But newbies may have other reasons for upvoting besides “perfect quality answer”. It might be "this may not be the best answer in the world, but it I learned something useful from it. Unless we require “why” on every Up/Down vote (which has been discussed and I don’t think is going to happen), you can’t guess what is going on in someone’s head when they vote on a question or answer. Plus, “new to the system” does not necessarily mean “new to the subject matter” or “inexperienced”.
This may sound harsh, but telling others that “you learned something” from a post or that you for some reason simply liked it turns it into an equivalent of Facebook-likes, which IMHO is rather pointless. If a newbie thinks (which may be true or false) that they have learned something from a post does not give any useful information to other readers. On the contrary, it’s directly harmful if the post is bad.
If we should display votes, we should also define what the votes actually mean, make that definition meaningful in some way, and make sure (or at least strive for) that users know what voting means and votes accordingly.
Votes on SE are not intended to be some “like”-equivalent. Granted, the instructions are a bit vague. On answers it’s “This answer is useful”. It’s a bit vague, but it’s more than a regular like on social media.
That is true. In the same way, not having a driver license does not mean that you cannot drive a car safely. Still we require people to have a driver license if they want to drive a car.
How is that any different from what I said “I learned something useful from it”?
I agree (at least on the technical & “serious” communities - e.g., Worldbuilding or other creative communities may be a bit different) that an Upvote should mean something significantly more than just “like”. But I think limiting (beyond a fairly low level - primarily to avoid drive-by Upvotes) voting ability is not a good attitude for the site as a whole.
But there is a big difference. There are some people who learn how to drive - perhaps even had a license elsewhere - but don’t currently have a license (for medical, social or practical reasons - I know examples of all). But I would argue that most people who know how to drive have a license and most people who don’t have a license don’t know how to drive (or can’t do so safely any more). That is very different from “sign up new on some web site and start answering/voting/etc.” - you may be an expert but this site is new to you. Plenty of real experts (with most topics, probably the vast majority) will never join the web site. Plus even a non-expert may have enough basic experience to reasonably vote and even to answer. Do we want people to jump in and “upvote everything without reading the answers and actually thinking about them a bit”? No. But without some incentive to do so (other than voting rings or other ways to try and boost individual reputations, which is an entirely different problem), I would expect that relatively few regular users will do so. A total newbie might jump in and “vote everywhere” but with some guidance (and some limits - e.g., a reasonable limit on first-day votes) I don’t think that will be a big problem.
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I would interpret “it’s useful” in a more objective manner that “i learned something useful from it”, as in “People who would ask the question on this page, typically would benefit from this answer”. I would also interpret it as covering the whole post and not just the specific part that you learned.
Yes, but I still don’t see your point. Yes, it COULD be the case that they know what they are talking about. But when I’m seeking advice, I prefer taking advice from people who have proven that they know what they are talking about.
I would say that the biggest drawbacks is that it prevents people from getting the habit of voting and that it can lead to to few votes. But in my opinion, a vote from someone who have proven that they know what they’re talking about is worth more that a vote from someone who has not.
Which is quite different from saying “newbies shouldn’t be able to vote” (not exactly what you said earlier, but my sense of it without rereading everything).
I like the way it is on this Forum - you can see every user who has voted on each question. However, that does not seem to be in the works (except at Moderator level) for Codidact, plus this Forum doesn’t allow downvotes (perhaps the designers thought “show voters is OK since it is always positive”), so it is not quite the same.
I don’t know exactly what solution would be best, but I don’t really see the point in encouraging people voting (aka, approving or giving implicit advice) in subjects they don’t know.
A forum is something completely different from a QA
Just as a reminder, we had a lot of discussion, review, and refinement of our system of trust levels and are unlikely to make large changes to voting before MVP. Once we have a network up and running, we’ll be able to adjust based on usage data.
For voting, we’ve currently specified:
- TL0: can upvote answers to own questions
- TL1: can upvote
- TL2: can downvote
We haven’t specified daily limits for votes yet, but we’ll have something there. Rate-limiting is necessary.
The exception for TL0 is so that the person who asked a question can signal that these answers worked, in a way that’s more visible than comments. It also provides mild incentive for people to answer questions from brand-new users, which has been raised as an issue on SO at times. Codidact isn’t implementing the “one accepted answer, pinned to the top” idea; limited voting by the OP is a better approach.
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