Peak down-voting insanity?

Question

I have been on a number of stackexchange sites, and the level of down-voting (and reluctance to up-vote) on philosophy.SE is just bonkers. Recently I received a down-vote on an answer to a question asking for philosophy jokes. My answer quoted a joke and included a linked reference to the source. There was zero controversy or possible offensiveness in the joke. BOOM --- down-vote!

So anyway, the community here is so [BLEEP]-up that you get down-voted for a [BLEEP] joke* (in the context of a question that asked for jokes). Even an innocuous joke is apparently too controversial to avoid down-voting!

I am not too fussed about reputation on this site. I have plenty of rep on some other sites (mostly CrossValidated) and I recently started making some contributions. As someone coming across from other sites, it is demotivating when you contribute something as innocuous as a little joke you liked (again, in the context of a question that asked for jokes) and you still get a little (-2) red flag the next time you visit. I understand that not everyone will like the same jokes, and hence, some will not be up-voted. But honestly, down-voting a joke? What the [BLEEP] is wrong with people on this site? If this is the atmosphere here, is there any point continuing to contribute?

My question: What kind of atmosphere does the voting on this site create for new(ish) users who come across from other SE sites? Is this something that people on here think is normal?

Note: Whether the question asking for jokes is within the scope of this site is a separate question that has been raised here. To be clear, I posted an answer to the question, not the question itself.

Update: Due to attempts to side-track discussion, I have added [BLEEPS] to remove swear words in the original post. My view is that this detracts from getting the message across, but hopefully now it is possible to discuss the substance of the issue.

Answer 1

A useful comparison might be drawn with stackoverflow.

StackOverflow is about programming problems. People go there when they have questions about particular issues they're having with writing code, using particular libraries, understanding more unusual aspects VDEs and so on.

If you go on there asking how you format headers in Microsoft Word, your question will be removed and you will be pointed to SuperUser.

So it is with "who created the world" or "what's your best philosophy joke". To someone with zero understanding of the field, it might seem sufficiently related to be worth asking there. But it's not philosophy - it's general discussion.

Answer 2

Allow me to set the context for this answer by recanting my experience on this site. Please take care not to misconstrue my attitude to any particular user.

My time here measures in mere weeks and most of my answers attracted critical comments from @FrankHubeny, one of which he down-voted (I suspect). I was in the process of replying to one such comment when I discovered that @PhilipKlöcking had deleted that particular answer - summarily, without explanation and within hours of me posting it.

So I can sympathize with your implied sentiment that new users may find this a somewhat hostile environment.

However, after edits to improve the quality of my answer, Frank removed the down-vote. And for some of my very average questions, I received some very good answers from Philip.

This is a community; that means there is a culture and individuals. There will be mistakes and there will be conventions not acceptable to everyone. The best a new user can do is endure it until they can change it.

My opinion, the atmosphere is appropriately Exacting.

Answer 3

Although I voted to close that particular question, I agree with you about down voting.

I have down voted 3 times since I’ve been here in the early weeks. Each time I also added a comment why I down voted to make sure it was not anonymous. However, I no longer down vote. Instead, I comment, flag or vote to close.

What I do is probably not normal behavior.

Answer 4

TL;DR They got hostile to you as a McDonalds frequent consumer can get hostile against a vegan. Unfortunately for you and me, that is something structurally related to StackExchange network as a private business (Edit just to clarify: not because the company encourages that actively, but allows it as a profitable behaviour that generates traffic), and nothing that can or should be changed from a business perspective.

Long explanation

Let me sympathize with your thought on this matter. I don't participate a lot on this site (philosophy), but this is a general issue in many SE sites. This happens continuously on this site and the best thing you can do is to not [BLEEPing] care.

A pity, but what I regularly find on this particular site is that there are many questions asking the same over, and over, and over... (one recurring topic is self-determination, while the other one involves debating with religious people). Those question topics are visited a lot, while questions regarding deeper topics (in particular, a request on understanding a specific point from a particular author, ...) are less visited and voted.

If you allow the comparison, it is like if philosophy itself was a restaurants zone and people was mostly eating @ McDonalds or Burger King. But this also happens in other sites! An example is StackOverflow where you'll find a lot of topics involving broken CSS/HTML/JS.

But then... how does this junk-food phenomenon stick to the topic? The same way a vegan is dismissed from a BBQ party. And now, you seem to be the vegan guy. Yes: it was a joke. Yes: it was off-topic (I'd rather downvote the question!!! perhaps the answer brings useful details regarding how to understand a joke in a relevant manner involving philo - it could be a useful answer indeed, even beyond the fact that it is about jokes). But the matter was not handled appropriately indeed.

Stackexchange is a private business, ultimately. This implies that generating traffic is their priority (which translates, directly or not, to advertising and related stuff) and, like other web 2.0 services, the equivalent of junk food has to be present. This means that you have to expect some low standard regarding social behaviors and, above everything else, low standard of intellectual needs (in the same way that videogames loosened their standards across decades to reach a broader population). That's the reason why there are no site-wide FAQs with commonly-asked questions (StackOverflow broke the rule because there was so much junk food and created their documentation section).

Answer 5

Don't use this site to philosophise.

StackExchange is not suitable for that. This is just a quick Q&A site. Your questions can be deleted and closed according to the criteria of the people with enough reputation to do so.

Freedom of speech or unbiased treatment are not taking into consideration to be a moderator.

If your goal is to gain medals and reputation to boost your ego and to let people know how intelligent you are I suggest you to talk about the Greek philosophers of stuff that is not particularly relevant to the times we are going through. Otherwise you can actually make people "think" and "ponder" by doing so which is not very well accepted in these networks.