Downvoting first questions - can we be more welcoming?

Question

I feel as though I've seen a lot of new-member questions that are (not that surprisingly) less than amazing, and therefore get close votes. I think that's pretty logical, and usually the close votes are accompanied by well written, friendly and constructive comments welcoming the new user and helping them to see how to improve their participation in rpgstackexchange.

What seems less helpful, though, is that their progression to more fully qualified members can be slowed, reducing their interest in persevering, when their question is downvoted, as this reduces their reputation.

I wonder - would it be effective to "shield" new members from reputation hits based on downvotes of their first question? Give them a little extra grace to work out what we're about here before sending them backwards? Or am I misunderstanding how this works so far?

Answer 1

"We" apparently can't, but individuals can.

On a given occasion, any individual who provides close votes, down votes, or comments on a new user's question can choose to engage in a warm and personable style. There is no policy requiring that yet, even though the churn currently going on at SE.META on "how to be more welcoming" and the draft "code of conduct" may result in an adjustment to that. There is also no policy against that, with the caveat that using the standard tools is still necessary for the stack to function as intended and designed.

The down vote is a standard form of communication across the SE network that has an intended purpose. For a question, that purpose is to say this as a minimum:

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear, or not useful

Call it a form of shorthand, if you like. Until SE-writ-large decides, after the above mentioned churn, that it no longer wishes for the down vote to communicate that message, it is a standard and approved response to a question that displays those shortcomings.

It was stated quite clearly by a diamond mod that encouraging users to treat the new user as being as important as their question, to approach a new user's question while keeping in mind their being a human being behind the screen name, is to operate against the SE model.

... misunderstand the point of RPG.se — we are not supposed to treat questions as people, we are to treat them as questions. The decades-long goal of RPG.se is to curate good answers to questions. Helping people is the method, not the goal, of getting a good database of posts.

That's an excerpt; see the detailed comments stream under this meta answer and these particular comments if you are interested: 1 , 2 and 3

Nobody can stop you from engaging in a warm and human style if you choose to do so. I cited in that meta both DuckTapeAl and HeyICanChan as two good examples of that, but many others are likewise inclined. It takes some effort, and a bit of time to do that. What anyone can do is decide if the time to do that is worthwhile. One still must remember to use the tools provided to achieve the objectives of SE: good-to-excellent answers to good, properly scoped questions. It's the stack of good-to-excellent answers that gives any SE site its value.

"We" apparently can't, but you (and anyone) can.

Go with your gut, and lead by example if you are so moved. Leadership by action is quite often effective. Don't look for a policy change any time soon.

Answer 2

I wonder - would it be effective to "shield" new members from reputation hits based on downvotes of their first question? Give them a little extra grace to work out what we're about here before sending them backwards? Or am I misunderstanding how this works so far?

You probably have misunderstood something. This thing you're describing here ...

their progression to more fully qualified members can be slowed [...] when their question is downvoted, as this reduces their reputation.

... isn't a problem but a feature. It is in fact exactly how things are meant to work.

Site privileges can be destructive in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use them well or who doesn't understand how our site works. This is why they're gated behind incremental reputation barriers: you can only progress through them by contributing good quality content over time and demonstrating you understand how our site works. Over time you also see and learn how things like comments, edits, and closures and reopens work.

When someone doesn't understand how our site works, or is contributing low quality material, they are not yet ready for those privileges. They are also (not coincidentally) probably picking up some downvotes. This has the result of slowing down their progression toward privileges for which they aren't yet ready. If a user obtained those privileges anyway, they may cause trouble, and I or one of the other diamond mods would have to step in. I'd prefer they slow down and learn more over us having to do that.

So there won't be shields against downvotes and rep loss for new users. We need those mechanisms, both for the protection of our knowledge base, and for the protection of the new users themselves.

Answer 3

One if the biggest things to remember is that down voting is only seen as a negative thing.

There have been many posts discussing this already, across lots of the stacks sites, about dealing with the "negative impact" of downvoting on new posts, as well as potential "fixes" such as forcing a comment to explain why you downvoted.

However, none of that is really necessary, as the system is purely logical, and there is plenty of explanation to go along with how the system works. The downvote button even has a tooltip:

Poor quality or not useful.

This is pretty self explanatory. If a post gets downvoted, especially a post by a new user, they're being told that their post isn't useful, or is pretty poor quality. We can then help further by leaving a comment, explaining exactly how they can improve it, but again, these comments are often paraphrasing the "How to ask" section of the site tour.

That said, yeah, it's always a bit of a kick in the gut when you get a downvote. We're only human. But after all I've already mentioned, the system is in place to incentivize users to improve and do better; and when/if they do, downvotes can be retracted, and even changed to upvotes. Removing that functionality to protect their pride completely goes against its intended purpose.

As for "protecting new users", well, unfortunately that opens up a lot more problems. Firstly, what determines a "new user"? Number of posts? Time on the site? Reputation? These things can be used to determine a "new user", but it's not overly definitive. There's always going to be people who slip through by not being overly active, have a few posts that have all received votes, both up and down, keeping them in that low threshold, but still have been a member for at least a year. The logic is not really something that can be defined.

And ultimately, changing user privilege is a system-wide thing, not just relevant to us.

Answer 4

• The purpose of Role-playing Games Stack Exchange site is to help people who have questions about role-playing games. All else (policy, rules, the XP system) is a servant to that goal.
• New users are often unaware of site policy. The Internet has an old tradition of old users encouraging newbies and educating them in netiquette, a term for the politeness and social traditions of an online community. Emphasis mine:

When someone makes a mistake – whether it's a spelling error or a spelling flame, a stupid question or an unnecessarily long answer – be kind about it. If it's a minor error, you may not need to say anything. Even if you feel strongly about it, think twice before reacting. Having good manners yourself doesn't give you license to correct everyone else. If you do decide to inform someone of a mistake, point it out politely, and preferably by private email rather than in public. Give people the benefit of the doubt; assume they just don't know any better. And never be arrogant or self-righteous about it. Just as it's a law of nature that spelling flames always contain spelling errors, notes pointing out Netiquette violations are often examples of poor Netiquette.

My personal policy:

1. Don't downvote a newbie below zero. Most new users are acting in good faith, and merely aren't aware of the site's various rules yet. Downvoting their first question may be perceived as hostile.
2. Don't downvote in general without commenting why. If the user knew why their answer was bad, they probably wouldn't have made that answer. Something obvious to you might not be obvious to that user.
3. Don't vote to close without commenting why. The site will come off as arbitrary and unfair to newbies if we cannot help them to understand why their question was rejected.
4. Answer even obvious questions. I often see questions downvoted because it's such a newbie question that the player could have found the answer simply by reading the Player's Handbook, or by googling. But the first hit on Google for a question often is this site. Further, what's obvious to experts isn't always obvious to every newbie.