I've seen it throughout SE networks that sometimes the answer to a given question gets much more votes than the question itself (Examples ,  and ).   Is there any reason in particular why this is so? If the answer is useful, why isn't the question that prompted it?  Note: I'm not necessarily speaking about those examples in specific, but the general trend of Q&amp;A on the SE networks
26093
While at least some answers from every question seem to have been up-voted as a "helpful" answer:   about 49% of questions have score of 0 or 1. another 21% of questions have a score of 2.   Most questions seem to have an answer or two with score +5. Is it that we have a lot of fluff questions and not useful ones? Or perhaps it just seems more natural to vote for answers than questions? If we want the most useful info on Stack Overflow to filter to the top, how can this disparity be fixed?  I think this may cause real problems for people getting the badges which require +25 or +100 votes on questions.    I like a lot of the feedback I'm seeing. Two problems are highlighted:   The work flow doesn't promote voting for questions the way it promotes voting for answers. One solution: when a user answers a question, the system should invite them to vote for the question.  If someone cares enough to answer a question, then they care enough to vote for it as well. Users with less than 15 reputation cannot vote for questions or answers. Is this warranted?  Maybe these users could provisionally vote for questions and answers and those ratings would only take effect when the user reaches 15 reputation?   All I ask is this. As you browse Stack Overflow, when you see a good question: vote for it.  If everyone does, then this problem will disappear.
51313
I've noticed a psychological effect with my own voting, and am curious to know whether anyone else sees the same thing. Simply put, if I see a correct or good answer, I don't always upvote it, if the answer has some reasonable number of votes already. Similarly, if a post already has several downvotes, I usually don't bother downvoting further (some sort of "they've been punished enough" logic, I suppose).  I think this is because in my head I'm unconsciously thinking of the number of votes as a 'rating' or 'score' indicating the quality of the answer. I then find myself thinking "this answer is correct, and the best one here, but it's not that great, it's worth about 4 points." So I don't upvote. Although it's hard to disentangle from other variables like number of views or age, I suspect the same effect may be a feature on many of my own answers rated by others - the answer reaches some sort of natural level, as judged by the community... and then sits there, with only very minor subsequent increments.  Since becoming aware of this tendency in myself, I've been thinking more carefully about what the vote represents. There are clear problems with using the number of votes as a quality rating, the most obvious of which is that the scale isn't normalised in size, and is also function of time. But, irrational as it is, I still feel this bias against answers with votes (positive or negative)!  To summarise my question:   Has anyone else experienced this? Do you ever find yourself voting in this way, or should a good answer always receive an upvote? Is there a general consensus on what a vote represents?
118837
I have an answer that I'm certain is technically correct. However, it continues to be downvoted. The answer has already been noted in comments on other answers to be better. It goes more in-depth than the others, yet it continues to be downvoted.  The already upvoted answers were nowhere close initially, and I had already commented on them to say why it is wrong...  Isn't there a limit for that? Shouldn't something be catching this?
35130
I don't know if I'm being paranoid - but earlier I made a comment on a question that showed no research effort:  . I got a rather snarky reply, and a couple of minutes later I noticed that two of my top questions (which are otherwise on completely different topics) received downvotes within a minute of each other.        It is hard not to suspect a connection between these events, especially in light of the tone of follow-up comments made by the OP (who might not have noticed that I helped improve the answer that was ultimately accepted in the mean time).  Not sure if I am being over sensitive or paranoid; should I just move along? "Spiteful downvote" gets quite a few hits on this site, and maybe I am just too new to be immune to it.  My question(s): "Is there a process to reverse such behavior? Do the comments in the above question merit a flag? Should I shrug an move on?" Any words of advice or encouragement appreciated. Sorry if I sound whiny.  update - the question linked above has been removed "for reasons of moderation". Probably a good outcome. I appreciate all the helpful inputs this generated!  edit This is quite different than the question cited as the duplicate: in that one, a person lost reputation because a user was removed; in this case I suspect an individual user down voted two of my top questions in quick succession "out of spite". The message (shown above) in the rep dashboard was quite different... I request this question be re-opened.
5940
Is there ever a case where you would want to accept an answer, but not upvote it?  I can't think of a single situation where this would be the case.. So would it not make sense to have the "Accept" button upvote the answer too?
99095
I've been lurking Stack Overflow whenever I had a problem for at least the last 2+ years. More times than not, I find my solution (or cobble one together) before I get frustrated enough to have the innernets help me with my specific custom problem.  Many times, the only commentary I would be able to add would be "thanks!" which really only wastes bits and bandwidth.  I understand implementing measures to keep the bots and SEO kids out, but sometimes it's a PITA to start participating in a community.  If you couldn't extract my question from the above rant (or title), this might be a little more clear:  Why do I require 15 reps to just up-vote something?  I feel like it's kinda silly.  Additionally, I noticed the quote off to the left:     We prefer questions that can be answered, not just discussed.   yet I have looked around here and haven't been able to find any justifiable explanation.
23185
How should SO handle users who don't "maintain" their questions by selecting answers, or remarking newer/better answers as the chosen one?  Many questions...   Have no answer marked correct, even when one is plainly there Are not reviewed by the poster to select a new correct answer   I don't mind taking the time to answer questions, but don't see the point when I don't get "reputation" for doing so since no one reads those questions, and reputation seems to be the point of the site.  I think the "remind to accept an answer" feature is there now, since I just saw it when coming back.  I missed it the first time though.
17378
Possible Duplicate:          The idea of getting greater privileges with greater reputation is good, but what is the benefit of publicly displaying that reputation? Since SO claims to be about good questions and answers, that purpose is better served if the reputation is only visible to the account owner (and, of course, the site admins). This would better ensure that content gets pushed up solely by its merit, and not based on the author. (See )   Edit (copied from comment to an answer below): Once you have gathered high reputation, you can also gather more reputation with ordinary answers, especially from newbies (newbies on the topic, not on the site) who usually choose to accept or upvote an answer on the assumption that "since a high-rep user has posted it, it is probably right". Can you guarantee that doesn't happen often?
26803
Almost every time a colleague of mine asks a question, we have discussed this problem beforehand. Also, we sometimes meta-discuss the question for stackoverflow (why did I get the &quot;this might be subjective&quot; warning, is this understandable enough, etc). This is less so with answers, but I could believe for some groups this works the same. For now I'll stick to questions, but you could s/question/answer if you like. The resulting question is almost always  Interesting for me, and a problem I don't know the answer to. I probably would favorite it According to me a valid and good question (as we talked about it beforehand) I would probably want to upvote it.  Now I believe to read that &quot;ring voting&quot; is a thing, and I tried to find some questions about this, but didn't find many. I did find and read this blogpost from 2008:  . It reads to me that upvoting 'fraud' is more commonplace then downvoting and it might seem anomalous that I would upvote almost all questions from one user. If all colleagues would do this to their team, you'd get some mediocre questions getting a lot of votes, and some users getting a lot of attention, points etc from that. If you would -as seems to be done -, sort the amount of upvotes for my colleague, you'd get me being 'anomalous' in front of the crowd. On the other hand, as explained above, I do want to upvote almost all stuff some of my colleagues put on here for (I believe) the right reasons: they are questions I consider good and interesting. It's just that I know of all their questions (as they tell me about them), which obviously isn't the case for a random user. So what is the deal?  When is upvoting content from one user frowned upon? Would my usecase be in danger of being a (what I consider 'false') positive for the fraud-detection? (and would you agree with that or not) How to prevent this false positive (if you agree with me it is one, otherwise this is a moot question) -&gt; As noted in the comments: I'm not looking for tricks, so an answer could be &quot;don't vote for your colleagues&quot;. I agree that there should be no to 'tricks' around that could be used for real fraud of course
64937
I have a situation where I'm trying to figure out what the right thing to do is on SO.    I see a question.  I answer the question.  I see there are a couple other answers.  One answers the question well, though with less explanation than my answer.  The other answer seems both wrong and irrelevant to the question (doesn't answer the question at all).  I comment to that effect.  The "wrong" part is edited out, but the author of the answer doesn't respond to how their answer actually answers the question.  In fact, they seem offended that I don't "get" it.  After giving them several chances to explain how their answer is relevant to the question and seeing their attitude, I decide to downvote their answer as I don't see how it addresses the question at all and the author won't explain.  They retaliate and downvote my answer and admit in their comments that their downvote of my answer has nothing to do with the content of my answer and only because they don't like me disputing their answer.  Did I do the right thing by downvoting their answer?  Do I just have to live with their downvote retaliation?  Anything I should have done differently?  I also have no way of knowing this for sure, but the next question I answered was upvoted, then downvoted so perhaps this same person is stalking my answers and downvoting other answers of mine too with no comment.  As long as this doesn't continue, I'm not losing sleep over a couple downvotes, but I do wonder if I should have done anything differently.  Followup Later After I Posted This Question: After thinking about it for a little while, the person who disagreed with me decided to delete their post.  So, eventually the message did get through to them.  I don't know if they rescinded their downvote or not (or if they even could).
114716
Today I've got 10 upvotes for an answer. Answer was a first answer in the question. I got an Nice Answer badge for this, but no Enlightened badge.  Shouldn't I get both?  is my answer :)
119786
As I understand it, the concept of reputation is to give the user a sense of trust in the person answering the question.   On that note I find many users who's reputations are very high, but its from asking questions and getting up voted and not from providing other users with answers. At this point it is misleading unless you go to the users profile and investigate where their reputation is coming from.  Should there be a split between, answering reputation and asking a question reputation?  just throwing it out there.  EDIT:  i did not say to entirely get rid of reputation from asking questions.  I am merely suggesting a separation in the two. A reputation for answering and a reputation for asking good questions. This way you can differentiate quickly.  If its strictly for the system, then why display it after each users name?
17532
These 2 questions have clearly wrong answers with upvotes. And they're still getting votes.  The log file one especially could be tried out, it would fail, but someone still voted it up. A downvote and comment has no effect.  Like we have "vote to close", what about a "vote to delete" for answers. I'd suggest a fairly high rep limit. Or badge ownership realting to the question tags (eg SQL Server)   (SF)   (SO)  Could be similar to this meta question:
93743
I think the weighting of answers to questions is too lopsided in favor of answers.   I routinely pose questions such as this one: , which gets many upvoted answers but then my question doesn't get upvoted. That doesn't make sense to me.   Can somebody explain this Q/A weighting imbalance?
62041
A good question will receive many answers, and much more views than normal.    This level of activity is not reflected in the upvoting of said question. I recently encountered several such questions, which until I pointed this in the comments () stayed in the lower 0-2 upvotes.    My two suggestions:   Automatically upvote any question you answer, with the ability to cancel this up-vote. This makes sense to me, as I answer only questions I like/are good (and I suppose others too). Display popup message similar to:       Have you considered upvoting this question?    Addressing comments given so far: Answers do not mean a question is good, but it does imply you have an opinion on it. So why not prompt any one who answers to express their opinion by voting? (Similar to what happens when you upvote an answer to your own question).
78072
I wrote a question today that, thus far, has received five answers (plus one from me) and zero upvotes. That's fine, it happens. But, this irks me a little, someone actually bookmarked it and (unless someone downvoted me) didn't upvote the question. I realize the criteria for upvoting is &quot;clear and useful&quot; not &quot;interesting enough to bookmark&quot;, but I don't think I've ever bookmarked a question without upvoting it. You obviously like the question enough that you'd like to be able to return to it later, so I think in most cases, an upvote is in order. I wonder if SO could provide one of those little pop-up reminders suggesting you upvote a question if you bookmark it.  Edit: I am thinking something along the lines of:  If you think this question is clear and useful, please consider upvoting it.  So, just a little encouragement to act nicely if it's deserved.
81187
I was really surprised with the way Stack Overflow question  was answered. One user had posted two answers ( and ) instead of using the "Edit" option on any one of the posts. The most surprising thing is the upvotes. The answers posted by the user got three upvotes for both of the answers. Is this the correct way of using the answering mechanism?  Please provide your thoughts.