Why Are Good Questions Rarely Voted Up?
Case in point: "Spain is not a good place to learn Spanish?"
As questions go, this one was well written, reflective, and very effective: it has drawn more than 550 views and 20 thoughtful and lively responses, (as well as some very humorous ones). The dialog was a delight to read.
Yet the author of the question received only 6 up votes.
Do you have any theories as to why that's so? (It's a common phenomenon.)
It could be that we simply become so wrapped up in composing a response that we simply forget to "thank" the questioner by voting the question up.
10 Answers
I view "up" votes as approval and affirmation. It's human nature to appreciate receiving those from others.
Especially for new members, a sincere and deserved "up" vote for a question (or an answer) may encourage them to become more involved. (Did that for me, anyway!) Seems like a nice welcome to "the family."
The "question and answer" feature is perhaps the richest and surely the most personal part of the site. And when someone (or a whole lot of "someones") answers a specific question of mine, I enjoy showing my appreciation.
And when a stimulating question causes me to think about ideas in a different way, I'll be sure to vote the question up. I enjoy being challenged.
Finally, I thoroughly enjoy the energetic, informative, and often funny dialogs this unique feature provides. There is such a diversity of points of view, and they are always offered in a responsive and pleasant manner. That's unusual; wide open forums often become snarling matches. But never here.
I wonder why someone worries about these things?I have noted similar things but in the grand scope of things it is something I chose not to spend much time thinking about. Given the diversity of this site it is not really an accurate measure of anything and that is ok.
In exchange with Volpon below: As you stated the reward is the dialogue and exchange. Reasons for voting and not voting vary logarithmically with time and number of individuals viewing.I just can't worry about it that much unless someone was threatening my life with the voting process.
I wonder about this too.
Why are there 234 responses to Aloshek's game but only 20 votes for posting such a fun topic?
hmm make it so ppl have to vote but then that would cause some problems
I think the reason that the author posing the question gets voted up less often than those providing an answer is just a matter of basic perception. We perceive the author as getting a reward, he is getting his question answered. The person providing a competent reply get nothing out of sharing his knowledge unless he is voted up, so the tendency is to reward them. The author has already been rewarded with an answer.
This attitude may be changing slowly as more of the "games", "word of the day", "picture of the day" type discussions are posted. In these types of posts the author also gets nothing, since he asked no real question, so the tendency is to reward a creative post as well as a creative reply.
It's a definite problem on this site. A thread that is like "Hey guys what's up?" is an easy 10 votes. A thread like "Cómo no vs Si Cómo no" barely gets any. I don't see a solution.
I often read a question or an answer, even answer it myself. And I vote for it a few minutes/hours, sometimes even a day or two later. Why? Because sometimes re-reading focuses my attention more, I notice important details or the discussion evolved in an interesting way.
I think you hit the nail on the head Volpon about one of the theories. I know for myself, there are times when I become so involved in reading and answering that I forget to vote for the person posting the question. Sometimes I even go back and do it after the fact.
There are other times when after reading a question the first time, I think it might be a valid question, but not vote worthy. Later, after seeing an extremely heated debate or how many answers the question drew, I realize that it is definitely worthy of my vote.
I think there may be others who assume that they are only allowed ten votes per day, but that is not true. You many only receive up to ten points for voting up questions, but you can vote as much as you want.
Good post. I voted for it!
Awe, thanks guys!!
To answer the question, I try to vote up any question that I respond to or that I think was interesting and want to know the answer to myself. I have found that I often forget to vote when I respond but I usually catch it later when I check other answers or look for comments. So, I can see if people aren't as diligent, that voting up is often missed.
One of them that I notice and that bugs me, is Issabela's word and picture of the day threads. I always think there should be as many votes as there are answers, at least and am disappointed to find that it's not the case.
Good point. I gave you a vote for bringing it to everyone´s attention.
