Who has down voted which question or answer from me?

Question

I saw, that I received today 2 down votes. But is there a possibility to find out which question or which answer was downvoted? And maybe which user to get in a discussion?

Thanks a lot

Answer 1

There could be many reasons for downvote, but it is not possible to find out who did it and on which question on purpose as already said. Without explicit comment, the downvote is not very helpful. The topic was already discussed several times, mostly on the Question "There are no dumb questions!". I recommend it to read to everyone who is downvoting or who receives downvote and wonders why.

It looks like there is always somebody who does that. We can probably find the reason for that in the award system, which motivates people to post here, but does not really enforce the quality of the posts (you are awarded for the question and answer itself with significantly more points than for the votes). The point from here affect PGC badge, nice-shiny thing that many people want to improve. Posting here seems like the easiest thing to get points, downvoting can be simple way to "jealously take away some points from someone who does not deserve them".

Also the downvote mechanism does not enforce the quality at this moment. Since there is no penalty for downvoter so he can just throw downvotes all over the place without any penalty. The good solution, as it is used for example on StackOverflow, would be to adjust the pointing system, that it would also remove some points from the downvoter so before doing so, he should really consider if the comment is not more appropriate (since it is for "free").

My proposal would be:

• Update the awards for posting to lower amount for the post itself and higher amount for the votes received (to honour useful posts)
• Update the downvote to remove also some points from the downvoter

Disclaimer: I did not downvote on your question or answer yesterday. Though I did on this one since it is really an answer which does not bring any value, which I hope you will understand.

Comments

Hi Jakuje thanks for your excelent dicsussion topic. To your Disclaimer: After reading your post, I understand and agree to your tought regarding my "non-contribution" in the other post.

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@Jakuje: The plan has been to rewrite the PGC Point system to something else the last two years. There are too many exploit issues. I don't want it done close to the end of the year though, since users can feel mistreated then. Maybe it will happen next year? :)

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Yes, I understand that are things with higher priority to work on to keep the site rolling. Lets get surprised :)

Answer 2

If I am not mistaken this is anonymous on purpose. You can of course find out which answer or question now has more votes than it had last time but I think there is no way to find out who downvoted. I also have some of my answers downvoted for strange reasons...

Answer 3

To the anonymous , who voted this question down:

you may have your thoughts , why you  are unhappy with my question, but as stated in my question, only a negative vote gives no hint what you think is wrong with this question..

So as a good rule for our community , you should give an answer or at least a comment, why you think it is such a bad question, that you need to vote negative.

Than we all together could start a discussion and not me also some other may get a new and interesting view on this topic.

Thanks