I cannot understand the meaning of some downvotes

Votes on meta supposedly means "agree/don't agree". Which may make sense in some cases, not so much in other cases.

I have argued many times on the Codidact forums/meta that using the same Q&A meta model as SE should be avoided. It is a model that we know is ill-suited both for discussion and support. Specifically:

• Discussions are hard to follow unless there are collapsible discussion threads (like Reddit etc). The Q&A format and then a bunch of comments is poorly suited particularly for broad discussions.
• It doesn't make much sense to vote on bug reports. Either something is a bug or it isn't, only the devs can tell.
• It doesn't make much sense to vote on support requests. You can't agree or disagree with a support request. "No, I don't agree that you are having this problem" doesn't make sense.
• Support requests are by their very nature highly likely to be duplicates. Closing them as such isn't very helpful - if someone needs help, help them. None except those actually planning to help need to interact with a support request. The rest should ignore such posts.
• The Q&A model makes it very hard to find relevant policies, FAQs and community consensus. It does in fact make it hard to find things in general, not only on meta. Mixing discussions, support requests and bug reports into one single mess doesn't exactly help.
• Voting on people's ideas for new features or opinions means needless drama and a negative atmosphere. Everyone should be free to express their opinion without fearing to get down-voted into meta-hell.
• On that note, voting also tend to lead to bandwagon/sheep behavior, where users stop thinking of what they want themselves and just follow everyone else.
• When there is an actual need for voting or polls, then invoke a poll. Doesn't even have to be on this site, there's plenty of free external poll sites.

The reason SO went with Q&A format for meta was because that in the early days, they had some irrational belief that the Q&A model was the answer to every problem in the world. 10 years of toxic SO.meta discussions later, we know that it was a design mistake. One we do not need to repeat.

To improve things short term, we could at least have different categories for discussions, feature requests, support requests and bug reports. In the long term, I believe we need an entirely different format for the metas.

posted over 4 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Lundin‭

30 57 412 51

In an ideal world, bug reports and support requests would be a separate stream from discussions and feature requests. We work with the tools we have, while also working to improve them. (A few people have reported software bugs on GitHub, which is fine too but not something we'd want to require.)

We've discussed a "discussion" post type, which would have different properties from Q&A. It depends on threaded comments (planned, not yet implemented).

It absolutely does make sense to vote on site proposals and feature requests. People who don't care one way or the other can ignore both, but people should be able to express "I think this is a bad idea". In the case of your site proposal, you propose to combine math with one of the several sciences that uses math, and have received feedback from people challenging that grouping. Some people clearly feel that your site proposal is confusing, arbitrary, or otherwise harmful, and have expressed that feeling through votes. Another site proposal, Medical Science, has received downvotes apparently because people are concerned with possibly handing out medical advice on the Internet to unknown patients. People should be able to downvote proposals they object to. Ideally they leave feedback explaining what the issues are, as has happened in these cases.

posted over 4 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Monica Cellio‭ staff

64 377 2269 838

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 4 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

4y ago

Olin Lathrop‭

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