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Comments on Downvoting Response Delays

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Downvoting Response Delays

+16
−0

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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+8
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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.


  1. There are some caveats to this, e.g. competition questions which are not fine during the competition but may be fine afterwards. ↩︎

  2. To be clear, I don't have any problem with people who take the stance that they'll downvote now and change their vote after requested improvements are made. ↩︎

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2 comment threads

So what do you propose to do about unresponsiveness? (5 comments)
Competition questions (1 comment)
So what do you propose to do about unresponsiveness?
Olin Lathrop‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

So what do you propose to do about unresponsiveness?

samcarter‭ wrote almost 2 years ago · edited almost 2 years ago

Flag as "needs author's attention" -- if the author adds additional information, the post can then be reopened

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

@sam: That gets back to the problem of us being unable to vote to close. That's really the root of this. The correct response to a vague question is to ask for clarification, then vote to close immediately. That way the proper thing is done (assuming enough others vote to close too) automatically if the OP never responds. If he does, all the close-voters and commenters should be notified, allowing for the opportunity to retract the close votes and possibly answer the question.

Flagging a mod feels wrong for this, and then it relies on the mod agreeing with me before my vote takes effect. Downvoting is the only real tool we have been given.

In this particular case, I probably would not have voted to close because the question didn't seem that bad, and I wasn't confident in my interpretation of it. That only leaves a downvote to deal with the unresponsiveness.

Derek Elkins‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

The way I'd handle unresponsiveness is the same way I'd handle any problematic behavior of a user as opposed to a post that doesn't rise to moderator intervention and eventual banning. The first few times I'd comment with what the problem was, why it's a problem, and some actionable advice to mitigate it. In this case it might be something like: "You didn't respond to a request for feedback in over two days. This gives the impression that you just dumped the question here and don't really care which is demoralizing to potential answerers and makes them not want to interact with your questions. In the future, try to stay on top of a question in at least the first few days where most feedback is likely to be requested." After giving such advice a couple of times and seeing no improvement, I'd do what it says. I'd start ignoring the users questions. This avoids burnout on my side and disincentivizes their behavior proportionally to how many people agree with me and follow the same policy.

Derek Elkins‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

Really, none of the approaches mentioned so far (short of banning) actually directly address the issue. Arguably, one of the main reasons we downvote questions is to communicate to other users that a question isn't worth their time. A close vote on a question asked weeks ago won't help when a new question is asked. A more direct solution (that's no doubt rife with opportunities for abuse and unintended consequences) would be to have something like a multi-factor 5-star rating system for users. You could imagine a rating 1-5 stars in aspects like "responsiveness", "handles feedback well", "communicates clearly", and others. These would then be available by hovering over a user card or something, and users can get an idea of what they are getting into with another user without needing to audit their posting history. There doesn't need to be any mechanical consequence to these ratings.