New User Experience: Why allow downvotes (esp. below 0) on already closed questions?

Question

So - most [closed] questions are posted by new users.

But experienced users continue to "pile on" and -1 vote them, even after they are closed!

What gives?

As far as I can see this:

1. This discourages new users because:
2. Does nothing to improve the question. (That's what comments are for.)
3. It seems to encourage me-too/piling on.
4. It often leads to the dreaded -1.

How many ways do we have to kick a new user in the shins when they arrive?

I don't understand why voting remains active at all - at least once it reaches 0 and is closed, could we lock out downvotes?

If we can't change the software, let's change our behavior. Please don't down-vote new users' already closed questions.

Ugh. Actions like these can make us appear as unfriendly - without intending to do so.

Answer 1

I've been dragging my feet to write a full answer to this. But I think the functionality needs to stay and I think the behavior needs to stay. Here are some good reasons to keep the functionality (and to keep downvoting questions below -1).

• Allow for instant deletion. Questions with scores of <-2 can be deleted by immediately by 20k users.
• Hide from the home page. Questions of score of <-3 are hidden from the home page (they still appear in the questions list).
• Expose them to eventual abandonment deletion via the Roomba
• Send a clear message that specific posts are unwelcome here.
• Optimize for Pearls not Sand
• Generally indicate a low quality effort

That said, most questions probably don't need to be down voted after they are closed. But that should not a mechanical enforcement. Down votes on questions are free for a reason (because we want good questions and we shouldn't be afraid of down voting them).

It's good to be nice to a user, but sometimes the best thing we can do for new user is to send a very clear message that their question does not meet our guidelines and if they want to participate here they will have to do better. This can be communicated in comments, but seeing a -1 or -2 next to your post sends an even clearer message.

Answer 2

I don't know if disallowing downvoting is the right answer or not, but I do think this is an issue which should be looked at carefully.

I know that reputation is meant to be --at least in part-- a measure of how well a citizen understands the site's philosophies and is willing to play along with them. EG, the 20 rep minimum for chat shows that the citizen is able and willing to cross that low hurdle by contributing positively to the site. In that context, downvoting is a crucial part of the site's social engineering structure and shouldn't be casually blocked out.

However.

Closing questions is often done to "protect" them from unhelpful answers while the OP works on how to rephrase their concern. Giving answers to questions is a much more crucial element of the site than downvoting, and we have a mechanic to prevent it when inappropriate. Perhaps we should consider whether this intended function of closing questions would be enhanced by limiting or banning downvoting.

But maybe mechanical solutions aren't what's needed? We know that downvotes aren't always leveraged as intended: downvotes often go hand-in-hand with close votes, when the two serve very different functions. We also see that monkey-see-monkey-do is a common ailment of the community, and is probably one of the major reasons for dogpile downvoting on closed questions. Looked at in this light, downvoting is symptomatic of ignorance about the site's tools and tenets. Education about the tools and concerted effort to cultivate an environment in line with the tenets would then be an appropriate response, because any response that targeted only the downvoting behavior would fail to address the underlying cause of that symptom.

Answer 3

Not an answer, but here are some related discussions on MSO:

• Block downvoting a closed question asked Nov 18 '11
• Why allow closed questions to be voted on? asked Mar 19 '11
• Downvote “pile-on” on closed questions? asked May 21 '13

Answer 4

Turbocharging the Roomba: solutions for premature deletion

Might also be relevant to this discussion. It may help inform other user behavior other than just voting.

Answer 5

There is never a reason for a system to have downvotes. The vote of 0 is plenty enough to show that no one cares or thinks little of the question, comment, link, whatever in the system used. Closing, Locking, or Deleting solves what downvotes would otherwise solve as well.

Think about the downvoting of comments on sites like reddit. What other use are they besides to tell others they are [insert favored insult]? They serve no purpose but to insult other users, or in other words: troll them. It is a literal troll feature, developed by a troll designer, and only a troll would implement such a feature to any system. Perhaps if the downvotes flagged something as spam to hide the comments, such as youtube does. However, most downvote systems fail to implement this, and instead have a SEPARATE function for reporting spam or inappropriate comments. Once again, making it useless. Downvoting is also NOT a good implementation of spam/deletion because unpopular opinions that do not violate the rules will become hidden or deleted, which is counter-productive to a free-speech environment. Such a system allows for trolls to abuse others by simply disliking their comments, making them disappear. Imagine if downvotes deleted that which was downvoted. Trolls can already delete any comments they wish on StackExchange, and moderators can do nothing to prevent it or reverse the damage.

Downvotes were made by a troll designer who enjoys spreading negativity on the internet (as if there wasn't enough already...) and every troll after him decided it was a good idea to mimic the design.

Few people actually contemplate whether or not the feature being used is good, bad, useful, effective, etc. They merely copy/paste from design to design and change parts they like or dislike, without any thought to creating their own system.

If we had more originality in web design, and less mindless copy/paste, we would have more people implementing their own systems and not other people's. We would see the elimination of pointless troll features such as downvoting, and an increase in innovative features such as upvoting (which give good statements more visibility). Innovative features that would otherwise not be created or improved upon by original thought in design.

Of course, that is to naively pretend that every web developer is a great web designer. Honestly, it is probably best that people copy what works, due to the high possibility that their lack of skill will produce a worse design (or even a nightmarish one that no good designer wishes to even fathom!) As it stands, all of the good designers ARE original. They are allowed to be original, even encouraged to be so, due to their talent as a good designer. The rest just copy/paste and ruin or improve small bits at a time. It takes an intelligent person to instantly think "Hmm...what is the benefit of a downvoting system? There sure are negatives..."

Downvoting closed answers is simply a redundancy to the stupidity of the downvoting in the first place.