43
votes
We seem to be over-eager to downvote
Alright, everyone, I'm the bad guy: With 2314 downvotes I am the user on this SE with the most downvotes, not counting the Community bot. In only 10 months of activity I've cast more downvotes than ...

ACuriousMindMod
- 107k
27
votes
We seem to be over-eager to downvote
This isn't an answer, but I can't post it as a comment. Danu's comment "I think it's simply too little evidence to draw any serious conclusions from" reminded me of an earlier post on meta.tex....
21
votes
Downvoting serial answers without serial downvoting
In addition to what Kyle said, feel free to flag one instance for moderator attention with a custom flag reason. Giving us some links to the others in the flag is helpful.
We'll look at them for:
...
18
votes
Accepted
Is this considered bad attitude?
No, you have done the right thing. With some many questions on the site it's very easy to miss the fact that a duplicate exists, and to be fair the site search isn't as great as it could be.
Don't ...
18
votes
Accepted
How to deal with negative responses on SE due to personal grudge?
Well, there are a couple of things to say here:
Assume good faith: Unless the user in question explicitly told you "I have downvoted your question and deleted my answer because you would not ...

ACuriousMindMod
- 107k
17
votes
Accepted
Why are simple questions downvoted?
As far as I've seen, simple questions are not downvoted. One of our most upvoted questions is Don't heavier objects actually fall faster because they exert their own gravity? A simple question if ...
17
votes
Chosen answers with many negative votes
Part of the problem is that we are not always sympathetic to questions from the less experienced physics fans. In this case the question had attracted two downvotes and no answers by the time I added ...
17
votes
Accepted
Massive downvotes of some questions
There are some effects of highly negative score not related to reputation:
A question below -4 will be pushed of the front page (i.e. what visitors see at `physics.stackexchange.com? ), cf. this meta ...

ACuriousMindMod
- 107k
16
votes
The downvote option for questions should be removed?
That's... unlikely to happen, but it is ultimately not something this community can control. The core Q&A engine is managed by Stack Exchange an shared by the 150+ sites in the network, and this ...
16
votes
Accepted
Why is the question on wifi being a force being downvoted so much?
When someone asks "Should X be considered a Y?" I expect them to exhibit some form of understanding of the definition of Y, and some form of understanding of what X is. While one may not ...

ACuriousMindMod
- 107k
15
votes
Mass of a coin question went viral, despite inital downvotes and negative comments
I also recall the question went to a net -2 score early on, hence my comment.
I don't think it's any cause for soul searching though. All questions will have some site members who approve and some ...
14
votes
Accepted
Why isn't bad content downvoted and commented on enough
TL;DR: Voting is one of the things that makes the SE sites work (the review queues being another big one); if you aren't downvoting, you are not helping this place work; so downvote on the bad answers ...
14
votes
Increase weight of downvotes?
This request has a long history going back to the early days of Stack Overflow. You'll notice that question is marked as declined. It was actually status-pending for months before being declined and ...
14
votes
Accepted
Re: Downvoting with no feedback
I would interpret the downvotes on the answers to both of those questions as saying
don't answer this kind of homework questions
and I agree with that perspective. Providing answers to obvious do-...
14
votes
Is it okay to edit a question (on the main site) to downvote it after you initially upvoted it?
Please use edits to substantially improve the posts they are attached to.
Please do not use trivial edits as backdoors to enable site features that are inaccessible to you for some reason.

robMod
- 71.3k
13
votes
How many times can I down vote a particular user over in a given time frame?
To be very frank: you shouldn't even be contemplating this questions; you should always vote the quality of the content and never the user who posted it.
Nor will anyone tell you what the limits of ...
13
votes
Should we downvote answers that begin with "I think..."?
I think this is a terrible idea.
12
votes
Accepted
A weird spike in downvotes in May 2013
Yes, this downvoting peak was caused by the infamous (and very persistent) love spammer, who offered solutions to everybody's love lives, cf. records from May 7th, 2013. (Link only accessible to ...
QmechanicMod
- 170k
12
votes
We seem to be over-eager to downvote
I'm not sure if you're trying to make a broader argument here, but I don't really see any serious issue with the question you've linked. It was only downvoted once, which may just as well be explained ...
12
votes
Why should there be a negative vote for questions?
Downvotes send a very clear message: this is not the kind of post we want on the site. (If downvotes outnumber upvotes that suggests the opinion is not that of one grumpy curmudgeon but is perhaps a ...
12
votes
Accepted
How many times can I down vote a particular user over in a given time frame?
A few things:
The user you refer to has cast quite a few votes, but only about 81.7% of them are downvotes, not 90%. Call this pedantry, but I think it's important to distinguish between claims and ...
12
votes
Accepted
Should existing vote tally ever be considered when voting?
Users are encouraged to vote. You decide what are quality posts on Phys.SE and what are not.
Voting should always be based on content, never on previous votes. E.g. comfort-voting is strongly ...
QmechanicMod
- 170k
11
votes
Accepted
After Down Vote, my reputation gets less
You lose 1 point for downvoting an answer and none for downvoting a question. This is because downvoting hurts the post's owner. We want you to only downvote when you seriously believe it deserves it. ...
11
votes
Accepted
Snobs and down-voters
It's important to say up front that a downvote is not a judgement of you, it is a judgement of your question or answer. A downvote means the downvoter thinks it is not a suitable question/answer for ...
11
votes
A downvoted question vs. a very well-received duplicate version of the same question!
There is always a random element to voting.
Votes not only refer to the raw content of a question but also its presentation: How easy it is to read (due to formatting) and understand, how well it ...

ACuriousMindMod
- 107k
11
votes
Accepted
What should I do if my answer to a question has a downvote for no reason defined?
Unfortunately, there is not much that you can do other than improving your answer or hoping that the downvoter leaves a comment. Votes are private and there is no obligation for voters to explain ...
11
votes
Accepted
How do I write better answers?
Looking at your reputation tab, this seems to be only the second downvote you’ve received after a year on the site.
I’ll let other folks comment on the specifics of your answer (which also has an ...

robMod
- 71.3k
11
votes
My answer got me -15 points! Why?
The user accepted your answer on Jan 1 at 22:15 (UK time), giving you +15 points, then today they changed their mind and unaccepted the answer so you got a -15 point reversal. Overall your net rep ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
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