I think that the fundamental problem with the downvote, pretty much anywhere that has it, is that it's physically structured as being the inverse of an upvote, and then there are some community guidelines saying, "This isn't actually the inverse, it has some additional semantics associated with it."
In SO's specific case, the problem it's ostensibly trying to solve is indicating that the question, as asked, needs work, or should have been asked elsewhere. But there's nothing in the mechanism to ensure that it's solving that problem. So, where what they needed was a constructive feedback mechanism, what they built was a ruler for whacking knuckles.
I think that SO would be greatly improved if they simply took away the downvote, and replaced it with a more structured mechanism for giving the question asker feedback on how to improve their question. It would make the place more friendly, and it would replace a mechanism for brusquely chasing newcomers away with a mechanism for teaching them the community guidelines in a positive way.
Yeah - I mean, there is even a mechanism for giving feedback on how the question can be improved: the comments.
In my view, if you think a question needs work your first option should be to leave a comment, and your second should be to edit it yourself to improve it. If there isn't time in your busy schedule of bludging at work for either of those then maybe consider just ignoring it?
Both downvotes and close votes should open a discussion, not be presented as a verdict. It should always be phrased as a question, e. g. "Have you seen this question over there, does the provided answer help you?" And the default assumption should be that no, the other question is significantly different, and the asker has good reason to post another question.
In SO's specific case, the problem it's ostensibly trying to solve is indicating that the question, as asked, needs work, or should have been asked elsewhere. But there's nothing in the mechanism to ensure that it's solving that problem. So, where what they needed was a constructive feedback mechanism, what they built was a ruler for whacking knuckles.
I think that SO would be greatly improved if they simply took away the downvote, and replaced it with a more structured mechanism for giving the question asker feedback on how to improve their question. It would make the place more friendly, and it would replace a mechanism for brusquely chasing newcomers away with a mechanism for teaching them the community guidelines in a positive way.