Is habitual down voting considered okay?

Question

Today, I noticed two okay questions, which are quite reasonable student-level questions, and they are downvoted. I understand that there is at least one habitual downvoter who consistently downvotes and rarely writes an answer. That gentleman himself acknowledged this in chat that he downvotes a lot, rather proudly. Is this practice considered okay? Every other question in SE chemistry has a downvote.

My annoyance is that downvoting without commenting simply discourages new users. Most students do not love chemistry at all, and if they see this treatment by the initiated chemists, they will not ask questions again. ResearchGate used to have a downvote option, too, and fortunately, it was removed. I think StackExchange should also mandate leaving a comment whenever someone downvotes.

Question 1: One down vote

I'm a high school student. I noticed $\ce{H+}$ ion is commonly present in my books while I didn't find any presence of $\ce{H-}$ ions in my books. However, I found on internet that $\ce{H-}$ also exists but it is less common. Because Hydrogen has just one electron, it can either receive one electron to be $\ce{H-}$ or omit an electron to be $\ce{H+}$. So, both should have the same possibility to exist. Then, why is $\ce{H+}$ more common than $\ce {H-}$?

The answer to the question might be obvious to most of the users here with their knowledge. But please share a detailed explanation that is suitable for a high school student.

Question 2: Three down votes and closed

I have just started learning salt analysis in inorganic chemistry.In it i came across the names of colors of various precipitates and solutions.Why they have those prefixes like Scarlet Red.I mean isn't the name of color enough. Why it need to be Red litharge and not just red, Prussian blue and not just blue, Crimson Yellow and not just yellow Apple green and not just green. There are numerous other examples.

I wanted to know if there is any decided rules for Nomenclature of such colors or they are just named randomly.

Answer 1

Voting is subjective.

• Up: This question shows research effort, it is useful and clear
• Down: This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful

Everybody using this site has to interpret this by themselves, they have to make this decision. This site is designed in a way that the hive mind will raise good questions above others.

If the voting habits of a user are targeted towards content, then that is the intended way to use it.
If there is targeted voting towards a user, then we (the moderator team and its tools) most likely will notice that. This behaviour is not in accordance with the code of conduct, and hence not permissible.

There is a vague description about what is the target audience in the tour. This also gives every user the leeway to judge whether the question is appropriate for their understood primary target group.

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From my personal point of view, I think both down-votes are justified.

For me the intended target group of this site is at the earliest a first-year university (or similar) student.

For the first question you quote you can probably use any general chemistry textbook and find a better answer than what should be offered on this site. SE basically operates within the gaps of the existing (and openly available) knowledge.

The second question shows no prior research and it is lazily typed. The answer is quite obvious when browsing through Wikipedia. I am also quite confident that some of the examples are mentioned in general chemistry textbooks.

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There have been numerous attempts to introduce the forced down-vote comment, too many failed attempts to count them, too many to justify linking to any one of them. Browse this meta site and the main meta site to review why this was never introduced and why this would destroy Stack Exchange.

And don't even get me started on Research Gate …

Answer 2

There are two layers to this problem. The first layer is based on individual actions: is it OK for any single person to continually downvote posts?

The answer is that habitual downvoting is not against the rules, as has already been explained, so there is no real action to be taken here. However, I will agree that consistent downvoting is highly unconstructive, and that other people on this platform have contributed in a much more positive and meaningful way.

What can be done about this? The obvious answer is that votes are a collective response. Everybody is given one vote which they can use. If somebody downvotes it, that's fine. If the question is genuinely good, then it will garner more upvotes.

In a democratic election, you don't aim to win 100% of the votes. You aim to win more than 50% of the votes. The same thing is true here. If the question is "good enough" (as deemed by the community), then the net score will be positive.

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The second layer of the problem is at the community level. What happens when on balance, the votes turn out negative?

Consistently seeing questions being downvoted indicates that there is a disconnect between the people asking questions and the people judging questions. It is not worrying that the community, on balance, downvotes questions they don't like. It is far more worrying that Chemistry, as a site, attracts so many questions which are deemed worthy of downvotes.

This has already been mentioned, but a huge part of the problem is the question of whom the site should be targeted towards. This is something which, in my opinion, cannot be easily reconciled. That's also why in the last moderator election I submitted a pointed question on this exact topic. However, I am afraid I don't have any ideas on what to do about this, if anything.

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As for forcing downvotes to be accompanied by comments, I do not really want to repeat myself and others' words, but this will never happen. It is not because SE has never thought of your points. Your post doesn't bring any new arguments to the table, that have not already been argued many, many times before. On balance, the decision is that this will not happen. And from a 'local' perspective, there is no way we can enforce this on Chemistry, without the entire Stack Exchange network being changed in order to accommodate this.

Answer 3

Individual visitors are allowed to vote according to what they personally regard as desirable and helpful questions. There are at present no rules that argue that individuals should preferably up- rather than downvote, although past posts have suggested that upvoting (and voting generally) should be encouraged.

As already answered there are mechanisms that should catch downvoting which targets individuals rather than posts (content) through repeated downvoting. There are site algorithms meant to pick up biased voting (either for or against an individual). Moderators do not usually monitor cumulative downvoting. Moderators do not censor individual users unless their behavior breaks rules. Moderators might comment if the behavior of a user is deemed unfriendly (for instance by flags).

Regarding the purpose of votes, the site guidelines state that

Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful, while voting down a post signals the opposite: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information. The more that people vote on a post, the more certain future visitors can be of the quality of information contained within that post – not to mention that upvotes are a great way to thank the author of a good post for the time and effort put into writing it!

Beyond that, the site has stated rules regarding what are acceptable questions. For instance questions which are off-topic:

• Do-my-homework questions: Homework questions are OK, but they must follow these guidelines. Please don't ask "do my homework for me" type questions – we only clear conceptual doubts in homework questions and will not do your work for you.
• Pitches for your own personal theories or work: We deal with mainstream chemistry here. Anything that couldn't be published in a reputable journal is probably not appropriate at this site.
• Computational questions: If your question is purely about numerical methods you are using in a simulation/etc, it is probably more appropriate at Computational Science.
• Personal medical questions are off-topic. We cannot safely answer questions for your specific situation and you should always consult a doctor for medical advice.
• Legal questions relating to chemical substances and techniques are off-topic. Laws can vary significantly by jurisdiction. You should consult a legal expert in your jurisdiction instead of a random person on the internet.

This is followed by the following statement:

Please look around to see if your question has been asked before.

Additional comments:

(1) Some new visitors don't know how to use the site. Other users are welcomed to comment in order to assist new users regarding how to use the site, in case the poster overlooked the help pages which includes a site tour.

(2) Homework questions are expected to reveal some effort to understand underlying concepts.

(3) If a question is a duplicate then according to the rules of the site it should be closed as a duplicate. Duplicate questions are frowned upon.

(4) Learning requires perseverance and the resources available to students these days boggles the mind. Internet search engines will generally help you find answers if you try hard enough. There are plenty of alternative sites where you can post basic questions. If you found this site you should be able to find the answer to your question or something closely related, provided it exists.

Finally, consider an analogy: if a group of students shows up at a seminar and starts asking extremely basic questions, what should the response be? This has nothing to do with a lack of empathy but rather is a question about who should be the target audience.