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So this is half a rant, half a poll and half an exhortation.

As you can see from the users page, most people in this site do not vote (EDIT: the page shows only the people with more than 10 votes, thanks @AndrewT). I do realize that those people likely to frequent meta are exactly those five that do vote (with the exception of PeterJ) but I'm going to try to write this anyway.

This site can work only if we, as a community, produce content and evaluate it. If a new user see their answer welcomed by crickets chirping, will they return to the site? Probably not.

By all means keep answering the questions: we seem to have a pretty solid team doing that. And do keep to ask questions: that is hard, and we need more questions. But if we do not vote, people will stop trying. After all, what's the point of answering questions if no one cares about your answer?

Now, everyone is free to distribute their votes as they see fit. This is, after all, the point. However I would like to understand the motivations of those who do not vote, or only vote a little bit:

Q If you do not vote, or do not vote much, why do you do that? Is it because you feel it's necessary to maintain site standards? Is it because you vote only questions that pique your curiosity? Is it something else?

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  • Ironically I got two votes on an answer right after posting this. That wasn't the point, I swear :).
    – Denis Nardin Mod
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 18:26
  • 3
    Just to clarify a little bit that the "Voters" filter only shows users who have voted more than 10 times, so some others probably did vote, but not as many as those who are on the list. It's still a valid problem though...
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 2:53
  • @AndrewT. Ah thank you, I did not notice this. But all that's missing is probably the drive-by-askers upvoting the answers to their own questions. They, of course, do not read meta :)
    – Denis Nardin Mod
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 13:37
  • 1
    According to this old Stack Exchange blog entry voting often (and early) is really important to achieve a healthy site.
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 19:08
  • I also find interesting this Meta discussion.
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Nov 1, 2018 at 19:09
  • I have not understood if we're talking about votes on this "meta" or not
    – Riccardo De Contardi
    Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 18:16
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    @RiccardoDeContardi We’re talking about votes on ItalianSE main site.
    – abarisone
    Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 19:40
  • 1
    In addition to this, I think that people who is used to see how good answers receive a large number of upvotes in other StackExchange sites may stop to ask questions in our site because they can feel that answers here are not so good.
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 23:57
  • 1
    Related question on another language Meta site. I found this question really interesting.
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Nov 30, 2018 at 16:35
  • Related question similar to the one on the previous comment, but now on our Meta site.
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 6:41
  • I'm sorry if this comment arrives too late, but that wasn't clear to me two years ago. I won't say that a post with very few or no votes necessarily implies that no one cares about it or that's unuseful or uninteresting to other people. Some of the questions of mine which have achieved the famous question badge (more than 10,000 views) have only 1 or 2 votes and a quite significant amount of the ones with the notable question badge (more than 2,500 views) have 1 or 0 votes. I would recommend users not to stop writing posts just because they are receiving very few or no votes. (Cont.)
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 12:32
  • (Cont.) I had to convince myself of this, otherwise I would have stopped writing answers. And about questions: is it really such a problem asking about something that interests few other people in the world?
    – Charo Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2020 at 12:32

4 Answers 4

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I hate to admit my ignorance, but I didn't vote much because I didn't realize the importance of voting. I sometimes visit the site, and if I see a question without answers, and if I can give a possibly useful answer, then I simply give it. When I saw answered questions that intrigued me, I read the answer and upvoted it when I found it correct and satisfying.

Actually, since the quality of the answers on this site is generally quite good, I never thought that giving my humble evaluation could be important. Now that I read your question, I understood how important is voting to maintain the quality of the site, and certainly I will vote more often in the future.

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It's simply because (1) I don't come here too often, and (2) I vote only questions that attract my curiosity/interest.

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  • 1
    I agree with this answer; I'm a casual user; I vote on answers that I consider correct based on my knowledge or experience.
    – Riccardo De Contardi
    Commented Nov 2, 2018 at 21:42
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I think that without more questions and without more votes on questions and answers, this site is going to be in a perpetual beta state.

It’s true that to answer and read someone’s else answers would require some effort and time, but considering my experience on the “original” SO site about programming, I often searched for answers for my work and I began to give something back in order to help other people .

Now, before wasting time with something I don’t know how to approach I first check on SO and then, if I can’t find anything on the subject, I ask a question.

About ItalianSE I joined it because I think it’s worth to maintain and help others not mother tongue users to enjoy this beautiful language.

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I really don't know why many users of this site don't vote or vote few. But I would like to draw the attention about this issue of all the people who really cares about how Italian.SE should evolve so that it eventually may become a useful site, that is, a reliable reference about Italian language. If, among the people who do not vote very frequently, there is someone who cares about that, I would recommend them to read this answer to another Stack Exchange Meta site, which has achieved a large consensus by the community of such site, and consider the possibility of voting more frequently. Voting often is essential if we really want to achieve a high quality site.

Here is an extract from the above mentioned answer by @KRyan, who I would like to thank a lot:

The system doesn't work if people don't vote.

Voting is literally The Thing that allows Stack Exchange to work. Good answers are brought to the top, singled out in some cases. Seeing that the next answer has nearly-as-many votes means you shouldn't stop with the first answer, and in other cases where you see a steep drop-off in voting (at least for older answers) may indicate that you can stop where you are. Remember, Stack Exchange is built around answering questions for all future purposes, as well as for the initial person asking it. Part of that means, at some point, saying "you've gotten the meat out of this topic; there may be some more useful ideas, but you have read the things that this community thinks are best."

So, I would say that, if you see a question that maybe is not so interesting for you, please, if you can, take the effort of reading the answers and voting the good ones. If you see a question that maybe is not interesting for you (for instance, because you already know the answer), please just take a moment to think if it may be useful to other users (for instance, strangers or students of Italian). If it is that way, please consider the possibility of voting it.

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