A little off topic for "religion/spirituality" forum but I have to ask ....?

Question

This is where I spend most of my time, but I am still a newbie to these forums so I wanted to ask this question here: Why do you give "thumbs down" to people?

Okay, if the answer is rude or way offbase or even against your own beliefs, I get that. But I was just on a thread that was simply asking for info. The person ahead of my resply was doing a beautiful job of answering the question (it wasn't a debatable thread at all - strictly informative) and she had two thumbs down already :?

A similar thing has happened to me. I just find it odd.
Are these people who will just go around giving negatives for no reason at all? Do some of you dislike some of our religious standings so much that you cannot even agree where non-debatable, information-seeking questions are asked?

I'm just flummoxed about this and thought maybe some of you would have some insight to share.

Thanks in advance

To clarify a little: The thread was asking how religious beliefs might interfere with patient care. For instance, Muslims and Jews won't accept innoculations because they might contain pork products.

There are many debatable things in this forum (of course) but how do you give a thumbs down for someone saying "Well, Amish don't belive in autopsies" ?

I appreciate all the answers I've recieved here. Thank you for taking your time to answer. I'm handing out thumbs ups now ;)

Answer 1

I truly believe that everyone (myself included) has to be a little off the beam to be in R&S. One just has to expect odd and irrational behavior here.

Answer 2

It's not conversation, it's a conventional phrase. Conventional questions have conventional responses. The conventional response if "fine thank you" unless there is something that should really be communicated like "feeling a little unsocial, guess I didn't sleep well" to alert the asker that you don't want to have further conversation or "i have a cold" to warn people to stay away from you. It's not necessary to have conversation or small talk whenever someone asks "How are you?" It's just another way to say hello.

Answer 3

I don't give thumbs-down to opinions....unless they're opinions that a person is pretending are facts. Or, unless their "facts" are actually lies.

For the record, one time, I answered a question in the Languages section on how to pronounce the German umlaut ü. I stated how the Germans here in Germany pronounce it, and gave a couple examples. I ended up with five thumbs down...and none up. I was pretty peeved. No one else who answered had even BEEN to this country, much less lived here for the last nearly three years like I have (I also grew up with German spoken in the house, because my parents had both lived here, my sister lived here, and my ancestors are from here). But oh well. People are just dumb.

Answer 4

sorry i have no insight to share. for that you are free to give me a thumbs down. lol.
i ve got negatives some times for stating the obvious and saying what i knew was right.
i mean clearly people here dont expect you to be a specialist of some kind in all subjects do they ?
and there have been cases where i found many thumb ups for the silliest or the rudest of answers, even some completely out of context.
i cant understand it.

Answer 5

Many people use the thumbs up thumbs down thing to crazily, i use it to represent what i think to be a good answer or a bad answer, if it is only informative but still wrong in my opinion, it gets a thumbs down for being inaccurate, its not a slap in the face its a "how good is this answer to you" marker, if a person gets no thumbs up and 10 thumbs down, it doesnt mean they did something wrong, it means most of the other people did not think that was a valid answer to the question.

Answer 6

I frequently give a thumbs down when the answer has nothing to do with the question, or when someone uses the question to stand on their own soapbox and hold forth. I also put a thumbs down when the answer is just plain dumb.

Answer 7

I never give thumbs down just for rudeness. I occasionally give thumbs down to rude AND stupid. Or to answers that have zero relevance to the original question. Also massively long copy pastes with no thought behind them, can be deserving too.

Answer 8

I give thumbs down for bad answers.
While YOU may have thought the person was giving a good response, apparently others found the answer lacking.
Yes, some people do just like to oppose those with certain traits or opinions. We all know that lots of people are stupid.

Answer 9

Y!A is based on a point system. Whenever I give someone a Thumbs Down, it's either because they didn't give a detailed answer other than "Yes/No" or they're a troll. There are a few people who go around giving others Thumbs Down for no reason. I'd ignore it.

Answer 10

I've never quite figured this out myself. I gave an accurate, factual answer to a question a few minutes back, and got thumbs-down for it from several people. It wasn't a matter of opinion - just simple fact (maybe I answered your question???). I guess it's the only way some childish people can disagree with me since I'm Jewish.

Answer 11

I've has this too and cannot understand either. Someone once asked what was the difference between and avenue and a street, and I replied that in England, and avenue was a street that was lined with trees, and this answer was later backed up by others. I got 2 thumbs down, go figure!