RE: Abusive Negative Voting

[Shendal]

To me, the use of negative voting is, in effect, to say that the post is either:
- Off-topic
- Uses foul language
- Is insulting
- Significantly detracts from the subject matter

That's about it. I see this comment as being a typical newbie question. I think it would have been more appropriate to reply with a RTFM-like response, with a link to where the answer could be found. Perhaps even a recommendation that the newbie get the Camel book.
It does make me wonder what the policy here is on negative voting. Voting down nodes that are just simple is a valid way of using the system, but that's not how I see it. What does everyone else think?

[Zoogie]

This is exactly how I use negative votes. When newbies ask me simple questions elsewhere, usually they're more grateful when I give them a tip on where to find the information they're looking for, rather than just ignoring the question.

Also, some newbies ask simple questions just because they know that more experienced people may have some extra tips and tricks that most likely aren't in the standard documentation (those little gems like "But watch out for ...", "The docs say to do it like this, but ...", "It's simpler to do it like this ...", or "From my experience ..."). This is good. Get them into good habits early on. These kinds of little knowledge nuggets certainly help me save a lot of time when I'm learning something new.

However, there are some people who ask non-stop simple questions forever. Maybe they're social people who prefer human interaction over a manual, or maybe they're truly clueless, I don't know. It's annoying, yes, and that's when I start chastising them. Eventually they either get the point or they go on my list of people to ignore.