+2 votes
602 views
by (3,906 points)
retagged by

Hi everyone,

today we have increased experience for users that received downvotes on their questions or answers. They will now see the following hint.

The hint on the question/answer is only visible if:

  • You are the author of the question/answer
  • Your post has received a minimum of two downvotes or one downvote and the total score on the post is 1 or lower

The hint links to our recent guide on how to handle down-votes: I've received a down-vote - how can I fix it?

This is yet another step in the direction of a higher quality of the posts on TibiaQA. It's also supposed to help new users onboard more quickly, understand TibiaQA values, and reduce frustration.

Let us know your thoughts and ideas!

Best regards,
TibiaQA team

4 Answers

+2 votes
by (74 points)

Hello!

A couple days I just got some downvotes and to be honest with this new hints I actually didn't get any hint. First some people just downvote and don't even wrote the reason.

Based on one of your sentences

"Your post could have been down-voted for various reasons. It might be unclear, poorly-written, incorrect, incomplete, or have any other problems that caused a community-member to cast a down-vote. Users who earned enough reputation points are allowed to down-vote posts whenever they feel the post in its current state is not useful to the community."

Here is one of the Questions I made. I already search on some fansites and there is no info is this is possible, we make the quest yesterday and I want to build the mount. (This is just and example there is much more questions of me and others users that don't have any hint/real reason of the downvote)-

Anyway, IMO if for someone the question is unclear, poorly-written, incorrect, incomplete, or have any other problems the person who downvote should say what's wrong, cuz if there is something wrong isn't like is posted knowing is wrong. 

I already made the suggestion and I believe isn't only me who have same request. I started to contribute on the site since January and I stopped some months cuz I just saw how others give downvotes as candys on Halloween, and also see how noone improve this.

... Anyway, I just wanted to express what I think about this kind of situation, hoping this change.

0 votes
by (388 points)

I think it may be useful, especially for new users, who want to improve their knowledge about TibiaQA and how exactly it works. Also give them kind of hope, that the downvote can be unvoted.

On the other hand from my own experience downvotes are barely unvoted and users usually don't explain the reason of their choice. What to do if I know the reason of the downvote, corrected my answer to make it good and complete and still have a downvote? Is it possible to ask moderation to delete this downvote?

by (3,906 points)
Thank you! While I understand the reasoning, we most definitely wouldn't want to get the community moderators to micromanage each cast downvote. There are some reasons for that:
 - The TibiaQA staff cannot itself serve as a subject matter expert on every topic that arises on TibiaQA. While we are knowledgable in many aspects of the game, there are also questions we need to rely on the community to answer and point whether they are correct or not. Downvotes and upvotes allow that, and our interventions on those votes would minimize the impact the community can make on this site
 - In opposition to flags, votes can be subjective. We give the community a way of saying which questions and answers they consider useful, and which not. Sometimes it means that the post is incorrect, sometimes that it's poorly-written, sometimes that it's incomplete, but whatever the reason was, someone thought the post is currently of low quality. We shouldn't take that possibility away and override their vote, with our subjective opinion that the post is good (even in cases where it's fairly obvious)
by (3,906 points)
+2
On the topic of users rarely coming back to the posts they downvoted: we could notify the user that cast the downvote that the post was improved. This could improve the ratio of users coming back to the post to re-review it and reconsider their vote.
by (102 points)
That sounds like a fantastic idea
0 votes
by (989 points)
I was going to mention the same thing as Pochwalona, will moderation review a downvoted answer/question/comment to deem it necessary for receiving a downvote(s)? Every situation is different but I'm happy you're expanding the downvote system with tips! I always wished for a reason along with the downvote at least for new users to understand why someone downvoted them. Sometimes no one will give a reason. I remember when I first started to use TibiaQA a lot I was confused even after reading the help center, etc. There's nothing that can't be improved with the help center because I get it. I just think maybe allowing users to have an opportunity to anonymously post a reason why they gave the downvote would be optimal. :)
by (3,906 points)
I've explained on the downvotes under Pochwalona's answer. As I have mentioned in other topics, I do agree that making it mandatory to provide a reason with a downvote is an idea to consider and try. As for comments - they can already be anonymous (the user needs to log-out for this though). Making it easier can be considered.
Thank you for the feedback!
0 votes
by (555 points)
Oh... those old times when I got negative downvotes from Ellotris without any explain XD And I keep it on these days.

Really happy to see a improve on these case, this always caused me a big frustration.
...