tl;dr: in the tooltip for upvoting/downvoting of questions is the semicolon(;) considered an and/or (meaning do we upvote if it is clear and useful but no research, or upvote for research but not clear or useful)...or is it "upvote because the question has research effort, and therefore is clear and useful"...or other?


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Looking at a few of the questions today (not to pick on anyone, just as examples):

This question: http://serverfault.com/questions/500514/managing-windows-8-start-screen-tiles (at the time of this post) has 4 upvotes and yet per Jeff Atwood here:  https://meta.serverfault.com/questions/857/in-what-cases-am-i-meant-to-downvote-a-question/1696#1696 the tooltip should be the basis of voting up/down.  In this case the question clearly has no research effort but has been upvoted as if it did.


A more recent meta question regarding voting on questions is here: https://meta.serverfault.com/questions/5272/what-are-the-reasons-a-question-can-should-get-an-upvote-or-downvote-on-serverfa where Iain reiterates Jeff's point on why/when to up/downvote a question.

MDMarra also points out in that discussion:

> ...we fully expect you to have put some effort into solving your
> problem before you come here. We also expect you to have done some
> research before you come here....

So, not to pick on Mark, but his question recently: http://serverfault.com/questions/551477/is-there-reserved-oid-space-for-internal-enterprise-cas also shows a lack of research.  Now, I know he wouldn't post a question without researching it, and I know his background and expertise, and the high rep count always lends to favorable treatment, but should the question be upvoted based on the tooltip?  I like the question and upvoted it myself, so I'm just as guilty as the next guy (unless it is perfectly acceptable to upvote based on "usefulness to the community" and disregard research included).

The same could be said for this HIGHLY upvoted question: http://serverfault.com/questions/550763/what-are-the-advantages-of-tape-drives

**In contrast** this question appears to have research: http://serverfault.com/questions/551612/what-is-etc-apache2-sites-available-used-for-and-is-it-necessary as does this one:  http://serverfault.com/questions/550973/hyper-v-file-server-clustering-at-my-wits-end and both had multiple downvotes.

It would appear that while sometimes we vote on questions based on research, a lot of times we vote based on whether we like the merit/premise of the question regardless of the research done.  So, is that perfectly valid?