2014 at 21:26
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$\begingroup$ If it is an useless answer, it'll get downvoted. Or at least ignored. $\endgroup$– vonbrandCommented Feb 1, 2014 at 16:41
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Unless I notice (or am notified of) serious problems with an answer of mine, I keep them around, regardless of the score. I see no reason to delete such answers, as there is no telling whether some future visitor may come across an answer and find them valuable. Heck, it's possible that users have already found these answers valuable, but haven't gained enough reputation to upvote them.
answered Jan 21, 2014 at 19:55
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3$\begingroup$ Good point about the users who might not be able to upvote yet. $\endgroup$– robjohn ModCommented Jan 21, 2014 at 19:57
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4$\begingroup$ @robjohn: Or don't bother to upvote them. I have had a number of answers that didn't attract any upvotes at the time, but later did with a comment that indicated it was helpful, not just upvoting to keep the question from appearing again $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 25, 2014 at 4:24
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Yes, in my opinion, it's not even close -- you should leave up any answer without wrong mathematics.
I get the sense that upvotes don't work very well for answers (they work very well for questions). There is almost no correlation between the answers I write that I like very much and the answers I like that get upvotes.
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$\begingroup$ Agreed. I've had several answers ride the HNQ rocket, and only one did I feel actually deserved that level of attention and votes. Happily, that is my most highly voted answer of all time on any site. :) $\endgroup$– WildcardCommented Jan 6, 2017 at 13:46
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Do I hear some frustration here? In one or two months, you will probably be pleasantly surprised when some of your old zero vote answers receive an upvote. Explanation: You probably answered quite a few questions from users not having enough reputation yet to upvote your answers. These users very rarely realize that they can accept your answer. What happens over time is that either these users gain enough reputation to upvote your answer, or else the taskforce to cleanup the unanswered queue will upvote your answer, because questions without an upvoted or accepted answer are treated as unanswered. Let me assure you that these people read your answer first, and only upvote it if it answers the question.
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What happens over time is that either these users gain enough reputation to upvote your answerBut do they actually go back and upvote later? $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 10:37 -
2$\begingroup$ "or else the taskforce to cleanup the unanswered queue will upvote your answer, because questions without an upvoted or accepted answer are treated as unanswered." Huh. I was wondering why some of my older 0-score answers would get upvotes months later. Guess now I know. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 26, 2014 at 18:04
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$\begingroup$ @DennisMeng: questions without an upvoted answer get brought back by the site robot. That lets many people look at your answer. Another chance for upvotes. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 28, 2014 at 4:40