I recently asked a Meta question about a Stack Overflow UI that was confusing in my opinion. I was taken aback that it got 5 downvotes -- more than I've ever gotten on a Stack Overflow question.

I don't think it was badly researched, unclear or not helpful. Of course, that is just me. But certainly it is better than some of my questions on the regular site that didn't attract such negative attention.

Does the community have higher standards on the Meta site? If so, perhaps there should be a warning for newbies on Meta that they should thoroughly research before posting.

EDIT Indeed there are other discussions of voting culture. I wanted more to discuss the voting interface, including instructions, tooltips, etc., and (given the different culture) whether it needs to be changed to match what the community requires.

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    Very related: I posted about this just today: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/381212/… – mag Mar 13 '19 at 17:26
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    I think it was unclear, at least for the 1st revision that was un-edited for an hour. With a balanced score at the moment I would say you do fine for a bug report. – rene Mar 13 '19 at 17:30
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    It was unclear in part because I didn't know how the UI was supposed to work, and I thought that that was a germane topic for discussion. As @Magisch notes, I feel that people are using the downvote on meta for "contrary to community consensus" but justifying it as "bad research"... probably there should be an explicit way to vote on the content rather than disguise it as a vote on the form. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:33
  • If you didn't know how the UI was supposed to work, maybe asking how it was supposed to work instead of filing a bug would have been advisable. As it was, between an unclear question and the bug tag, I can see some users willing to downvote it. – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:44
  • @yivi -- I didn't file a bug -- it was a discussion question. You are the one who edited it to put in the bug tag. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:44
  • Also bear in mind that votes are casted much more liberally in meta. Posts can get many more votes than in main, up and down. – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:45
  • It wasn't me. I didn't add or remove any tags to your question. But even if it was tagged discussion, it was very unclear. Someone must have tagged it a "bug" while trying to make sense of it. – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:46
  • @yivi -- yes, indeed: that is evidence for -- echoing Magisch -- supposing that they voting on the content of the question more than the form because they are more invested in it. Yet the voting is not supposed to be about content. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:48
  • @yivi Ah -- sorry -- saw you edited it assumed it was you who changed the tag at the same time. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:49
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    the voting is not supposed to be about content? what? – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:49
  • "badly researched" "unclear" "not useful" -- I'm calling form. "expresses an opinion about the UI that we disagree with" -- I call content. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:51
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    @jpp -- I am not saying that people who have invested a lot of time shouldn't be opinionated. I am just saying that (because they don't have another quick way of expressing their opinion than voting) they are misusing the voting buttons. The meta stack should have OTHER voting buttons that are more like GitHub tags ("wont fix" "not a bug" "feature request"... etc) that experienced meta users could use. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:56
  • When your title is in the form of a question, people often use up/downvotes to signal yes/no. "Shouldn't the question asker's duplicate close vote be authoritative?" People who think yes will upvote, and people who think no will downvote. The vote total thus shows the feeling of the community on the subject. – user1228 Mar 13 '19 at 18:42
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    define standards... I mean, if you ask a question that is poorly researched, an obvious dupe, it's more likely to end up closed here on meta because meta is frequented by people who are more than willing to use the tools in front of them. That isn't always true on SO main, so, you may find it handled less strictly in some cases on SO main. I wouldn't necessarily consider that a difference in standards. – Kevin B Mar 13 '19 at 18:53
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    @davym doesn't matter what the system says it's functions are for, they are used by human beings who tend not to think too hard about whether agreement by upvote makes sense or not. – user1228 Mar 13 '19 at 19:28

The "standards" are the same. But there are different voting patterns, as there are differences in voting patterns between any two parts of the site.

Voting culture not only varies from meta to the main site, it varies from tag community to tag community. But even within communities you will find different voting standards for different kinds of questions, and even for the same tag and the same kind of question you willl find variance.

Because in the end it comes to this:

Nevermind the meta is different spiel, the only guidance that really, really matters are the tooltips for the voting buttons.

Voting is an expression of a personal opinion: if a user finds a post useful, clear, and well researched; they can upvote. The opposite to any of these things? They can downvote.

As long as they are not engaging in voting fraud (part of a voting ring, targeting a user, etc.) all votes are legitimate (that's a concern you raised in a comment to me earlier on).

On meta voting patterns are logically different: there are less posts per user, and a more liberal attitude regarding votes. Since they do not impact reputation in any way, users are liable to use them more freely. Note that not only you've got more downvotes than you usually have in your posts in main: you also had more upvotes than you normally get. That's meta for you, more votes all around. A post receiving dozens of votes (up or down) is not unusual here, where it's the exception in main.

Instead of trying to divine the voting culture that justified the downvotes to your posts, you should just think that someone thought that that your post wasn't all that great. It's always a good excercise. If you really can't find anything wrong with your post... well, think harder. There are always things that other users may object.

Trying to imagine those is a great way to improve.

As a practical example:

I've got a downvote (so far) to the answer to the question you linked. I have no way to really know what the downvoter actually thought, and I do think my post is OK and should be useful to you and hopefully someone else, but some other user thought that it wasn't.

  • Maybe they thought I didn't link to any documentation to back-up my claims.
  • Maybe they thought I didn't have enough authority to answer something that could be classed as a bug
  • Maybe they thought that my thoughts about the post being classified as either a bug or a FR weren't really useful.

Etc, etc, etc. I could go on. I could use all these speculation on the reasons for a single downvote to improve this post, or maybe to post better posts in the future.

A similar excercise will probably be needed when I get downvotes on this answer. So we learn and grow.

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  • Indeed, deciding to post as well as vote is ultimately a matter of personal opinion, However, on the main site, questions are flagged as subjective, and voting is also supposed to be somewhat objective -- I'm fine with different standards of leniency. On meta, it's different: some voting is legitimately subjective. Its not just community culture, it's the nature of the subject matter. My objection isn't that "subjective" voting happens, but that you use exactly the same UI for it -- Seem my longer answer below. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 21:13
  • Great answer as to what someone can do, but unfortunately doesn't actually answer the question. The suggestion is the question posed is an XY problem ("culture is irrelevant..what really should concern you is how to improve your question.."), I do think the question as it stands is answerable directly. Culture is important, it's what drives how we interact and changes to the environment (user base). – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 22:18

Yes, the standards are different

Let's separate theory and practice.

In theory, the standards are the same. Your question should be clear and well-researched, irrespective of whether you are posting on Meta.SO or Main.SO. Similarly, a question posted on Meta.SE should meet the same standards as one posted on Meta.SO.

In practice, Meta.SO culture is different to Main.SO culture. In fact, from experience even different tags in Main.SO exhibit different cultures. A certain standard may suffice for a question in (which attracts much low quality content), yet the same standard may be insufficient for .

Is this a problem?

Yes and no. The standards across tags on Main.SO are different partially for a reason: users of are on average more seasoned programmers more demanding than those of . Hence, whether we agree or not, standards have evolved to reflect the user base.

For Meta.SO specifically, I class this as a problem because I strongly believe Meta.SO should be a valuable resource for new users to find direction and advice. A culture defined and enforced by regulars that alienates new users is not good for Meta.SO. In other words, Meta.SO doesn't serve new users, which should comprise a large portion of its user base.

Meta.SE is better

Somehow, Meta.SE has got it right. The ratio of answerers to policemen is higher. Once when my post was instantly dismissed on Meta.SO, I took the identical question to Meta.SE and got a direct answer within 15 minutes rather than a stream of vague and accusatory comments on why my question is so bad. Others here have noticed the same difference. My advice for new users is to post on Meta.SE.

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  • A case in point -- this very question has attracted two negative votes as of now.(and your answer has one so far). I presume they are expressing their opinion that Meta.SO is ok as is. But they are using a button whose requirements are that question must be "badly researched unclear or not useful" Perhaps they think that, given SO is ok, it is not useful to question it. I think the standards around that button should be better explained and there should be another way for them to express their opinions other than the downvote for bad question. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 18:18
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    @shaunc, From experience, no amount of guidance helps here. There's a heavy bias towards downvoting Meta questions which I would class as perfectly fine and probably upvote. There are even some who openly claim that Meta is for regulars. Probably the culture will change, but it will take time or require a concerted effort. – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 18:21
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    You said: "users of c are on average more seasoned programmers than those of python". In my experience, this isn't true at all. Do you have anything other than personal experience to support this claim? – Pika the Wizard of the Whales Mar 13 '19 at 19:02
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    @SupaMegaDuckyMomodaWaffle I always thought c was the entry level and seasoned would be those that progressed to c++ ... – rene Mar 13 '19 at 21:37
  • @SupaMegaDuckyMomodaWaffle, This vs this. At the time of writing, 25% of the Python questions are downvoted vs 50% of the C questions. But look at the questions themselves too if you need further convincing. It's certainly not because the Python questions are so much better. – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 22:17
  • That doesn't mean C programmers are "more seasoned programmers" than python programmers. It probably means there are more python users unfamiliar with the site who have questions that get downvoted. But that certainly doesn't mean that C programmers are better than python ones. – Pika the Wizard of the Whales Mar 14 '19 at 3:26
  • @SupaMegaDuckyMomodaWaffle, I've changed the wording of my answer; I hope it's to your satisfaction, though it doesn't affect the core argument. – jpp Mar 14 '19 at 9:15

To answer the broad question posed:

You do need to do your research on a subject matter before posing a question. At best, this will allow you to avoid getting your question closed as a dupe and making you feel/look ridiculous.

To answer the specific question:

Your original question could have been argued that there wasn't exactly complete context. I don't think that there's a lot of impetus to actually downvote the question to be honest; it may have been that five or six people lost their keys.

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The standards for research on meta should be just the same as on main. Poorly researched questions will be downvoted.

In this case however, it appears that your question is researched, so we are left to guess as to why voters voted.

I can say however, that it took me a few readings to really understand that you were indeed not whining about duplicate system, nor rejecting the closure of one of your questions. Had I been trigger happy, maybe I would have voted against that.

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  • The standards for research on meta are just the same as on main. Practice is different to theory. How that question attracted 5 downvotes is beyond me. It's nuanced, yes, but entirely reasonable. – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 17:32
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    @jpp Obviously, 5 users thought that the question was either poorly researched, unclear, or unuseful. I don't agree with them, but imagining why someone would vote in a way that I don't agree with is certainly not beyond me. Many users have high expectation of posts tagged as bugs, which I can understand. As developers, we can be sensitive around spurious bug reports. (All that, I upvoted and answered the question in question, for what it's worth). – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:35
  • @yivi, Well, that's 2 of us who think it's not poorly researched. I've yet to hear a reason why it is poorly researched. – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 17:38
  • As I said above -- isn't it plausible that people didn't like the implied change to behavior, and downvoted it as unclear or badly researched because of this? I feel there should be some other way of letting them express their opinion. On the regular site no one is so emotionally involved in some third-party's bug. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 17:38
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    @jpp Votes are not supposed to be explained, so you may never hear why those 5 users voted one way or another. The first revision was quite a bit worse than what exists now, so I think that even you could agree someone could have had thought it was worth a downvote. – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:41
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    Agreed @jpp, practice is different from theory, I've phrased that slightly differently. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Mar 13 '19 at 17:44
  • @yivi, Even the original question seemed reasonable to me. Of course the screenshot helps to show the issue, but isn't strictly necessary to understand the question. If a question is unclear, it should get a close vote for being unclear. But nobody bothered to do that. – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 17:47
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    @jpp. Let’s agree to disagree. I can imagine someone downvoting that revision. You can’t. That’s it. And votes and close votes are not exclusive. Both can be used on the same post. By the same or different users. – yivi Mar 13 '19 at 17:59
  • @FélixGagnon-Grenier your question has gotten 4 downvotes as well -- whether or not my question was badly phrased, I think these downvotes are clear evidence that people are using the downvote question for "I disagree". There should be some other way for them to do that, and some way of auditing for abusing "not useful" button for "I disagree". – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 18:25
  • @yivi -- whatever you think of the original question, surely you should be convinced that the downvotes in this thread are not for legitimate reasons? – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 18:28
  • @shaunc Oh, I don't see that as a problem. Actually, on a meta answer, and to a degree, downvotes are specifically there to express disagreement, or technical inaccuracy. I have absolutely no problem with seeing that content be downvoted. Neither should you. I am not the words posted on this page. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Mar 13 '19 at 18:29
  • @FélixGagnon-Grenier ... hmm... technical inaccuracy is certainly a reason to downvote. "I disagree" for reasons of taste, etc. should not be, as downvotes are a means of censorship. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 18:32
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    "[...] downvotes are a means of censorship." What do you mean? Why is that? Social media platform made the marketting decision of preventing people from actually "downvoting" stuff, and I believe that is a large blow to human intelligence. Yet people grow accustomed to it, and sometimes we get clashes when someone expects their content to be all likes on here as it would be on twitter when they rant about genders. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Mar 13 '19 at 18:33
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    @shaunc You are not completely wrong, heavily negatively scored answers are grayed out and pushed to the bottom (when ordering by vote). That's not censorship to me, as much as signal handling. – Félix Gagnon-Grenier Mar 13 '19 at 18:45
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    @shaunc: And how exactly would that work? So long as votes are not reviewed, people can vote however they want. So if it is someone's intent to "suppress" such opinions, then they will simply use the other voting button. And if enough of them have the same intent, then the post will be "suppressed". It should also be noted that "my opinion is different" is not generally what people mean when they downvote. They mean "your opinion is wrong". Now yes, it's their opinion that your opinion is wrong, but that's what they are expressing, not merely being different. – Nicol Bolas Mar 13 '19 at 18:58

It's not different research standards, it is different voting habits.

The standard of research on the main site is enforced through feedback mechanisms such as reputation loss and question/answer bans. The system will simply not let you get too many downvotes; you will be blocked if you try.

On the contrary, on meta there is no reputation loss, and bans are so lax that are very hard to reach. On meta you can "earn" quite a lot of downvotes, and there won't be any negative consequences.

This means that the semantics of the votes are different. On main, it means

You shouldn't have posted this, if you keep doing this you'll get banned.

On meta it may mean several things such as

I disagree / bored of this topic / doesn't make sense / you really don't know this?? (for support questions) / please don't implement this!! (for feature requests).

Personally I have been downvoted on practically all my meta posts, but practically none of my main posts. 15(!) of my meta posts currently have a negative score, many double-digit. In my opinion, these were all on-topic, but people disagreed with the opinions presented.

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  • Is that true -- there is a functional difference (reputation loss vs no reputation loss)? That certainly isn't clear from the UI. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 18:56
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    @shaunc: There is no reputation on meta, the number displayed is your reputation on main SO. You earn separate badges though. – user000001 Mar 13 '19 at 18:57
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    @DavyM: "their post is likely not well asked" Citation needed. The correllation with post score is much stronger for agreement/disagreement than it is for well asked/not well asked. Indeed, the only example I can come up with where this isn't the case is this very recent question – Nicol Bolas Mar 13 '19 at 18:59

From what I've gleaned from the conversation:

There is a difference in semantics

  • The instructions explicitly say that voting is different on meta -- in feature requests voting can indicate agreement or disagreement.

  • While questions can get closed for being too subjective on main SO, how SO works (the subject of meta SO) is necessarily partly a matter of opinion and taste.

Nevertheless, people disagree about how voting does and should work

  • Some people insist that that there isn't a difference
  • Some think that people are using the same tools to do the same thing, but are just "using them harder".
  • Some people think that its unfortunate that voting is used in a way that excludes newbies
  • Some are fine with using voting buttons to agree/disagree
  • At least one person is fine with using voting buttons for agree/disagree for answers but not for questions

In my opinion, the UI is unclear

As there is a difference, you shouldn't have exactly the same UI to express different semantics.

Possible resolutions

  1. Put up an overlay with explanation/warning for newbies, and change the tooltip to explicitly reference the legitimacy of agree/disagree for voting button use.

  2. When downvoting, have a popover which differentiates between "baldy posed" and "I disagree" -- with an "Info/help" icon which leads to explanation as to why this is here and why Meta is different. (On agreement, no need for similar as if you agree you also think question was well posed.)

  3. Optional extension of 2. On disagreement, allow for selection of badge "too complex" "inconsistent" ... etc. that can also be voted on.

IMHO 2. is the best way to go. While humans aren't always very good at separating objective from subjective, its important. As the rest of SO strives for (a measure of) objectivity, the UI should allow for its demarkation where it is legitimate.

EDIT In 2. I need to address tallying as well. I suggest that, to keep the UI as simple as possible, there is one set of voting buttons -- only for "badly posed"/"good question". (For Meta only) a separate set of badges -- perhaps right justified on the same line as the tags would be for agree/disagree (with count). Perhaps they would be greyed out until there was at least (some?) upvotes, and also not active for inexperienced meta users.

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    There is one point that keeps bothering me in all these discussions about the up voters and the down voters: I'm not stupid, I'm a grown up that is perfectly capable of making a judgement call on when to click a button in either direction. I don't need extra warnings, bells and whistles because someone else has the opinion that I use my votes wrong. I assume you post in good faith, why is it so hard to accept that I vote in good faith? – rene Mar 13 '19 at 21:35
  • I'm not trying to delegitimatize voting. I am pointing out that its being used for two separate purposes, This very thread exhibits it: voting is "de jure" (with the exception of feature requests) for "poor vs good question/answer" -- ie bad form or useful. "de facto" it is used to express opinion -- very clearly both in the votes themselves and as "admitted to" in the comments in the thread. I'm saying these two different purposes (sometimes overlapping to be sure) should be distinguished in the UI. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 22:02
  • @rene -- if you read through this thread, you'll see the issue is confused. People disagree what is legitimate. They also disagree whether others are using it legitimately. These are two separate issues, but in my mind they spring from an ambiguous UI. Not from "bad culture" per se. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 22:08
  • @shaunc, Seriously, I don't think it matters what tooltip or advice you give. Meta is full of cynics who auto-downvote good questions. They may get thrills from putting down new users, or have their own agenda ("this is my club, how dare a newbie post here!?!"). – jpp Mar 13 '19 at 22:28
  • Using the buttons correctly is difficult when in some cases it is legitimate to use them for opinion in some cases not. With apologies to Greek users, its like paying taxes in Greece (or was that way -- don't know how reforms are going) -- doing it the right way was difficult and expensive, so everyone accepted that everyone else was cheating a little but each had a different standard for how much was acceptable. SO Meta will traffic in opinions. It should have a way to vote Agree/Disagree separate from regular downvote. – shaunc Mar 13 '19 at 22:40

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