TeX.SE really are nicer voters

Question

I've heard a rumour, that people on TeX.SE are nicer and more inclinded not to down vote, where as people on Programmers.SE are the opposite.

The first is true, where as the second is not. Here are some statistics:

╔═══════════╦════════╦═════════╦══════════╦══════════╦═══════╦════════╦════════╗
║   name    ║  neg   ║  zero   ║   pos    ║  Total   ║ neg%  ║ zero%  ║  pos%  ║
╠═══════════╬════════╬═════════╬══════════╬══════════╬═══════╬════════╬════════╣
║ tex       ║    181 ║    9003 ║   124304 ║   133488 ║ 0.14% ║ 6.74%  ║ 93.12% ║
║ SO        ║ 426447 ║ 7303731 ║ 10219701 ║ 17949879 ║ 2.38% ║ 40.69% ║ 56.93% ║
║ prog      ║   4084 ║   25231 ║   117845 ║   147160 ║ 2.78% ║ 17.15% ║ 80.08% ║
║ eng       ║   5244 ║   19036 ║    91030 ║   115310 ║ 4.55% ║ 16.51% ║ 78.94% ║
║ unix      ║   1497 ║   18631 ║    74794 ║    94922 ║ 1.58% ║ 19.63% ║ 78.80% ║
║ ubuntu    ║   6057 ║  122584 ║   185132 ║   313773 ║ 1.93% ║ 39.07% ║ 59.00% ║
║ superuser ║  10028 ║  192953 ║   342148 ║   545129 ║ 1.84% ║ 35.40% ║ 62.76% ║
╚═══════════╩════════╩═════════╩══════════╩══════════╩═══════╩════════╩════════╝

I pulled these using the DataExplorer Query, which totals questions with overall negative/zero/positive.

Is this because only high quality questions are asked? because the community is more forgiving? Because the moderators brutally delete poor questions before they get downvoted?

Answer 1

From very early on in the life of the site, there has been a presumption that voting should be a broadly 'positive' action. In particular, the community here have generally felt that for most questions voting below -1 isn't really desirable:

Please don't downvote below a score of -1, even if the question in its current form needs some improvement. A score of -1 is enough to show that the question needs work, anything below that is of no use. Also, if you downvote or vote to close, please leave a comment explaining why you did so, but wait at least 24 hours after asking the OP for improvements to the question before voting to close.

(Taken from the Text building blocks thread.) Thus many of the 'regulars' vote down only for very specific circumstances, primarily for spam where it's entirely sensible to vote quickly and remove the content.

As you may also pick up from the building blocks page, there's also a feeling that questions shouldn't get closed too quickly: rather than 'close, improve, reopen' there's a preference for 'comment, improve'. That partly reflects the nature of the questions asked here (it's reasonable expect quite a few from new/inexperienced users) and partly the scale of the site (it's quite possible to keep 'on top' of all of the questions).

In terms of moderator response, I think none of us delete many questions. The main use for the 'mod hammer' is for clearing up questions that are unlikely to get answered. That doesn't involve deleting them, although the 'back end' may of course remove closed questions over time.

Answer 2

I think when you can define and help a newbie it's easier to be patient than at say english.SE, where there are a lot of "take it to ELL" type answers along with plenty ofinteresting discussions. I know everyone has been very patient with me, to the extent that I've stuck around and learnt a lot, and can contribute a bit now.

I guess it's related that for something with a significant learning curve, some people are filtered out before even thinking about posting their first question.

Now to speculate really wildly: Is there a factor at play that most (La)TeX users are in a broad sense part of the academic world, or at least were? I'm not saying that makes people nice, but it does mean they know how to have a discussion. I'd even maybe stretch that definition to a broad sense of the scientific world, from what I've seen of people's work in they questions.

Personally I probably don't vote as much as I should, but my votes are almost all positive, across the network.

Answer 3

Finally I can nag about SO moderators!

TeX.SE is unique in the way that users treat questions and I think that is the way it has to be. Unfriendly environment in stackoverflow tempted me to post something on their meta and ask them why so serious and what is the purpose of this hostility!? This behavior is completely against the soul of Q/A forum where users actually are coming for answers not for having their questions deleted.

To answer your question, in my opinion it is not the quality of the questions at all, but the tolerance of moderators makes TeX.SE a nice forum to be active in. I don't think admins brutally delete the low quality question. In fact, if you compare the way that low quality questions go down in SO and TeX.SE you will realize that here, questions go to -1 and the there is window of opportunity for OP to modify or change the question while in SO, once you have the first -1 you will have the next ones in course of minutes (involving a little bit of personal feelings, I think next down-voters are a slightly victims of cognitive bias*).

To talk a bit about moderators, I will make you an example of one of my answers. If you check the edits you will see how egreg has improved my answer. And here is when TeX.SE senior users shine. Consider our very own Mr. Egreg egain. A university professor or david or most of other highest ranked users here all very decent, patient and polite persons.

I do admit that crazy traffic on SO needs a bit of brutality in moderation but I don't think they do what they do rationally and patiently. Check results of this query which is the list of top 10 closed questions. These questions are mostly marked as un-constructive!! To put it into perspective, our highest closed question has the vote of 62 while in SO it has 1479 votes and has been favorited 3691 times.

Stackoverflow:

TeX.SE:

To summarize, I think it's all about moderators and their patience and respect to the OP. If they down-vote they explain why and they wait for modification (instead of writing a sarcastic comment). And by the way, this is the way that moderation on a web2 website should be. I think SO is simply doing it wrong.

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*There is technical term for this phenomenon where the first voters affect the idea of the next ones no matter the quality of the idea (or in this case the question). Anybody knows the technical term? Something in the lines of halo effect but in social scale.

Answer 4

I would speculate that it might also have to do with age. TeX has been around for a long time and there are quite a few users who have 20+ years of experience. Other sites seem more populated by a much younger group of users who may not have the maturity to keep their inner jerk in check.