up vote 4 down vote favorite

To see how the new vote pools function, I did all my voting at once over the past half-hour or so. I voted for both questions and answers. Now I'm getting a message to come back and vote on more answers in 19 hours or use my 9 remaining question votes now.

So it looks like you first use up your pool of 30 all-purpose votes, THEN you have 10 additional votes that can only be for questions. Is that correct?

If so, it seems like a bad way to do it.

I think it should be that you have a total of 40 votes, which can be cast in any order you wish, but at least 10 of them have to be on questions. Or, to think of it another way, you start with 30 votes, each of the first 10 question votes you make adds one to the number of votes you're allowed.

Treating it as two pools, and the first pool has to be used up before you get to use the second pool is totally unnatural. It means that after you've used up the all-purpose votes, you then have to go back and scan for MORE questions that might be worth voting up. Or you have to first make a point of only voting for answers and then come back and vote up the questions you liked. Either way, you can't use the new votes in a natural way as you're reading questions and answers.

As I said, I definitely voted on several questions as well as answers, so I'm pretty sure the pools work as described (did I miss something?), and I think that's NOT the way they should work.

Added: Another (minor) problem with the implementation of the new voting pools is that you don't get the 5 votes left messages on the all-purpose votes, only the answer votes. Since the pools are being treated differently, shouldn't you get the warnings on the first 30 votes.

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What new vote pools? Is this connected to that idiotic and annoying "you haven't voted on questions in a while" popup? I already vote on questions that I feel are worth it... – DJ Pon3 May 4 '11 at 20:02
See my previous question: meta.serverfault.com/questions/1471/… – Ward May 4 '11 at 20:58
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3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

In the past, I voted a lot, and a couple weeks before this new vote structure was implemented, I had starting voting a lot again - all 30 votes for several days in a row. I've now had a few days to vote a lot using the new system and have some observations:

I don't dislike the 30 Q or A votes, then 10 more Q-only votes structure as much as I did initially.

My natural vote pattern seems to be at least 10 question votes out of 30 and I have a hard time finding 10 more questions to go back and vote on. I don't think I'll use very many of the 10 new votes very often.

The pop-ups are totally screwed up. There's no longer a reminder when you're down to your last 5 "normal" votes, just the big reminder about 20 hours until you can vote again, or you have 10 more question votes. Then you get the 5,4,3,2,1 votes left reminder on the last of the question-only votes. At this point it's probably best to just ditch the countdown altogether.

I don't think it's hard to recognize a good question, but I can't define it. Obviously it's got to be clearly asked, but it also needs to be in some way relevant. Not something that can be easily found in a manual or by testing, and not just a support request with symptoms that needs a lot of troubleshooting.

I don't know about others, but I'm still reluctant to "throw away" rep by downvoting bad questions. If they really want bad questions downvoted, there needs to be an incentive, like +1 rep for either an up or downvote with those last 10 votes, or at least no -1 for downvoting.

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I understand why down votes should cost rep, but this does have a chilling effect on Down votes from anyone who is trying to increase theirs. I don't have a smart answer to this conundrum, just an observation that we can't have it both ways. – DJ Pon3 May 7 '11 at 8:09
I was thinking that if it's only the 10 new question-only votes that either give you some rep for voting or at least don't cost you rep for downvotes it might work. The 30 normal votes is enough of a hurdle to get over that I don't see too many people doing it just for the little bit of rep you can get. – Ward May 7 '11 at 9:03
There have been grumblings that moderators should get 'free' downvotes, but so far TPTB haven't thought that a good idea. That said, I'm far enough up the rep-chart that the occasional downvote in the line of duty (sometimes a flagged answer just needs a downvote, not burn-with-fire) doesn't cost me much. Back when I was actively working towards a permissions goal? I begrudged every single one. – sysadmin1138♦ May 7 '11 at 12:23
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

To expand on the comment Sam Saffron ♦ left on the question, the behaviour has been changed again. (But it doesn't seem to be listed on that "Recent Feature Changes" Robert Cartaino mentioned...) http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/90378/answers-questions-votes-cast-rules/90431#90431

It's still 40 votes total, broken into 30 for Q&A + up to 10 extra for questions. Based on what I saw when I voted today, it looks like your first 10 question votes come out of the "question only votes pool" so if you voted on 10 questions first, you'd have 30 Q or A votes, and if you use your 10 (or more) Q votes as you also vote on questions, you'll just naturally use them up.

++double-good on that change.

And you now only get the simple "5 votes left today" 4, 3, 2, 1 messages. Also a big improvement.

Also, there's a new bronze badge, Vox Populi, for using all 40 votes in a day. I seem to be the first person here to get it since I've been on a voting kick the last few days.

Edit: Now I'm confused, I tried to vote for more answers than questions today, but as far as I can tell, I've voted on 8 questions and 32 answers, which I thought wasn't allowed. Or maybe I messed up and voted for "too many" questions.

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Voted to accept so that this is the first answer, I guess I'll have to change it if they change the system again... – Ward May 9 '11 at 22:22
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up vote -1 down vote

So it looks like you first use up your pool of 30 all-purpose votes, THEN you have 10 additional votes that can only be for questions. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Either way, you can't use the new votes in a natural way as you're reading questions and answers.

That's the intent -- it is an opportunity to insert a set of "bonus!" votes that you must use by voting on questions, since we have a critical and almost crippling lack of voting on the average question (hint: downvotes are awesome!) (second hint: but not on this answer!).

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@Jeff, perhaps you can explain what you mean by an "almost crippling lack of voting". Why is it almost crippling? I personally believe the voting on questions on SF is quite healthy. – John Gardeniers May 4 '11 at 12:25
@Jeff, that structure makes the extra votes harder for "good" voters - the ones who are already using all 30 votes many days - to use. Someone who votes on the odd Q or A isn't going to use up their first 30 and will never need or use the extra 10. Someone who makes a point of voting is going to find it a pain to go through questions twice, once looking for good answers and then going back to good questions. – Ward May 4 '11 at 17:46
Oh the irony that this has been downvoted twice. Of course that comment was regarding downvoting questions, not answers I suppose. – ErikA May 4 '11 at 22:12
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@erik updated for great justice – Jeff Atwood♦ May 4 '11 at 23:27
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I tried it again today, and the implementation is REALLY annoying. Knowing that I have the 10 bonus question votes available, I voted on answers first. After about half my votes were used, every vote got a pop-up "How about voting on a question, eh? Pretty please?" Tomorrow I'll see if it still seems just as annoying to vote for whatever I think deserves it first, and then go back and vote on less-worthy questions just to use all the bonus votes. – Ward May 5 '11 at 4:03
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A few suggestions - how about 20 answer votes and 20 question votes / day? To increase question voting, how about +1 rep for each up vote and no penalties for down votes? – Doug Luxem May 5 '11 at 22:13
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@Doug: I think that a slight modification to your second suggestion would make it a great idea: Same as they have now, 30 votes, then another 10 for question votes, and you get +1 rep for each of those 10 bonus votes. That's only 10 rep/day, but it gives you a little something back for doing the extra work I'm bitching about. But it's not so much rep that people are likely to go crazy and vote randomly for the first 30 votes just to get 10 rep. How about it, Jeff? – Ward May 6 '11 at 3:26
I'm still interested in why you think SF's perfectly healthy voting pattern is "almost crippling", as well as what you think is being crippled. It seems a vey strange comment to make without some sort of context or explanation. – John Gardeniers May 8 '11 at 8:51
@john look at the data. SF's question voting patterns are arguably the worst of the trilogy. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/90324/… – Jeff Atwood♦ May 8 '11 at 8:52
I can't really see a pattern there at all, other than: SF needs more regulars. – Ward May 8 '11 at 17:25
@Jeff, I don't see a problem. The voting on SF reflects two important facts. 1 - We have a smaller population. 2 - The users are, for the most part, more expert and discerning in what is a more specialised field (which also explains the smaller population). In other words, the results are to be expected. – John Gardeniers May 8 '11 at 21:31
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