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I was told to ask here. Here I am!

Does anyone else have the same feeling? Sometimes some questions are downvoted because it seems trivial. But to be honest, as a person first seeing some maths concepts, nothing is trivial. It is unfair to say that these people are asking stupid questions because they haven't shown any research effort.

This is as hurtful as in class when you ask questions, some advanced students or even teachers roll eyes at you, which is not what we need in this community.

The guideline is far from being rigorous for mathematicians. It is all too familiar for me as a maths student for over 20 years to "HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA" when I read maths. What is the problem of saying this?

Isn't a comment on specific points where to improve more than enough? Downvoting without explanation is even worse than asking questions without context IMHO.

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    $\begingroup$ It is natural when studying mathematics to have a feeling of being lost when beginning a new topic. However merely asserting a feeling of being lost doesn't provide enough for Readers to be able to help you or others who reach the same impasse. Typically one needs to take a step back, find a ground level at which there is understanding and from which one can ask a Question that you will be able to judge the correctness of any Answer that is provided. If you like I will make some suggestions under your Question on main as to a good way to proceed. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:23
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    $\begingroup$ It's not about asserting a feeling. Questions might not be asked in the best way, but it does not mean that it's downvotable. Shouldn't it be more helpful to comment/hint on better ways to rephrase the question than downvote? $\endgroup$
    – enihcamemit
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:31
  • $\begingroup$ I'm having difficulty finding a recent Question you posted for which to make suggestions. If you have such a Question that got deleted, you can probably still see it and post a link to it here. Otherwise I don't know how to help. Yes, I'd expect comments to rephrase the Question would be more helpful than a downvote. It is a bit of a learned skill to do that. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:32
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    $\begingroup$ This comment is opinion-based. With respect to this article on MathSE protocol, over $90\%$ of the posted questions are defective, and should be downvoted, closed, and then deleted. Recognizing this, MathSE reviewers become frustrated and abuse the downvoting process in two ways: [1] The reviewer will immediately downvote, without explanation, and without referring the poster to some article on MathSE protocol. ...see next comment $\endgroup$
    – user2661923
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:38
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    $\begingroup$ Re: "I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA" See this post. $\endgroup$
    – JMoravitz
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:40
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    $\begingroup$ To me, it seems much more reasonable, and courteous to refer the poster to some MathSE protocol article, and then give the poster at least 1 hour to address the defects. [2] MathSE Reviewers will regard the lack of showing work as a blind standard, that ignores whether such a requirement is reasonable for the particular posting. Further, MathSE reviewers will also (occasionally) inexcusably downvote purely out of knee-jerk frustration or bias against certain questions. In short, there is no quality control with respect to downvoting. $\endgroup$
    – user2661923
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:42
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    $\begingroup$ The above duplicate suggestion is for your specific issue of "I have no idea where to start". As far as downvoting goes, that's a subject that's had a long history of discussion on meta - see for instance here, here, etc etc etc. $\endgroup$
    – KReiser
    Nov 6, 2022 at 16:50
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    $\begingroup$ If someone posts a reply saying a question is stupid, or uses any other similarly insulting or hurtful thing, you should use the little flag icon, and flag it as "unfriendly or unkind". Mods are pretty quick (on the order of 15 minutes, which is fast for an all volunteer force) at noting these and deleting such comments. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Nov 6, 2022 at 17:21
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    $\begingroup$ Also, your question pays absolutely zero attention to the people reading and answering questions, or to the goals of the site as a whole. "Helping people with their math problems" is not the primary goal, and if you approach it that way you're going to be disappointed. (People other than me can probably clarify that better than I can, so please ask if you want clarification on those.) $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Nov 6, 2022 at 17:25
  • $\begingroup$ Voting on this question is too unreasonable. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Nov 6, 2022 at 17:32
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    $\begingroup$ @mathlander - On meta, a down vote often mean "I disagree", and not "this is a bad question", the way it does on the main site. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Nov 6, 2022 at 17:38
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    $\begingroup$ @mathlander: I'm not a downvoter on this Question, but you probably know that voting on Meta is different from voting on Main. So I'd be interested in understanding what makes the voting (here?) unreasonable. It may signify disagreement rather than criticism of the content quality. Several people have chimed in, but I've explained how I'm at a loss to do more to help with kathy4k's Questions on Main. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Nov 6, 2022 at 17:40
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    $\begingroup$ I would say that down-voting is not inherently toxic—not even (necessarily) down-voting without explanation. Sometimes a question is so self-evidently "ask-and-run" that the asker deserves no more explanation than they gave as context. ¶ That being said, I tend to be on the conservative side of active users here, in that I generally down-vote questions (especially recently) if I feel the OP is being rudely dismissive. That differs from close-voting a question, which I do if I feel the question is either inherently a misfit here, or is flawed and I don't see improvement as likely. $\endgroup$
    – Brian Tung
    Nov 7, 2022 at 1:50
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    $\begingroup$ If I feel a question is attracting unwarranted down-votes or close-votes (especially the former), I may make a comment about that—with the intention not of castigating the people who have already down-voted, but of encouraging people to think about their down-vote before doing so. ¶ By and large, the active users here are not too unreasonable, but it's useful to keep in mind that anyone who's been here for any length of time has seen way more rudely lazy askers than anyone should have to. Sometimes it just gets on your nerves, and woe to the next asker down the line. $\endgroup$
    – Brian Tung
    Nov 7, 2022 at 1:55
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    $\begingroup$ @BrianTung - nice use of pilcrows. I think I'm going to start doing that too. $\endgroup$
    – JonathanZ
    Nov 8, 2022 at 0:25

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Downvoting is not toxic.

I will admit occasionally I see pretty questionable downvotes, but I never think too much on them. Most, if not the majority, of the time, downvotes are well-justified. People downvote for various reasons: someone is asking a trivial question without showing any research effort or background; the query is irrelevant; the formatting is strange and lacks knowledge of Mathjax/LaTeX; you name it.

To me, it seems like the issue is how you personally handle downvotes. At the risk of being rude, please don't have thin skin and just move on once you realize your mistake. No one on here is trying to offend you. In fact, they are trying to help you by downvoting on what they think is wrong and justifying it in the comments. Once you realize that, then just move on.

I get called out, too. Sometimes I even get downvoted. Me being 23 years old, I imagine I am somewhat younger than most experienced users on this site, so occasionally I get downvoted for having a skeptical answer. But do I take it as hurtful? No, of course not. I read what I did wrong, and either edit or delete my post, depending on how wrong I am. That's all. I've spent my entire life on the internet and gaming an unhealthy amount of years to realize not to take things too seriously.

Also, it is impossible to have "no idea" on how to start a proof. You can at least try something and show it: mention relevant definitions, theorems, corollaries, statements, etc.; do some computational work; link some relevant Wikipedia pages; provide some motivation; at least something. Even if the question is trivial, it is also a good reason to state what your background is. You can look at my questions I have asked on here before for reference, as onerous as they can be.

At the end of the day, you should not be worrying about this ... stuff. You certainly have better things to worry about than seeing a negative number on your computer screen.

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    $\begingroup$ Otoh, it is not too infrequent that some folks downvote for bad reasons, e.g. because they don't like your formatting style (or use of color, or brevity), or your site politics, or they (usually wrongly) suspect you have downvoted them, or they think you should not answer "simple" questions, or they (wrongly) believe you are answering motivated by rep, or you closed or deleted a question they answered, etc, etc. Also, instead of downvoting, some more conservative folks withhold upvotes for the same misguided reasons. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Nov 7, 2022 at 8:39
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    $\begingroup$ I see no reason not to automatically provide a comment that links to your favorite MathSE protocol article, simultaneous with downvoting. That is, if you are burned out leaving a free-formed comment, such as what have you tried. It is so easy to copy/paste such a canned comment. I really don't see the need for anonymous downvotes, where no one has yet commented to the OP a protocol article, or (alternatively) somehow indicated why the question is being regarded as worthy of a downvote. $\endgroup$
    – user2661923
    Dec 5, 2022 at 9:32
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    $\begingroup$ Once such a comment has been left, so the OP has received an explanation, I consider the situation drastically different. Then, I say, downvote away, if you feel that it is appropriate, because the OP has been already notified why the downvotes are occurring. Having the posting downvoted, closed, and (with the closure) only then giving a link to the OP is (in my opinion) unnecessarily rude/discouraging. I am not suggesting that downvotes, or close votes be in any way deterred. $\endgroup$
    – user2661923
    Dec 5, 2022 at 9:35

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