Timeline for The purpose of voting: Teaching users the basics
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 23, 2012 at 18:02 | comment | added | soandos | No, they are not. You are confusing two things I think. One: sometimes people want to downvote, but don't want to use up their votes on this, and two, some people don't think it deserves a downvote at all. To balance these two they use Community to downvote the question. If the expectation was that every person that thinks that the post is off topic should downvote, then every close post should have up to a -5 in the vote count. That is clearly not the case. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 17:19 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | Hmm! It seems the guidelines ARE wrong: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/84978/… | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 17:05 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | Hmm. So by your definition then, I wasn't wrong to post a question that might not be within the FAQ specification, because, as you keep saying, the site "guidelines" are there to be "interpreted"? Right? You can't have it both ways! (And this is the whole point of me having this discussion with you.) The clear guidelines on this site are being ignored/misapplied in some situations, and strictly enforced to the letter in other situations. Either the guidelines are wrong, or people are misusing the tools. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:54 | comment | added | EBGreen | " I feel this indicates a failure of StackEx to educate users on how the site and community is designed to function." - you see it as a failure to educate the community on how you think it should operate. In any community like this there will be differences in opinion. I don't think you are the final arbiter on how the community as a whole should behave, but I suppose it is possible that I am wrong. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:51 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | A third reason? Now it's to reinforce a niggling doubt: That the question was off-topic. And yet the voting system is there to help a user understand that their question has been poorly asked. E.g. It is lacking in research, is too vague, or is unlikely to be of use. This, I might add, isn't about you, or my question, but rather a larger issue I've seen across all the Stack sites. I worry that users are gaining privileges without being properly educated as to how they should be used, and whenever I see problems like this I feel it indicates a failure of StackEx to educate users. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:48 | comment | added | EBGreen | "So you claim that I was aware of doing something wrong, so deserved to be downvoted, but you also claim you were educating me of doing something wrong. It can't be both. Which is it?" - Just helping to confirm and reinforce your feeling that the question was not a good fit for the site. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:47 | comment | added | EBGreen | I am well aware of what is in the FAQ. I also know that there is intentionally a good bit of wiggle room in the interpretation of the site rules. I did flag the question. I just happen to interpret the voting system as a way to show people bad questions period. I'm sorry that this does not fit your interpretation of the site guidelines. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:45 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | So you claim that I was aware of doing something wrong, so deserved to be downvoted, but you also claim you were educating me of doing something wrong. It can't be both. Which is it? | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:41 | comment | added | EBGreen | I don't consider it as justice. I consider it education. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:40 | comment | added | EBGreen | You are correct, but you did know that it was questionable and at best a poor fit. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:40 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | Regardless, the voting system is not here for you to personally administer your version of justice. As someone with 15K across all of the Stack sites, it absolutely boggles my mind that you openly admit to being completely unaware of this. I think it highlights a problem that deserves to be solved: Educating users on the right and wrong ways of using the site. | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:38 | comment | added | Django Reinhardt | That's actually not true. I began my question with the acknowledgement that it might not fit the criteria for this site, but that I would do my best to make it as specific as possible. As no point did I say, "I know I shouldn't be asking this." | |
| Jan 23, 2012 at 16:36 | history | answered | EBGreen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |