If their question lacked an attempt or any details, we could just tell them couldn't we? Why not vote down only those questions which either can't be understood or are off topic? Are people trying to scare away newbies or something?
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6$\begingroup$ I guess you could find several older related discussions. For example, Downvoting new user's questions or Quick downvoting of ill-formatted questions by new users $\endgroup$– Martin SleziakMay 1, 2015 at 6:03
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12$\begingroup$ How do you know the person posting is a newcomer? If a new account can be used to evade the guidelines and rules, users wanting to do so will just create new accounts all the time. $\endgroup$– quid ModMay 1, 2015 at 9:26
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Votes and comments serve different roles.
- I leave a comment when I want to tell something to the author.
- I downvote when I want to signal (not just to the author) that the question is of low quality.
Sometimes it's both, sometimes just one of these.
Votes enable actions that comments don't. For example, one can filter questions based on their score, excluding all downvoted ones. Negative score also reduces the visibility of questions, and facilitates automatic deletion.
Why not vote down only those questions which either can't be understood or are off topic?
Those should be closed and deleted, not just downvoted. By the way, homework dumps are off-topic here.
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3$\begingroup$ As I've said before, with over 21,000 downvotes to only 14 upvotes I find your opinion on this matter to be highly suspect. I do understand your defense of this practice as basically stating "those are the odds", but I find it to be quite meager - particularly, when you've answered over 1600 questions. I find it hard to believe that less than 1% of the questions you've found interesting enough to answer were worth your upvote. I think I'll flag this comment for moderator attention because I don't intend to be out of line and, frankly, I'm curious as to their opinion on the matter. $\endgroup$ May 4, 2015 at 16:27
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$\begingroup$ @Mark: -1 for claiming upvotes to be important for active members of communities to cast: Downvoting is how Stack Exchange maintains its quality, not otherwise! $\endgroup$ May 4, 2015 at 16:39
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1$\begingroup$ @Unihedron I don't recall making that claim. $\endgroup$ May 4, 2015 at 16:54
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1$\begingroup$ @MarkMcClure the point is a different one. If one thinks the utilitarian value of a dv is bigger than that of an uv, and one uses all votes regardless, then one should cast only dv. $\endgroup$– quid ModMay 6, 2015 at 0:43
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I think you should not downvote. Instead vote to close. With 4 people cooperating, the question will be marked "on hold" with a request that it improved.
That is the treatment a newcomer should get. NOT downvotes.
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9$\begingroup$ I don't see why newcomers should get a special treatment. Sure, leave a comment explaining the downvote if you think it can help. But special treatment leads to two problems: 1/ When are newcomers not newcomers anymore? Is it based on rep, number of Q&A, time on the site? 2/ If the feedback users get is inconsistent, they will only be confused. "But I asked this other question in the same way and I didn't get downvoted... Why?" (Plus what quid said) $\endgroup$ May 2, 2015 at 9:14