Why is there a malus on downvoting?

Question

If I upvote someone, it doesn't cost me anything, but if I downvote it costs rep and provides a disincentive to do so.

Downvoting is treated also as a personal attack, and there is a general attitude that 'not upvoting' should be the negative way to treat an answer that you believe is wrong or not useful.

I've seen good answers to questions posted later sitting below 7 or so crappy answers with a few votes apiece - the top answer has 40 or so votes, so clearly few believe these to be of use, but due to no downvoting at all, a good answer is buried where no-one will ever read it or upvote it into a place where it will be seen. This contributes to the 'hurry to answer' 'first in best dressed' state of answers, and hides useful material under piles of crap.

So my question is; Why is there both a community and a score-based disincentive to downvote? Shouldn't downvoting be used alongside upvoting to show which answers the community believes is useful, and order them in the reading queue? If 'not voting' should be the default state, shouldn't there be a malus on both upvoting and downvoting?

I'm asking this because I downvote answers, and with rpg.se's ability to check downvotes/upvotes, I often take a look at the ratio - and very rarely is there even a single downvote. Given that some answers receive few upvotes comparatively, or are clearly poorly written or researched, it's clear that downvoting is being preferentially avoided. Why is that good for the site?

Answer 1

It's behavioural engineering: the stated purpose of the reputation malus for downvoting is to prevent people from downvoting for frivolous reasons (second paragraph), like "I don't like that game." Putting even a small cost on it means that people are much less likely to downvote for frivolous reasons, and reserve downvotes for when a post really deserves it (in their opinion, of course).

Observationally, it's effective. The issue of unpopular (or divisive) game systems or topics attracting downvotes has never come up as a problem in this community or any other meta.SE I've been active on.

Personally, I can see the temptation—I often find myself muttering "I hate that question"*, but because I don't like the topic, not because the question is bad in any way. Without a rep hit for downvotes, I'd probably get into the habit of downvoting the topics that I'm personally annoyed that people even discuss, but as it is I mutter to myself and move on. I actually think I'm better for it, too—so if I look at it that way, the malus to Imaginary Internet Points is overwhelmingly compensated for by the bonus to Real Life Personal Growth points.

^{* As I've been reminded, the malus doesn't even apply to questions, only answers. So... I guess the behavioural modification has worked exceptionally well, to make me check myself even when it doesn't apply! ;)}

Answer 2

Observational Bias

There is some bias in observing the number of downvotes on an answer. Generally speaking, people are likely to withdraw answers which get hit with downvotes. I would imagine this hockey-sticks very quickly, and so seeing very few answers with more than a single downvote is to be expected. It might be nice to see some statistics on downvotes to answers that have been deleted to confirm this trend.

A similar effect could occur where answers with downvotes get fixed, and then the original voter removes the negative vote. This would also decrease the observation of downvotes.

Answer 3

First and foremost, how we vote, who we vote and whether or not we vote up or down is a personal choice and no standards are enforced. There are guidelines, but we cannot change how people vote in general by anything other than education. Ultimately, it's up to the users.

That said, we want you to downvote. In fact, please do it, and do it often. It's an important part of the system.

• It's especially important that we downvote questions. This is reinforced by the fact that question downvotes are free.

• It's equally important the people upvote early, upvote often and keep the reps folowing.

• It's also important to think before you downvote, especially answers. This is why answer downvotes cost reputation, people tend to become attached to their contributions to this community and it does hurt a bit to know someone doesn't appreciate that. Adding a small penalty to the person casting the downvote helps them realize there is a cost there. The rationale here is that its a negative action, it affects users reputation in a negative way and can easily be taken personally/create an unwelcoming atmosphere. While its and important part of the site's curation element, its the easiest to abuse and also the easiest for the user to feel abused by. Adding a cost adds a bit of a check on the person casting the downvote.

But like you said in your post, it's clear that both upvoting and downvoting are really, really Really important to this site (and really the concept). We must use the tools regularly and properly for this site to function.

We must also not take downvotes personally, sometimes people aren't going to like your answers (more often your questions). Lets be kind to the downvoters, they're doing a service to this community. That said, if you do downvote, want to reveal yourself and have something constructive to point out on the post, please do so. The ultimate goal of downvotes is to improve the content on the site.