-7

Let us say that a question is attracting down-votes because of being off-topic / no research effort / recommendation or any other reason for that matter.

How many down-votes can be considered enough "down-votes"? I have seen some questions with lots of down-votes. What is the point of down-voting a question over and over.

For example, I would not look into a question with more than X downvotes as I would assume that people have looked into it and it is not worthy to take another look at it.

Is there a need to stop this down-vote frenzy especially in the cases like the one I cited above? I'm not aware of any automated procedure where poor questions get removed once they have repulsed enough.

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  • 2
    I would argue that if it is a terrible or dangerous answer there are never enough downvotes.
    – Burgi
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 11:32
  • 1
    How many downvotes? I'd say that question needs at least one more.
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 12:46
  • @TwistyImpersonator This is a general discussion. I took that example because it had the highest down votes (-33). But would (-5) not tell you that it is bad enough?
    – Prasanna
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 14:22
  • I think -33 indicates a much worse question than -5. Therefore I don't think there's a floor for downvoting, lest we lose the ability to distinguish how much worse one question is from another.
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 14:24
  • Users are encouraged to vote. The entire concept is based on users who generated questions and users who generate answers. One requirement to determine which questions are helpful, and which answers to those questions are helpful, is for the community users issue votes. If a contribution is unhelpful a downvote should be issued and the author should improve it. If no improvements can be made then it should be deleted by the community. The author performed an edit war, so in order to indicate that behavior is not acceptable, more then the normal amount of downvotes were issued.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 18:59
  • I suspect this question will attract downvoters who want to see if they can exceed your example. Human nature.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 5:08
  • @fixer1234 I know I did... >.>
    – Michael Frank
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 5:16
  • @MichaelFrank.. Nice touch... :-)
    – Prasanna
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 6:10
  • Being able to further downvote things seems to be a good exercise in proving the "relativity of wrong". A few downvotes is "just wrong", 33 downvotes is so wrong that we cannot shout loudly enough just how wrong it is. It's the difference in saying that "the earth is flat" (which it is when measured over a small distance) and "the earth is a perfect sphere", it might be close but it isn't actually a sphere. One of these things is more wrong than the other.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 15:08
  • @Mokubai What an analogy with the "earth is flat" thing... Superb!
    – Prasanna
    Commented Feb 2, 2018 at 6:01
  • Some questions become "interesting", just by the fact that many users consider and tag them as "bad". The internet can be a sterile and boring place. And finding an ugly, whiny, impolite, and badly written question (which has neither been blocked nor removed) can make my day. Especially if there are pretty, charming, polite, well written and helpful answers to that bad question. So for me there is no "enough-concept" with this system of voting. And on a whim, I do sometimes have a look at the baddies.
    – Martin Zaske
    Commented Feb 3, 2018 at 10:08

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

There's no over and over - there's multiple people downvoting - and its one of those situations where I suspect the downvotes are for the the fact that OP's kind of being a little self entitled, and trying to do an end run around security. Its made worse by him referring to his network admin rather unkindly

And there's nothing really wrong with the answers. In a different situation, a better written, kinder question with the same rough content might have been better received too.

I'd rather not deprive users who posted good answers there of reputation, current and future, cause the person who asked his question couldn't have a little tact in his original question.

5
  • I did not know how to word that - and - I wrote over and over. But do you think people down voting say more than X times adds value to others or community in general?
    – Prasanna
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 11:43
  • I just now went through the revision history of the question... I can't believe people can write such things
    – Prasanna
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 11:44
  • 1
    No, the answers do. And the revision history is both the reason for the downvotes, and why wiping the slate seems... wrong...
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 11:47
  • Sorry to add more to the discussion. Just as bad question are bad enough to received "enough" down votes, I came across this [question] with enough up-votes which has been voted close as off-topic.. which clearly is an irony
    – Prasanna
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 14:23
  • Its SO. The law of averages means occationally strange things happen there.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 14:29

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