I was at the node Use 'param' in if statement. by krachen. I upvoted that node and saw that it had a net -1 vote. That got me thinking about the votes...
For newbies to PM like krachen, I'm wondering whether the more enlightened seasoned monks here should be more forgiving in their voting. Krachen may not have phrased his question in the clearest possible way, but he was genuinely seeking help to solve a CGI problem.
A downvote can de-moralise someone who's new here seeking enlightenment. Let me relate an experience I encountered recently...
I'm helping to man a site for school-age children. There's a forum and the young members can upvote but not downvote a particular post. The rationale for that is that allowing the downvoting would lead to tit-for-tat reactions. Moderators (I'm one of them) on the site can upvote and downvote - though the downvoting is rarely used.
Recently, a few posts by a member got downvoted because they were rather useless, spam-like posts.
That member got so upset that she posted hate messages to smear the site. After some reasoning with her, she realised what she did wasn't right and became more positive. But the fact remains that negative feedback (downvoting) can have rather strong demoralising effect on the person...
I'm not saying downvoting is bad. I'm just saying that, especially for newbies genuinely seeking help, care should be exercised in giving a downvote.
Just my 2 cents.
cheers
Added:
I recall my uni days when I got an A for my essay but it made no difference to me because everybody else was getting an A from the same tutor. The point is, I'm not saying every post by a newbie deserves an upvote, because then the upvoting would lose its meaning. What I'm saying is that, at the receiver end, a downvote is usually harder to comprehend and is likely to elicit a negative response, especially for new members who have yet to learn about the culture of this community.