3 ms·

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 '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.

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.