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Requirements for giving down votes

A person casting a negative vote should have at least 10% of the reputation of the person they are casting against.

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Score 1
6 Comments

That makes you invulnerable to any downvotes! :P

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Not really, you're just about there. OK 5%.

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Just FYI, that would mean only 51 users would be able to downvote you (at 5% of your rep).

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Do I need more? Getting a negative vote from someone with a 50 rep is not something that I give much merit to. In my opinion a downvote should give you pause to reflect on the answer. The higher the rep the more attention should be paid to it.

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Just because someone has low rep, does not mean their opinion is any less valid. Your high reputation says that historically you have been right, but it does not guarantee that you will be right next time.

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i think a valid reason should be entered for all down votes- no anonymity.

down voting by someone with a good rep can be more meaningful than someone with 1 rep.

valid reason gives feedback to the person who wrote answer

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Score 2

3 Comments:

I agree. In fact, why can't this apply to upvotes as well so we don't have to say "+ agreed" or whatever since some people don't like it.

Then if you mouseover the arrows, it can tell you who upvoted or who downvoted?

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I agree with the non-anonymous down vote policy. Putting in a reason for an upvote would be very tedious and non-productive and cut 50% of the few people that do vote.

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I agree with your answer completely. +

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I disagree. I think people should be able to vote their conscience. If you get downvoted, that's too bad, but how will knowing who did it help you (or anyone?)

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Score 2

2 Comments:

I feel the downvote is useless unless you know the reason for it. Without knowing the reason how can you resolve the problem and make corrections if necessary. I know on several occasions when I received a downvote I realized my answer was confusing or just plain wrong and removed it. Perhaps if anonymity is important you can set the software to not list the commenter on downvotes.

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i received a few down votes- the ones which had a comment as to why were more helpful by far- i then removed my answer.

i received a downvote-no comment attached. as far as i could see my answer was correct,not misleading etc.

i think being anonymous could lead to malicious voting if you felt that way inclined...

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Most Helpful Answer

in response to mayer's original proposal: It is possible that we may change our policy on this in the future (because we are always discussing and tweaking how things work around here), but we currently do not have plans to change the downvoting requirement from a static number to a percent because no matter how old, reputable and/or experienced you are, there is no less of a chance for you to be wrong. As such, anyone should be able to point out that they think you are wrong, assuming they've been in the community for a short period of time. They are not required to make a comment with their downvote, but we do encourage it. We are working on significant UI design changes to promote this, but no matter the UI change, comments will still be optional.

As for anonymous downvotes, they will probably stay that way for the reasons that sterling mentioned. When in a democracy you are allowed to vote against anything without stating your reason, why should this be any different? You can state you have problems with the topic, and we provide a nice platform for that (comments) but you shouldn't be forced to show your opinion if you don't want to. But this is something that is being debated internally, and may be changed in the next few months.

As for malicious voting, if you are caught being malicious you will be banned from the site. Plain and simple. We have a pretty high tolerance for people here at iFixit, but if you are hurting the community in a noticeable way, the ban hammer's fury will show no mercy.

Side note, want to have a larger impact on iFixit's policies? We are hiring...

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Score 4

3 Comments:

You're hiring? What more would you have me do?

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Would I have to move to California?

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As described on the Jobs page Nat linked, it varies from position to position, but California's central coast is a pretty good place to be, either way. :)

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mayer will be eternally grateful.