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Recently, on Ask Ubuntu, I see a lot of people voting for really bad questions, here are some examples

This one is just bad

https://askubuntu.com/questions/811352/install-ubuntu-16-10-on-virtualbox

This one says it is about Mint in the first sentence

https://askubuntu.com/questions/811383/how-to-write-configure-xorg-conf-file-with-intel-graphics-to-solve-hdmi-output-m

These are just from the front page right now, is it just me or is this kind of voting getting more and more common here?

Why would people vote these questions up? It defeats the point of voting when crap is voted up.

This stands in stark contrast to the many users who downvote questions in the wrong language or dare to mention another OS passingly.

I am not telling anyone what do with their votes but a bit of consistency in voting would go a long way here.

I can't be the only one who thinks this is becoming an issue.

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    They both had one upvote before I voted them down, and they're both closed. Hardly a crisis. :)
    – Stefano Palazzo Mod
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 11:51
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    I voted both up. The first one, because it showed the error and was clear what the person was trying to do. I have to say I'm not an expert to judge what is and it is not a bug. The second one, I see my mistake and I've undone the vote. But I'm sure you were not single me up on this. :)
    – user308164
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 8:15
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    @luchonacho err.. what you expect anyone to do with the first? The guy is using alpha (not even supported) and describing a bug behavior.
    – Braiam
    Commented Aug 13, 2016 at 18:00

2 Answers 2

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I have to agree with your assessment of the recent question quality. This may be just due to an influx of new users who think any question they can't answer must be a good one. To be fair, I have no doubt that I made similar mistakes in my early days here. I try to make it a practice to only up-vote questions that clearly comply with the guidelines.

In my experience those have been few and far between. Some questions look ok but when you tackle it you discover it's really garbage in disguise. Here's an example of a question that looks like it might be good at first glance (several upvotes and a bounty offered by a highly respected member), but digging into the details shows that it lacks sufficient information and the solutions the OP claims to have tried almost all point to questions without solutions.

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    Why not remove the up-voting of questions privilege from the general community and only let qualified users up-vote them? ie you need a certain rep level.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 22:57
  • @WinEunuuchs2Unix You raise an interesting question. The rep level might need to be much higher than even I would expect as evidenced by this question: meta.askubuntu.com/questions/3174/…
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Aug 23, 2016 at 16:17
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Upvotes should be only for questions which have details of what exactly is the problem and what they have done till now to solve it.

Meanwhile, new users can sometimes ask questions which look silly for programmers who are using ubuntu for a long time now.Also they can just find it's solution by searching Google but they won't.The reason is they think that AskUbuntu is a site where they can reach out to programmers who can help them out from any problem(which exactly everyone is doing here for a long time..:P).

So my suggestion is yes, bad questions which have inappropriate details of the question should be downvoted but if a new user(specifically new User I mean to say) asks some sort of question and they are trying their best to tell the problem, we should be ready to help them as much as we can.Because we can't expect a new user to know all about Ubuntu and how it works.

P.S. It's my point of view.No disregards to anyone. Cheerio!!..:)

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    Well, the thing is that that simply doesn't scale. We are the third-fourth site on the entire SE by questions asked and the proportion of knowledgeable user-non knowledgeable user has been always against us, I doubt someone will fork so much of its time to help everyone.
    – Braiam
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 0:19
  • Yeah..Braiam you are correct.But I think they are so many users who are knowledgeable and even if they could answer more than 1 answers at a time,it could reduce someone's difficulties.I do know that this is not a charity site but you have to know that the speed of learning is not same for everyone so once learnt they won't make such mistakes later..:)
    – john400
    Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 3:58
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    "not a charity site" is debatable. I'm not getting compensated for my time here, are you? I have seen a number of truly pathetic questions up voted here recently. This may be just due to an influx of new users who think any question they can't answer must be a good one. To be fair, I have no doubt that I made similar mistakes in my early days here
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 16:21
  • Yeah since i am also not a very long time user of Ubuntu I get to know a lot by just reading the questions and answers so yeah I think my time is getting compensated here.And no disregards to you.I was just sharing my viewpoint you are welcome to share yours..:)
    – john400
    Commented Aug 21, 2016 at 17:02
  • @john400 "we as SO's"... what's an SO?
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 22:52

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