# An answer with a negative vote count still giving you a positive reputation

An upvote for an answer gives you 10 reputation points. A down vote gives you -2 reputation points. Say for example you get two upvotes and five downvotes, then you would have a vote count of -3 and still gain 10 reputation points.

Was this intentionally done by MSE? Do you really still deserve to gain 10 reputation points if your vote count is -3?

• SE is clearly aware of this side effect, but there are no plans to change: Should the weight of downvotes be increased?. – user642796 Aug 30 '15 at 14:09
• The effect of down votes is not really to change reputation (they would have essentially the same effect if they did not affect the reputation of the person who wrote the question/answer). Downvotes indicate to posters and readers that there is an issue, and they are part of the process of deleting low-quality posts. Actually, because downvotes are not shown to posters in the little rep gage at the top of the window, most posters probably don't even know when a downvote affects their reputation. – Carl Mummert Aug 30 '15 at 14:54

• What if the alternative is just to shut down the internet, so all of us procrastinators will have to get back to work? $\vphantom{Trick question, us procrastinators are strong people. We will find a way to persevere and not work!}$ :-) – Asaf Karagila Aug 30 '15 at 14:21