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Comments on Downvoting Response Delays
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Downvoting Response Delays
I asked a question to the Software Development Codidact site here. I monitored it closely for several hours in case there was a quick response. A day later I found a couple comments waiting for me but was not able to respond at the time. Two days later I made the time to get around to answering them, but found another comment waiting for me alongside a downvote. The comment indicated that the user had downvoted the post because of a 2-day lack of response.
I find voting on posts to be a useful tool to sort through questions that may need additional cleanup or focus. I'm not sure that the downvote feature was used correctly in this case. I understand the desire to keep the site clear of directionless content etc., but after searching around on the site's posting guidelines, but I can't convince myself that the downvote was justified.
Was this a legitimate and constructive use of downvoting? If so, what principles of this site may have guided this use case? If not, are there reasons to keep it that way?
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I haven't voted one way or the other on the linked question. My view is that (ideally) a vote (one way or another) should depend solely on the content of the question (or answer)[1]. The responsiveness of the asker should not be a factor. However, it does make sense to delay a downvote, especially after a request for clarification is made, to allow time for the question (or answer) to be improved. There's no point in churning votes[2].
If Olin's logic was: "This is a downvote-worthy question, I'll ask for improvement... no response, I'll enact my downvote now," then this seems fine to me. If Olin's logic was: "I don't think this is a downvote-worthy question, but I'm downvoting because the asker is unresponsive," then I don't think this is a good approach.
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