Voting Feedback totally screwed up compared to other SE sites

Question

When I visit SO or Workplace.SE, I see the voting as a feedback what to improve. I can see that when I put work into my post and have knowledge on the subject I get positive votes, when I make mistakes or are hasty, I get negative votes. Workplace.SE, as a more adult-oriented site has way better feedback mechanism, because people actually leave comments upon downvoting.

RPG.SE feels like a bunch of youths, that either like what you said, or not. This site does not convey a feeling that what you said is somehow helpful or not, but rather if you are in the "in-crowd" or not. If random passer-bys like what you said, irrespective of the actual content.

Take this question as an example:

A single answer was upvoted 4 times. It keeps to the points and does not mention any real experience.

The other answers were downvoted. Probably because of @mxyzplk game recommendation comment.

My answer was downvoted twice.

But fact is, apart from the actual game recommended, my answer looks 1:1 like the answer that was upvoted 4 times, yet it was not upvoted once, but instead downvoted twice. Someone must have found it not only lacking real experience, but even found it worse than all others lacking it. Without any comment on how to improve it.

This leaves a feeling of helplessness. I don't know what to do. Can I improve? How? By recommending a game people like better?

Currently, this site does not feel like Stack Exchange quality, it feels like random votings.

Answer 1

I didn't downvote your answer but...

"A gritty, fast, simple post-apocalyptic system"

I think you're kinda missing the elephant in the room: the question asked for a "post-apocalyptic" system and you only paid lip service to delivering on that.

Apocalypse World is a post-apocalyptic RPG through and through, with action rules, classes, and GM advice tailored to being the kind of thing it says on the tin. Thus, its big hurdle is meeting the other criteria, whereas it gets the "post-apocalyptic" largely for free.

Cyberpunk 2020 is, out of the box, not a game of this genre. That means there's a higher bar to actually getting to pass the requirements. You have to teach us how to make it a post-apocalyptic game, right there in your answer. Or at least provide some very, very good links! Otherwise you might as well just be pitching Your Favorite Game and saying "Oh, I dunno, make it work!"

Your entire contribution on how to make it work for the desired setting was:

If your setting is post-apocalyptic, pick an apocalypse of your choice to happen.

...

Cyberpunk 2020 is not an apocalypse game. For example it has no section on radiation, starvation or diseases.

In between, there's a whole paragraph about day jobs, hospitals, and government regulations restricting access to heavy equipment — this makes it feel like it's a generic recommendation you've kinda copy-pasted rather than anything tailored to the question.

Note how the Fate Core question got downvoted hard, too, for not saying anything substantial about "post-apocalyptic" play.

Experience in game-rec

So, the stuff above is compounded by the game-rec rules:

• If I've played a "post-apocalyptic" game like Apocalypse World or Twilight 2000 at all, that's direct experience related to the question's goals. Just showing familiarity with the system and an understanding of how to apply its play procedures is a good sign that I'm not just pulling stuff out of your butt.

• If I've played My Favorite Non-Apocalyptic System but I've never done a post-apocalyptic game with it, then, well, do I have relevant experience? Not really. So, ideally, I really should say something to show that I'm not just suggesting MFNAS because it's the best for everything while just handwaving my way past that annoying little "post-apocalyptic" requirement from my nice cushy armchair.

The point of asking for experience (does it actually work? hengh, that's a thorny question) isn't to create an arbitrary requirement to make me say "Oh, yes, I swear I did this for reals!" It's to discourage me from just spouting off something that sounds good but won't stand up to further scrutiny from actual play.

In your "edit", you added:

Let me say I played my share of "the world went to hell, try to survive" games in this system.

So, you have the experience! Share it! Highlight the most useful resources in the book, mention some play techniques, &c.

Answer 2

At first, your answer didn't convey real experience per our site guidelines. Then you added some, surrounded by verbiage about "the trolls of RPG.SE" and other hostile statements. I'm not sure why downvotes were difficult to understand. I'm also not sure how that behavior demonstrates maturity as opposed to the "bunch of youths." Since I've edited your answer to remove all the random attacks, most of the downvotes have evaporated.

If you want Stack Exchange quality, start by contributing it yourself.

Answer 3

This particular example was a compromise on keeping game-recs. The alternative is to remove them altogether.

At one point, they were wiki'd, because they became an opinionated list rather than anything really useful that you can't find anywhere else.

If you really want to see the genesis of the question and the solutions, take a look at the following questions:

Has [system-recommendation] grown too big for its britches?

Are game recommendation questions on topic?

As one of the vocal mods on that thread, mxyzplk is very stringent on keeping people on point in that regard.

---

After some correspondence in the comments, I understand where you are coming from a bit more. I can't speak to everyone, but I did upvote the AW comment, and did not upvote yours, so I can speak to my reasoning.

The points in question from the question were

1. Rules Light
2. Non-Heroic
3. Not d20
4. Flexible and Fluid combat system
5. Modern setting without anything weird.

First, to get to your supposition that the games are the same:

Apocalypse World and Cyberpunk are indications of two different eras in game design. That rough middle patch between Roll-playing and role-playing, and the new Story game renaissance. Based on that alone, from my experience playing, they are totally different creatures.

In terms of tone, Cyberpunk is more of restricted by its audience, and the fact that it was very popular commercially at one time. So it's edge is dulled, just like Shadowrun. It hints at an edge, but doesn't really have it.

In terms of interaction between the players and with the environment, in Cyberpunk most of it is artificial and at the whim of the GM. In AW, the whole game is exactly about this point.

To move on to the requirements for the question:

Cyberpunk is not rules-light, and doesn't have a flexible and fluid combat system.

This is my opinion, and informs my decision to upvote/downvote/novote. It is where RPG.SE is different from SO and some other quantitative sites (though it comes up there too, which is the reason for the Code Review SE). Unless you're talking about RAW, a lot of things to deal with game philosophies and views are based on opinion and experience. And that's ok IMO.

What we end up with in regards to upvotes and downvotes in those cases is a cross section of experiences and views on systems- which is what these questions are in the end for. I'd never downvote an opinion. My only reason for a downvote on this type of question are if you violate a rule. Even then, I rare use my downvotes, preferring instead to comment. On questions like this, because I disagree with the experience rule being an absolute ruler, I rarely downvote for not including experience, but instead upvote for it, using the downvote only in the case where someone lists a game and does nothing else.

I hope that helps. As I said in the comments on another question, your rep indicates that a good group of people here think that your contributions are valuable. Just don't take downvotes personally- that has helped me a lot.