# How can this naive question get upvotes?

I saw What is the largest prime number? asking what is the largest prime number, which got obvious answers like "there is no largest prime" and "well, the largest KNOWN prime is..." But the question was clearly phrased in a way that the OP thought there was some bound on all prime numbers. Probably the question is a duplicate of questions that ask for proofs of infinitude of primes and ask for the largest known prime, but that aside, what is the motivation for giving upvotes to such a question? It received a higher than median number (4 the last time I checked). All you have to do is google prime numbers and find out that they are infinite, and most people already know this fact anyway. So it doesn't seem like the question contributes anything worth up-voting much to the forum. Is there something I don't understand about the current culture of up-voting, like something about the majority of the users who are doing it?

• @user147263 I'm guessing there are clues in some questions, like maybe in the comments somebody asks "Why the upvotes?" and then somebody answers with an explanation. But I have nowhere near enough experience with questions yet to have encountered that. I was hoping somebody else did. Is that reasonable enough to convince you not to down-vote my meta question? lol. At least you explained your initial reasoning for voting, unlike these other mysterious voters that give more up-votes for asking what is the largest prime than other much more substantive questions. – user2566092 May 17 '14 at 20:15
• Downvoted. ${}{}{}$ – evil999man May 20 '14 at 9:36