Downvoting answers exploiting different approaches with respect to the initial question

Question

Today, reading Color the faces of a graph I noticed that the OP downvoted Karl's students's answer and g.kov's answer. These answers, actually, do not use TikZ, but show how the picture the OP was asking for could be done with PSTricks and Asymptote.

Apparently, his motivations are

You didn't use a single line of code from my example that I am interested in.

as per comment 1 and comment 2.

I looked for some related posts on meta, but I was only able to find:

• Down-vote etiquette
• Voting on behaviour vs question content

related, but not getting the exact point.

My question, therefore, is: is this good practise?

Honestly, my opinion is: no, definitely. In my view, it is always nice to have answers showing how to do things in other manner and/or with other packages.

Answer 1

Commenting directly on how individuals vote is probably not something we should pursue: voting is ultimately down to each user provided it does not fall into the 'sock puppet' or 'revenge downvoting' category. However, the general point is one that is worth discussion.

From early on, the general position has been that 'parallel' answers are valid, as it may well be that there are good alternatives to the approach that the questioner takes, or there may be something useful to illustrate. In particular, ConTeXt or plain TeX answers to LaTeX questions are fine, provided it's made clear that a different format is in use (the same also applies in reverse). In the same way, PSTricks answers to TikZ questions or vice versa should in general be OK.

It's worth bearing in mind that the point of the site is to answer questions but also to build up knowledge in a somewhat-ordered form. That means that questions should have some generality and that answers should have the possibility to help people beyond the original questioner. As such, 'alternative approach' answers fulfil an important role.

Downvoting is in any case a last resort: we've been pretty clear that voting should be a primarily positive thing.

Answer 2

Quoting from the Vote Down privileges page:

What is voting down?

Voting down, also known as "casting downvotes", is how the community indicates which questions and answers are least useful.

When should I vote down?

Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect. [emph. added]

[...]

What are the alternatives to down-voting?

The up-vote privilege comes first because that's what you should focus on: pushing great content to the top. Down-voting should be reserved for extreme cases. It's not meant as a substitute for communication and editing.

Instead of voting down:

• If the post is spammy or offensive, flag it.
• If the question is duplicate or off-topic, flag it for moderator attention.
• If something is wrong, please leave a comment or edit the post to correct it.

I am a TikZ fan. I don't expect I will ever need to use PSTricks. I think it's kind of silly when a very simple TikZ question is asked and a very detailed PSTricks answer is given among the TikZ ones. But I would never downvote those answers that are neither useful to me nor presumably to the OP. I may not vote it up, but I wouldn't presume that others would not find it useful. One of this community's greatest assets is its supportive culture (look at how much effort is spent on canning frequently-made comments so they are maximally friendly and constructive!), and I hope it can stay that way.

Answer 3

I just would like to point out that the popup text for the downvote button might be misleading. It says "This answer is not useful." You might read that as

This answer is not useful to me.

and then a downvote might be the right thing. You might also read it as

This answer is not useful to the OP.

Again, the downvotes in this case could be correct. It is clear from the FAQ and from personal experience on this site that the text should read

This answer is not useful to the community.

or even better

I think this answer is not useful to the community.

Then, you have much less ground for any downvote. I doubt that we can have a different popup text just for TX.SX, but other SX sites really use one of the other interpretations of downvoting.

Answer 4

Is OP the king for his upvote,accept and downvote actions on his Q & A ?. May be not, He/She is, until the first stage when OP brings the new idea to the community domain at later stage "parallel" answers develop to cater broader audience.

Hence OP's responsibility increases on his upvote/downvote/comments behaviour along with upvoters/commentators evident from heavy upvoting of Q. Most OP's miss the point that it's communication between multiple TeX users not a single point service to OP.

There is a slight miscommunication as there was no prior comments before the answer was posted and even OP reveals the magic(Many other figures with same code) after the answers are posted. May be OP should have edited the Q for precise instructions to help others.

But definitely, OP missed starting his first basic polite comment " Thank you for the answer, i would prefer to have with Tikz or my code due to ....". No token of thanks for any replies to acknowledge the work of answers. Eventually i am sure OP's will get his answer as TeX.SX users take up a good challenge and fun in TeX.

The Hovering text on Downvote button is very misleading especially for Human TeX.SX users. It says whatever is not useful press this dirty button. Which i don't do unless emergency occurs. I agree with Joseph Wright on Downvote only on Dangerously Dirty stuff.