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I answered a question and got downnvoted for answering a newbie question.

Sahhaese 8y ago
My 'best' answer is an answer to a question which received downvotes and was almost deleted because it was badly asked. The question submitter never returned, my answer is left "unaccepted" and the submitter has never had any other activity on the site. Despite that, the question has had ~15k views earning the submitter the 'famous question' badge. My answer was never 'accepted' so it doesn't have 'famous answer' badge but the ~30 up votes it has had has given me over half my SO karma. Instead of taking the time to understand the question actually being asked, others just downvoted the both of us and moved on. SO answers shouldn't be allowed to be marked as duplicate. If someone is asking then either they failed to find the "duplicate" based on their search terms, or their problem is subtly different and the other answer doesn't help, or they don't understand the other answer. In all those cases, just marking duplicate and closing the "duplicate" doesn't help anyone.
- linuxftw 8y ago
  > If someone is asking then either they failed to find the "duplicate" based on their search terms, or their problem is subtly different and the other answer doesn't help, or they don't understand the other answer. Or they didn't bother searching possibly? I think the 'up-vote only' model might be helpful for SO. If 1000 people down vote, but 100 people up vote, who's vote should carry more weight? Obviously, 100 people found the question/answer useful, so it's not useless. Whereas, we don't get a lot of value from a down vote, just that each individual that down voted didn't find the information useful/relevant. If it's indeed a duplicate, well maybe it is, but perhaps the new question is a better version of the question (more/less generic/specific depending on context).
  - samfisher83 8y ago
    A lot of the close questions have like 1000s of viewed so people were looking for an answer.
  - everfree 8y ago
    The down vote button on SO is supposed to be for posts that you believe nobody will get value from because they are confusing or wrong, not that you personally didn't get any value from. It's misused though.
throwaway23787 8y ago
I asked a newbie question recently as I was working with an unfamiliar programming language (EDIT: and could not find an answer to the question already on the site). I got nothing but comments, where one was an actual answer, and the rest were condescending and often technically incorrect. I made use of the answer, and deleted the question, in order to clear the downvotes from my own (top 20%) account. I guess the proper strategy for answering noob questions is to put the content in a comment where (I think) it cannot be downvoted.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Why delete because of downvotes? I'm a top 8%, and my top karma producer is an answer that is technically wrong, but is useful to some people. It's fun watching the fighting upvotes/downvotes. It's currently at +124 / -58. But an upvote is worth +10, a downvote -2, so...
  - throwaway23787 8y ago
    It was net negative (1 downvote, no upvotes), and the first comment was someone "schooling" me on an account with my actual name on it, which I don't particularly want as part of my public presentation. EDIT: Actually looking back it was just the one person with the condescending response, but the comment got two upvotes.
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      At least on HN, nothing attracts upvotes faster than a bad downvote. I know myself if I see a grey comment that I don't think should be grey I upvote it even in cases I wouldn't otherwise upvote. But that grey comment would have been shown to a bunch of people...
- samfisher83 8y ago
  You can't down vote comments. SO is pretty toxic even with their newer policy. All downvotes should be public.

My 'best' answer is an answer to a question which received downvotes and was almost deleted because it was badly asked. The question submitter never returned, my answer is left "unaccepted" and the submitter has never had any other activity on the site. Despite that, the question has had ~15k views earning the submitter the 'famous question' badge. My answer was never 'accepted' so it doesn't have 'famous answer' badge but the ~30 up votes it has had has given me over half my SO karma. Instead of taking the time to understand the question actually being asked, others just downvoted the both of us and moved on. SO answers shouldn't be allowed to be marked as duplicate. If someone is asking then either they failed to find the "duplicate" based on their search terms, or their problem is subtly different and the other answer doesn't help, or they don't understand the other answer. In all those cases, just marking duplicate and closing the "duplicate" doesn't help anyone.

linuxftw 8y ago
> If someone is asking then either they failed to find the "duplicate" based on their search terms, or their problem is subtly different and the other answer doesn't help, or they don't understand the other answer. Or they didn't bother searching possibly? I think the 'up-vote only' model might be helpful for SO. If 1000 people down vote, but 100 people up vote, who's vote should carry more weight? Obviously, 100 people found the question/answer useful, so it's not useless. Whereas, we don't get a lot of value from a down vote, just that each individual that down voted didn't find the information useful/relevant. If it's indeed a duplicate, well maybe it is, but perhaps the new question is a better version of the question (more/less generic/specific depending on context).
- samfisher83 8y ago
  A lot of the close questions have like 1000s of viewed so people were looking for an answer.
- everfree 8y ago
  The down vote button on SO is supposed to be for posts that you believe nobody will get value from because they are confusing or wrong, not that you personally didn't get any value from. It's misused though.

throwaway23787 8y ago

I asked a newbie question recently as I was working with an unfamiliar programming language (EDIT: and could not find an answer to the question already on the site). I got nothing but comments, where one was an actual answer, and the rest were condescending and often technically incorrect. I made use of the answer, and deleted the question, in order to clear the downvotes from my own (top 20%) account. I guess the proper strategy for answering noob questions is to put the content in a comment where (I think) it cannot be downvoted.

bryanlarsen 8y ago
Why delete because of downvotes? I'm a top 8%, and my top karma producer is an answer that is technically wrong, but is useful to some people. It's fun watching the fighting upvotes/downvotes. It's currently at +124 / -58. But an upvote is worth +10, a downvote -2, so...
- throwaway23787 8y ago
  It was net negative (1 downvote, no upvotes), and the first comment was someone "schooling" me on an account with my actual name on it, which I don't particularly want as part of my public presentation. EDIT: Actually looking back it was just the one person with the condescending response, but the comment got two upvotes.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    At least on HN, nothing attracts upvotes faster than a bad downvote. I know myself if I see a grey comment that I don't think should be grey I upvote it even in cases I wouldn't otherwise upvote. But that grey comment would have been shown to a bunch of people...
samfisher83 8y ago
You can't down vote comments. SO is pretty toxic even with their newer policy. All downvotes should be public.