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This Question has a bunch of 'stars' (favorite question) but does not have the same or a higher amount of upvotes. That doesn't make any sense to me, because a star has a higher value (even though it doesn't give any reputation) than an upvote IMO. I've not been around here for a long time, but I've never seen a SE question that has more stars than upvotes except when:

  • The question is really bad
  • The question is funny or ridiculous

Both cases do not match to this question (IMO). So I just want to know why people don't give the person who created the puzzle they enjoyed extra reputation and making it a 'hot' question, instead of just favoriting it. A upvotes/stars balance (see picture below) of 2/5 (= 40%) respectively without my vote and star 1/4 (= 25%) is pretty strange, I think.

Here's a screenshot of the current stars and upvotes (12 August 2015, 09:11 UTC/GMT):

enter image description here

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Well, there could be several reasons for this:

  • Maybe they're out of votes for the day, and want to come back and upvote later

  • Perhaps I want to answer this, but I don't have time right now, so I'll answer later

  • More people want to try to come back and solve it later because they don't feel like it right now

  • Some people favorite puzzles that they want to give to their friends

  • Or I could just be curious about the answer

  • People might favorite puzzles that they will possibly upvote if the solution is good

  • Some people favorite questions that they don't like

  • People favorite every question they see if they had waffles for breakfast that day

  • Some people favorite every question that has the word "acid" in it

  • Some people favorite questions that need to be edited but not retagged nor closed and where the user who asked the question has a username ending with "h" and fitting the format "capital letter, 3 or more lowercase letters" if and only if the title contains less than 7 words and the body contains the letter "x" but not a capital "B," only on Tuesdays

Essentially, "favorite" == "bookmark" and not "this question is good." In fact, some users use favorites in their own weird, personal way (the last three examples were a stretch, but I've seen some users who use favorites for some pretty weird purposes).

Favorites have nothing to do with a question's worth, and are simply there so that users can come back to the question later (sometimes I'll even use them to remember to come back and vote to delete a question on Stack Overflow).

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    $\begingroup$ I agree that users often use favourites as "bookmarks", but if that's how they're being used, then there's really no point in the number of favourites being displayed next to the question. Ideally, there ought to be some sort of bookmark that is private to the user, as well as (or instead of) the favourite points. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 12:16
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    $\begingroup$ Mmmm. Waffles. +1. $\endgroup$
    – A E
    Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 10:35
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    $\begingroup$ They might have upvoted the question, but it has more downvotes, you can't down-star $\endgroup$
    – Gamora
    Commented Nov 1, 2019 at 11:26

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