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Reading the ServerFault meta (very related to point 1 in that post) a common thread seems to be the decline of the "kindness" factor.

One of the more obvious indicator that bad questions are not welcome, is the down-voting. Yet most posts that received one do indeed deserve a down-vote. But often this is because people in general just suck at writing. Or suck at conveying their thoughts in a clear and concise manner.

Most of my posts are much too long for what I'm trying to say, and often not that clear. Yet after some edits (by other people at times) they can become much clearer. But at times this is too late. The question / answer might already be down-voted into oblivion (rightly so)...

Now if a person was notified of edits on a post they down-voted, they could review it, to see if their opinions have changed. Having a down-vote removed will make people feel like they are being heard. Or at the very least it will show that their question is still receiving attention from the community.

It's quite harsh to think that a bunch of people read your post, down-voted it and then never looked at it again. Dismissing you and your problems on a whim, in a place where you were reaching out and asking for help.

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  • i suggest to even go further and say remove the downvotes from a question/answer if a significant edit which isnt just formatting was made.
    – Dennis Nolte
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:02
  • 3
    @DennisNolte As soon as you come up with an algorithm for doing that reliably please let me know...
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:19
  • Would you remove the positive votes as well, @DennisNolte A substantial edit may change the content in a way that previous upvoters may not like. I have seen edits add significant new information, which now gets the unsought approval of previous voters ;)
    – itsbruce
    Commented Dec 5, 2014 at 3:24
  • while the edits are already in a review queue one could "check" a button for : this edit should have upvotes removed, downvotes removed etc.. still makes a mess of previous votes. I think the high rep limit for edit approving is enough for limiting abuse possibilities.
    – Dennis Nolte
    Commented Dec 5, 2014 at 8:25

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
11

This has been proposed before, and is by Jeff.

Personally I agree with you, and so do the majority of folks commenting on the original Meta discussion. If you think the issue should be re-examined you should probably open a new discussion on Meta.SE (referencing the overwhelming support on the previous discussion), as this would be a network-wide feature/change.

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  • I had not seen that post. Probably because theres a difference in wording and implementation. But the thought seems the same.
    – Reaces
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:27
  • 1
    @Reaces It's been proposed a few times over the years with various wordings, that's just the first one I found. Clearing downvotes like Dennis suggested has also come up and been shot down (but I think the reasons there were more sound: Computers can't tell if the edit fixes the problems, and clearing votes for any edit (even just on a closed question) is rife for abuse.
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 16:40
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    Jeff declined everything he didn't get or like, regardless of user votes. I so hoped things would improve after he departed, but others picked up right where he stopped :(
    – Sven Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 17:13
  • 3
    @Sven Sadly SE is not a democracy, but a benevolent dictatorship ruled by a tightly held governing body. (Given how poorly democratic rule works online - there being only one example I can think of where it worked at all - my "Sadly" may be a bit sarcastic: There are plenty of BAD ideas that had lots of community support which I'm happy to see declined.)
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 17:24
  • My point was simply that I did try to look around before posting all-be-it poorly (apparently) how would you suggest I proceed? Delete the post? Add a link to the previous proposal? Nothing?
    – Reaces
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 17:27
  • 3
    I'd leave it as is. Its pretty hard to know everything that's happened everywhere.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 19:49
  • @Reaces Yeah I'd leave it. The problem with having meta.SE and meta.EverythingElse is it's often hard to find the previous iterations of requests (I'm usually awful at it, but this came up in a separate conversation a while back so I happened to remember there was a MetaMeta post about it)
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 22:44

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