6

I'm seeing a lot of questions and answers with NO VOTES.

I wonder if people here so far have a good idea of how the community is supposed to work? Or do people just not read the answers to questions that they've asked?

Are people voting enough, and if not, why?

9

This community seems a little slower to vote than some others I've participated in, but not as bad as writers.SE was when we were in private beta. Leading by example helped writers.SE a lot. Like writers.SE, parenting.SE is one of those sites that attracts a lot of people who aren't very familiar with the SE format yet.

The way we solved this on writers.SE was to:

  1. Raise the issue on meta (done!)

  2. Make a point of voting frequently ourselves (the active folks who recognize the problem)

  3. Get in the habit of commenting when you up or down vote (downvote comments are always important, upvote comments help get people new to the format thinking more about upvoting, and are less important once good voting habits are established).

2
  • Thanks for sharing your experience, this definitely seems as though it will help.
    – Justin Standard
    Mar 31 '11 at 23:58
  • 1
    +1! This is exactly how I was thinking, without realizing it. I guess that's why I've used up all my votes every day so far :-D (10% are downvotes, with comments of course!)
    – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    Apr 1 '11 at 6:25
2

@HedgeMage gives some great advice on getting more folks voting and participating, and I think she identified a good cause... more folks that aren't used to SE. But I think to some extent that it's not a bad thing this early in the private beta to be where we are. We haven't even had a weekend yet... :)

I kinda expect voting on parenting.SE to be a little slower than it is on many other stacks. Simply because there's a lot more "art" to parenting than there is "science". On highly scientific stacks it's easy to see "right or wrong" and vote up or down accordingly. Here, I expect there's a lot of middle ground reactions. (see my answer over on How much should my parenting philosophy factor in when voting on answers? about how voting is really a 3 option question on these stacks, not a binary one.)

There might also be a difference of opinion in the private beta about what exactly the site is all about... it might take us all a bit of time to work out the kinks and come to agreement on what we're doing here.

How can I delete my contributions and account to Parenting.se

What's the best strategy to combat soapboxing?

https://parenting.meta.stackexchange.com/q/37/57

1

One of the best ways to prod people to upvote or to move the flow of the site along is through comments. I forgot about the 50 reputation floor on that feature. Maybe we ought to drop that down to 15 like Vote Up, so that newer users can contribute in talking about the answers.
I have spent a bit of time on the site already and don't have that feature and have wanted to discuss the quality or nature of people's answers without leaving an answer of my own.

tl;dr, I submit that lowering the reputation limit for comments will ultimately help w/ the low voting.

2
  • I think doing so temporarily during beta won't hurt, but in the long run (when the site is running self sufficiently) I would want the comment floor to be back at 50 to avoid abuse by anonymous users.
    – Justin Standard
    Apr 6 '11 at 21:55
  • Right. I get the concern. I just don't agree. A comment can be flagged for moderator attention, just like a post. This discussion is a good example...I don't have 50 reputation on Parenting yet, but I'm glad we get to have this conversation.
    – Bob
    Apr 8 '11 at 14:35

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