It's lose/lose. Don't tell them why and they get frustrated, tell them why and they get defensive. It takes a rare user to take the feedback and use it to improve their question.
That is so true, even people giving negative feedback have trouble when they get negative feedback from someone else. Therefore I think the system, the site, should make it easier to give positive feedback, than negative.
To you know bring about a positive community feeling. The purpose of the site should be to help its users not to make oneself the over-arbiter of what is correct what is not.
Facebook has its share of problems but excessive unexplained down-votes is not one of them.
This will spread and people will cling on. Soon you will reach self moderation due to the positive nature of the community.
Learning to accept feedback is much about learning that you may actually receive positive feedback and that your self worth is enough.
So I was listening to l to this guy Jim Thuresson which is a mental coach. His life is basically breathing positiviness, and his take on it is, it works, you shoukd do it too. If you fill your head space with 100% positive thoughts there's no room for anything negative. Maybe going on strong here, but it's such an important message. I just winder how we bring that thought onto the Internet.
Neither stack overflow nor your fellow users are obliged to you beyond the standards set by the site and general human decency.
It takes 1 second to downvote a low value comment. It might take 5-20 minutes of conversing with a stranger who is likely to respond rudely to criticism. Less voting means less curation means wading through more lower quality materials. I don't want to use worse websites so you can have more imaginary internet points.
Don't like it use a different website.
Agreed, except I think that is the problem.
It takes ZERO seconds to not give points at all to a low-quality comment. And the site should take care readers see the comments with more points before those with fewer points.
> Don't like it use a different website.
I think you are saying nobody can or should criticize Stack Overflow and its cadre of super-super-users because nobody is forced to use it.
It's a bit like saying hey you asylum seeker we put you in a cell with standing-room only for weeks and separated you from your children and put your baby in a cage without anybody changing their diapers ever, but if you don't like that, seek asylum in a different country. You can't criticize us because it is you who came here.
All that's left to discuss is strategies for maximizing the quality of votes and voters. Ex minimizing the impact of low quality voters by requiring rep to vote.
I think highly paid professionals whose wages mostly put them in the top 10% of the world have an easier time changing tech support forums, perhaps by opening a new tab, than the refugees fleeing murder and mayhem with nothing but the clothes on their backs have of picking a different country to land in.
Perhaps pick a less disgusting comparison.
Surely. I was just saying it is a "little bit like" that. The principle seems to be the same: You can't criticize because ... you chose to use Stack Overflow for help. Go elsewhere if you don't like it.
Surely that is what people who don't like it do. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't express their opinions about it.
An SO down-vote is not simply an "opinion", it affects your karma-score, perhaps even your chances of getting hired.