What the hell is a downvote button doing on an educational site

Question

why do you need a button to encourage putting people down for being what?

stupid? not great at programming?

what's the reason for a downvote button?

Answer 1

I was actually just thinking the same thing. Originally answer posts were sorted by votes, so the best answers would be at the top and the worst at the bottom. Now we have features like 'mark best answer', sorting by date and auto-scroll, down-voting feels redundant.
And if posts are offensive or spam then we have to report option.

Answer 2

@Agus
I thought we'd established that mass down-voting doesn't get posts removed, only reporting does?

Answer 3

The whole like-dislike system is sometimes not used for it's original purpose.

People like posts of others just because they know them, even tho their answer wasn't really good or there are better answers.

And the dislike button is often used to take "revenge" or to hate other people, or as you say " to push people down".

Answer 4

I agree with you.

Answer 5

@Michael
You right.

Answer 6

That is a good point. I upvoted that!

Answer 7

it is used as part of report mechanism if there are spam, rude question/answer, and racist question.

Answer 8

you can still order trends from 0 instead of using a negative down vote system

Answer 9

I assume it's there in case someone posts something rude or completely irrelevant

Answer 10

check out the site stachexchange.com
they also have a downvote button, and it explains itself if one hovers: “this question does not show any research effort, is unlcear, or unhelpful”

...which is incidentally not the standard i go by, but there are 3 other open questions about the downvote button so i subdivide my experience.