why should anyone downvote a community proposal, like this post?

Because they think it's a flawed proposal. That really should have been obvious.

In the particular case you cite, note that you got many responses disagreeing with lumping physics and math together. I didn't vote at all, but if I really cared about a math or physics site, I probably would have downvoted too.

Part of it may also have been frustration with your attitude. When people disagree, you basically repeat the same arguments. While there is nothing wrong with sticking to your original opinion, you seem unable to recognize that others disagree without being stupid. Your post here is another example of that.

why should anyone downvote a bug report, like this post?

That is less clear. I also didn't vote on that post. The downvote may be because someone thinks the issue is poorly described, or that you haven't been very helpful in responding to the devs and helping them track down the problem. Perhaps people are using votes on bug reports to give them a relative sense of priority.

It would probably be helpful if there was site-wide guidance of how voting on bug reports should be used.

In my opinion, people should only upvote site proposals they want to contribute to

Yes, it is clear that is your opinion. My opinion, and apparently those of some others differ. Personally I think a combined math and physics site is a bad idea because it would get in the way of real math and physics sites. I'd rather there not be a math+physics site, even if it takes longer to get both math and physics sites.

Now that I to wrote this down (the rubber duck effect), I'm realizing I really should downvote the math+physics proposal. I'll go do that now.

posted over 3 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

3y ago

Olin Lathrop‭

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