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The usefulness of this site to the SharePoint community is going to critically depend upon people voting.

That is not just accepting an answer to a question which you asked, more importantly it means voting up questions from others that are well formed and deserve to be answered.

It also means voting up answers which although not directly answering the question have obviously involved some forethought or a quick google to retrieve a vital link or reference.

The reputation of those people who regularly contribute to the site needs to be a reflection of the contribution that they have made, and that depends upon votes.

So in the spirit of our site I ask my question. Are you voting? If not, why not?

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I personally do try to vote but what I have found on this site, and others that use the same method, is that people think "if I'm not getting votes why should I vote for others".

I'm a newbie to SharePoint so I'm going to be asking a lot more questions than I answer on this site but on other sites I do contribute answers, which I think are relevant and well thought out, but don't get votes most of the time.

At the end of the day, what is your reputation worth? Can you put it on a resume to get a better job? Can you take it to your boss as part of a negotation for promotion or pay rise? Or is it just a fun way for people to interact and get quick answers to questions that may take days or weeks to resolve if forums like this didn't exist?

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    Last month I got a call from a headhunter who had seen my activity on this and other fora, and hence saw me as a potential candidate for a position. This is not why i appreciate people voting up my questions and answers -thats just the icing on the cake. Rep adds an element of competition, and I guess its also a way to get noticed one way or the other. Oh and yes i do vote (as can be seen on my +300 vote count on my profile)
    – Anders Rask
    Mar 4, 2010 at 14:15
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    Agree with Anders, I have just got a new job and I suspect that was in part due to my involvment in the SP community, of which this site is a part.
    – Charles Lee
    Mar 4, 2010 at 14:20
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It baffles me that there are many (good) questions out there with 0 votes, but 5 or more answers. It would be great if somehow we could communicate (or even better, automate) that whoever answers a question also upvotes it. It is what I do as a rule unless the question is particularly badly formed.

I consider it a courtesy, but it should also be helpful in highlighting any good questions.

Whenever I have a spare few minutes, or need a break, I load the home page, open the first 10 questions with 0 votes and upvote the question providing it is not completely rubbish or unclear.

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  • This is a common problem with SE sites - people don't realise how hard it is to write a good question or maybe just forget. I hope that the more who vote on questions encourage others to do the same - thanks for helping! By the way, we do have an Electorate gold badge to help encourage this behaviour.
    – Alex Angas
    May 31, 2011 at 22:48
  • I agree that when I answer a question I have already internally acknowledged it is a good question or I would have added a comment instead of an answer. I upvote when I answer when I remember too.
    – Tom Resing
    Jun 26, 2011 at 1:40
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I'll be voting when I have enough rep to be able to, I couldn't even upvote this question.

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    @Lance: Gain reputation by participating in the site! Leave answers on questions that aren't community wiki or even better ask those questions about SharePoint you've always wanted to know. :-) Thanks and welcome!
    – Alex Angas
    Mar 4, 2010 at 22:43
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I consider my self new on sharepoint, but I have fairly enough SE time.

If a question deserves an answer (not to say 5 answers) it deserves at least a vote up. If you - as the answerer - spent the time to write an answer. You should award yourself as well as the person whom you spent time for - a vote up.

Also, The way that questions are shown in the SE sites ("what's hot questions") is only by their vote - it's a robot that looks for good quetsions and answers and promotes them in FB , twitter and as well as other SE sites.

If I take me as an example: I have 10 questions asked, with a total of roughly 300 views, 2 upvotes, 1 downvote and 8 answers (on 5 questions) - this is low percentage. Maybe my questions are not good - than close them, merge them, move them, edit them - but at least VOTE on them. I have a question, with 3 answers and no votes - such a thing is wrong IMO.

And only 17 rep points earned in 5 months. p.s. I am NOT complaining about my rep here (I am a mod on another site, and also there I am not the rep-eating-guy) but I do think that to help this site, we need more votes.

I say for a Vote-atron or at least a Vote-athon !!!!

By the way - as the OP - If anyone has spent the time to answer (and it's not a one-liner, or a very stupid answer [sorry for the S word]) they also deserve a vote up!

I'll direct you to read on SE blog http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/vote-early-vote-often/

Needless to say, there are ton of badges that are earned from Voting !!!

Check out some stats from SFSE site: https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/help/badges

The moderation badges (those mostly on voting) are high !! that makes a site alive. The same stats on Sharepoint, just aren't as good as they can/should be.

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    I've browsed through some of your questions, and I have to say they are somewhat advanced. Probably MS-staff could answer them since they are quite rare and uncommon. Project Server haven't yet crossed my active years in SharePoint. Still, you have a good point! Keep up the spirit, and make sure to answer questions as well. That's where you can gain reps. Especially featured questions can be rewarding!
    – Benny Skogberg Mod
    Nov 27, 2013 at 20:34
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I see a question being alive 15 mins with 5 answers and 5 votes! So, the idea is to vote what you can answer;

I could easily increase my reputation asking trivial questions and waiting for vote up from the (lots of) people answering. Dahh

I would vote for a question that is similar to me and has answers plausible. Maybe incorrect but plausible. So, there should be a grace period, where no one can vote or, only those above a big rank.

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  • I do not see why! There is nothing wrong with those early votes, it is a win win for all involved. And "easy" questions off course have their place here, as long as they are not duplicates of questions asked before :)
    – Robert Lindgren
    Aug 31, 2014 at 15:04
  • Also, you only get 5 points for an upvote on a question, and 10 for an upvote on an answer. So, to quickly herd reputation you should be the one answering all those "easy" questions ;)
    – Robert Lindgren
    Aug 31, 2014 at 15:06
  • Please correct if I'm wrong, but I get upvotes for asking a question
    – XristosK
    Aug 31, 2014 at 23:50
  • You get 5 points on every upvote on the question you asked, but 10 for every upvote on an answer you wrote
    – Robert Lindgren
    Sep 1, 2014 at 5:40
  • So, If I ask trivial questions, I get 5*number of answers. I would'nt mind being that, but after 3-4 days
    – XristosK
    Sep 1, 2014 at 9:27
  • That's how it it (if it does not get closed as a duplicate, which a very easy question is in danger of being). That is how all sites in the stackexchange network works
    – Robert Lindgren
    Sep 1, 2014 at 10:09
  • So, it's better to ask 2 "similar" question than answering one. :(
    – XristosK
    Sep 2, 2014 at 23:07

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