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If somebody answers a question, he must believe that the question is meaningful and contributes to the community. Then why people hesitate to give other people credit for asking questions? I think if you answer a question, it makes sense to upvote the question for sure. Correct me if my logic is flawed...

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  • By the way, you can also bring this to our Chat Room. People often forget to look here in Meta, and others tend to look at the chat.
    – Ron Maupin Mod
    Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 12:15
  • I thought that more people will see it here. Not sure which one is more popular among the regular members.
    – Bobby Voychin
    Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 12:31
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    It's hard to say, but you can cover both. People need a reminder every once in a while.
    – Ron Maupin Mod
    Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 12:46
  • So, here is a question that got far more attention than the question probably deserves on Network Engineering, simply because it hit the Hot Questions List. It got 26 up votes in two days. Questions that are the real focus of NE often get overlooked, and simplistic questions hit the hot list. I once saw someone remark on the quality of our questions that make the hot list, although I suppose it could widen the audience.
    – Ron Maupin Mod
    Commented Jan 29, 2020 at 1:26

1 Answer 1

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You are correct, in the general case, and this has been brought up before. For example, this answer.

Unfortunately, people often get so focused on giving an answer that the value of and vote for the question can get lost. That sometimes happens to me when I answer, but I generally try to go back and correct the situation. It also helps if you edit the question or get the OP to edit the question to be more clear and include everything necessary in the question. You will also find that there are people who answer, but simply do not have the reputation to vote up, and there are people who do not really understand how it is all supposed to work.

As questions (answers, too) age, they tend to collect more up votes. The ideal situation is when a question makes the Hot List, then the question and answers to it get a lot of attention and votes in a very short span of time. We have had, so far, six Great Answer (answer score of 100 or more) badges awarded, and five of them took years to get that many up votes, but one of them hit the Hot List, and it got the badge in three days. There are only two Great Question (question score of 100 or more) badges, and both of those took a few years to earn the badges.

We also have several badges that can be earned by voting:

  • Civic Duty Vote 300 or more times.
  • Critic First down vote.
  • Electorate Vote on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions.
  • Sportsmanship Up vote 100 answers on questions where an answer of yours has a positive score.
  • Suffrage Use 30 votes in a day.
  • Supporter First up vote.
  • Vox Populi Use the maximum 40 votes in a day.

If you look at the all-time votes cast by user, you may notice that the advocate for voting in the answer I linked is not even in the top 10 for votes. It is simply one of those things that tends to lose focus when someone is working on an answer.

SE recently changed the reputation points for up votes on questions to be 10 (previously five) to match the reputation points for up votes on answers.

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  • Thanks for your answer, Ron. Your points make sense. I'm also relatively new here and didn't know how the hotlist works exactly. Thanks for sharing a similar question that's been brought up. I really share Eddie's views on the topic. I have noticed however that new contributors are asking interesting questions, and a few high rating members answer but nobody is upvoting the question. I'd hope to see a more supportive community and to look at the upvoting as encouragement for contribution as this is its main purpose, rather than some sort rating competition.
    – Bobby Voychin
    Commented Jan 21, 2020 at 21:41
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    Well, I really have not seen competition for reputation, per se, although we see people like that who pass through, mostly on questions that hit the Hot List, and outsiders start giving me-too answers to gather some reputation. I voted far more than even the next closest person, and I still forget, or I wait until the OP has accepted an answer. I will also wait for the OP to fix the question, even though it has an answer. That is because this is an archive, and just because a question has an answer does not mean it is a good question for an archive.
    – Ron Maupin Mod
    Commented Jan 22, 2020 at 0:27

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