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There's a certain type of frequent Meta suggestion that we all know and are annoyed by because they get made over and over again:

  • Let's force comments when downvoting
  • Let's remove the anonymity when downvoting
  • Let's remove downvoting

Those have lots of good duplicates to close as, of course. However, those all tend to be a bit scattershot as they are sometimes old, always specific discussions of a specific proposal, and always focus on specific aspects/arguments/questions that the respective OP brought up, rather than providing an overview of the whole issue.

Also, some of the unpopular feature requests are highly upvoted (example, example), which is confusing to anyone unfamiliar with Meta. Why does the post my "force comments on votes" suggestion gets closed as a duplicate of have 800+ upvotes yet Meta-heads keep telling me it's an awful idea?

We could create questions that try to capture the current community consensus on each of those issues, and a bit of history.

One such question could be

Why are downvotes anonymous and do not require further explanation?

Anyone have compelling arguments against doing this?

If not, I'll go ahead when I find the time.

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    compelling arguments against: You will make finding the dupe target easier thus denying me my chance to practice my Search Fu.
    – NathanOliver
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:17
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    Well if the users don't research in the first place before they ask, then they also won't find the faq post.
    – Rizier123
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:18
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    @Rizier123 I want to primarily provide a good, canonical duplicate closing target
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:18
  • If you need help in writing the faq-proposed I'm happy to help. Tell me what you need help with.
    – rene
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:20
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    @Pekka웃 Then it is probably a good idea :) It also will make it easier to choose a dupe to close the new questions which asks the same.
    – Rizier123
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:20
  • @Rizier yup, that's the main goal.
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:20
  • @rene great! ---
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:21
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    Also include "Why is the accepted answer above the one with the most votes"..that gets a lot of traction.
    – Paulie_D
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:35
  • I think something similar was proposed in the early days of the new MSO, but it didn't get much traction.
    – user247702
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:36
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    Related: When and how do mature faq-proposed posts graduate to faq?
    – user247702
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:38
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    I think the FAQ should be slightly broader and focus on explaining the purpose of downvotes in general (assuming such a FAQ doesn't already exist; I can't find one). You'd mention things like how votes are our way of rating content, how they're not meant to be taken personally, a couple of things that the system does with votes, etc. That explains why they are essential, why people should downvote more often, and sets up a perfect framework to go on to explain why they are anonymous. Most of the confusion on this really seems to stem from a basic lack of understanding of the voting system.
    – Cody Gray - on strike Mod
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:47
  • @Cody that's a fair suggestion. It would make sense to have separate ones addressing those specific suggestions, though, IMO, with the general downvoting FAQ being a link from there. Else the specific issue in question gets buried in a huge general writeup
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:02
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    @Paulie Also include "Why is the accepted answer above the one with the most votes"..that gets a lot of traction yeah - but someone else'll have to write that one, because I ask myself the same thing all the time and don't have a good explanation :)
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:02
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    Why not just edit some existing discussion? Creating a discussion would be just that -- artificially creating a discussion with only one viewpoint. At least with current discussions, it's real people having a real discussion.
    – hichris123
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:36
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    @hichris the attempt would be to collect all the viewpoints, as neutrally as possible
    – Pekka
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:52

2 Answers 2

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I think this is a great idea. These three facets are commonly misunderstood here and would benefit from a solid explanation and target for canonical closure.

When the metas split, the three greatest offenders of wasted time was the three bullet points you point out, and having extra explanation for those topics can only be beneficial -- even now.

Making it a FAQ (which it very clearly is given the history of those topics) will only lend weight to its ability to stand the test of time by allowing multiple editors to maintain the page.

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    Or at least 2 of the 3. I don't see "remove downvoting" quite as often. Even still, I think the point stands that making these topics into canonical posts can only be beneficial.
    – Travis J
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 21:32
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I'm not seeing a good reason to do this.

Why? They already exist. Take the question linked about requiring comments for downvotes (Require a comment explaining the reason for the first downvote on a question). That already exists. It has good answers saying pros and cons for the topic. Or for providing an optional anonymous comment for downvoting. These all exist. And they all provide a decent perspective on their respective topic. And, well, if a given question hasn't been asked... there's probably not enough people on meta who are confused about it.

I don't really think a FAQ would be that great for this topic. In When and how do mature [faq-proposed] posts graduate to [faq]?, it states:

To expand on this further, users don't search for FAQs to read a discussion on a topic. If they wanted to see a discussion, they can look at a huge array of other questions surrounding that topic. Users go to a FAQ because they want a definitive answer. They're curious about something and want to know the hard facts. If we can't provide that in the question, then we shouldn't advertise it as such.

That is at odds with the vast majority of questions that we see about downvoting, etc. They all want the system to change, they don't want to know why the system exists in this form. And we don't really have any definite answers on why the system shouldn't change -- that's more opinionated. We can provide why the system is like it is, but that would only indirectly answer most people's questions.

There are already a good amount of duplicates out there. From what I can tell, they seem to be decent at explaining their viewpoints. You note that most are "highly-upvoted" leading to confusion, but I can't say I've ever seen one person be confused about the score. And besides, the score of the question doesn't matter, the scores of the answers matters. It seems to be much easier to just focus on these good duplicates and make them slightly better as needed, rather than spending a decent amount of time on a subject many have already spent way too much time on.

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  • I see your point and agree with it somewhat, but the whole reason for duplicates is to keep the answers and discussion in 1 place. When users need to navigate an endless string of dups, it makes it more confusing and more difficult to understand the reasons
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 23:24
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    True, however, is there really a chain of dupes here @psubsee2003? Unless people are duping to wildly different questions than the top voted ones, seems like there's no dupe chains to deal with.
    – hichris123
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 23:31
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    I think you raise some fair points, but I don't necessarily agree that creating an FAQ here would be shutting down discussion. The "when to create a FAQ" post by Animuson makes a very strong counter point to the shutting down argument, saying "If they wanted to see a discussion, they can look at a huge array of other questions surrounding that topic. Users go to a FAQ because they want a definitive answer. They're curious about something and want to know the hard facts. "
    – Travis J
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 23:36
  • Hmm, I'd never seen that answer there before, @TravisJ. Yeah, I might have overstated it a bit, but I guess my concern would be that this isn't really a matter of site "policy" per se. It's a grey area of "Why isn't this feature being implemented?" or "Why is this feature a bad idea?", not really "How should I act on the site?".
    – hichris123
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 23:40
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    @hichris123 chain may be missing my point, but you can find discussion spread across an multi limbed tree of dups. And there are so many branches in some that it is difficult to find them all. Add in dups of dups, and the content on MSE, it makes it very difficult for someone to track down all of the points and counter points.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 0:45

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