So much could be fixed simply by removing downvoting, which is no different to a virtual slap in the face or shout of abuse.
I've been re-imagining it lately as:
- Upvotes
- comment-tags, with set comments (previously, reasons for downvoting).
- no downvote option
Then questions would be marked like:
- 4 upvotes
- 2 people tagged 'I might be able to answer, but I'm not sure exactly what you want to know, please clarify what you are asking'
- 1 person tagged 'this looks like an XY question, please explain your reason for doing it this way as it looks like there is a more sensible approach and it's not clear whether you know that'
- 1 person tagged 'this question looks like you are asking for help without trying to solve the problem yourself, and putting effort in to help people who are not showing their own effort feels like an unfair request'
- 2 people tagged 'I was willing to help, but I stopped reading because it is too difficult to follow (average reading time by people who tagged this: N seconds)'
And there would be no way to get a negative score, only languish at 1. The scoring system would have to be reworked to handle that. There could also be positive tags, 'I am interested in the answer to this question', 'I think this is clear'. Things visible down the left hand side of the question where the downvote button was, not hidden behind "close (2)" with broad, vague reasons "this or that or maybe this or anything similar".
Particularly, things which could be said in comments, but nobody wants to type out over and over, and which can be tagged anonymously so you can have the ease of drive-by-anonymous-downvoting but with mandatory specific feedback having to choose why, and without the slap-in-face effect for the recipient.
That would avoid the slap in the face element of downvoting, and avoid the ubiquitous back and forth "Why the downvotes?" / "don't whine about downvotes" / "I didn't downvote but it might be because X" / "people shouldn't be allowed to downvote without giving reasons" / "they are explicitly allowed to by the site design" / "these comments have been moved to chat".
Downvotes are nothing but pure negative, so hey, wanna remove some of the negative from SO? It’s obvious what to do.
I've been re-imagining it lately as:
- Upvotes - comment-tags, with set comments (previously, reasons for downvoting). - no downvote option
Then questions would be marked like:
- 4 upvotes - 2 people tagged 'I might be able to answer, but I'm not sure exactly what you want to know, please clarify what you are asking' - 1 person tagged 'this looks like an XY question, please explain your reason for doing it this way as it looks like there is a more sensible approach and it's not clear whether you know that' - 1 person tagged 'this question looks like you are asking for help without trying to solve the problem yourself, and putting effort in to help people who are not showing their own effort feels like an unfair request' - 2 people tagged 'I was willing to help, but I stopped reading because it is too difficult to follow (average reading time by people who tagged this: N seconds)'
And there would be no way to get a negative score, only languish at 1. The scoring system would have to be reworked to handle that. There could also be positive tags, 'I am interested in the answer to this question', 'I think this is clear'. Things visible down the left hand side of the question where the downvote button was, not hidden behind "close (2)" with broad, vague reasons "this or that or maybe this or anything similar".
Particularly, things which could be said in comments, but nobody wants to type out over and over, and which can be tagged anonymously so you can have the ease of drive-by-anonymous-downvoting but with mandatory specific feedback having to choose why, and without the slap-in-face effect for the recipient.
That would avoid the slap in the face element of downvoting, and avoid the ubiquitous back and forth "Why the downvotes?" / "don't whine about downvotes" / "I didn't downvote but it might be because X" / "people shouldn't be allowed to downvote without giving reasons" / "they are explicitly allowed to by the site design" / "these comments have been moved to chat".
Downvotes are nothing but pure negative, so hey, wanna remove some of the negative from SO? It’s obvious what to do.