Does this answer deserve "five" downvotes?

Question

I don't usually mind my answer being downvoted because I know the voting system here doesn't work. I saw two identical answers, one of which received 31 upvotes and the other received 9 upvotes. The funny thing was the other answer received 3 downvotes. I believe you would understand why the voting system here doesn't work and why I don't care about it.

I am not asking this question to protest any downvote.

But, do you think my answer deserves 5 downvotes while the answer posted by the OP himself receives 13 upvotes?

Let's have a discussion on this issue. Here is the link.

Answer 1

Here are some reasons why these aren't completely irrational down-votes:

1. The answer asserts You have to use beliefs as a plural form of belief because believes is a third party singular form of the verb believe. The reason to use beliefs is to prevent any confusion." without any supporting references.

2. It's difficult for fluent speakers to confuse a noun with a verb in context. For example, "She leaves the leaves on the lawn." is perfectly clear to a fluent speaker. Because a counter-example is so easy to imagine, it's hard to accept your reasoning about beliefs/believes.

3. It's not a pattern that applies to everything a learner might encounter, as Jasper wrote in his comment "This is not a generalizable pattern. Consider "dwarf", "scarf", "sheaf", and "leaf"."

So yes, the answer did deserve to be down-voted because it is more likely to confuse a learner than enlighten them. The voting system isn't broken just because people disagree with you. If you're certain you're correct, but you're getting a bad reaction from the community, it's time to hit the edit link and try to clarify and support your answer.

As an Engineer, I fall into this trap all the time on ELL - there are certain things that seem like patterns and make logical sense that actually aren't real patterns. If I can't find any source that supports me when I think I see a pattern, I don't write an answer until I've done more research (or I go ask the folks on EL&U and find out I'm completely off track :) ) Sometimes the answer is simply "because that's the way it is for this word".

Some folks down-vote hastily, but if you're getting comments on your answer that point out some flaws, I've found it to be more rewarding to listen and try to improve my answer than argue with folks. I actually appreciate it when someone takes the time to comment, even if it's critical, because that means they've read and thought about what I've written. If they take issue with it, even if they're completely wrong, I generally see that as an opportunity to rework my answer so it communicates my meaning more clearly. If a fluent speaker gets the wrong idea, how likely is it that a learner is going to understand what you're saying ?

BTW - It's perfectly OK for folks to answer their own question.

Answer 2

Part 1. On Stack Exchange voting

I've downvoted this primarily because of the assertion that "I know the voting system here doesn't work." I disagree.

The voting system isn't foolproof – what voting system is? However, in general, Stack Exchange voting seems to work fairly well. Most of the time, there is a pretty good correlation between the overall quality of an answer and the number of upvotes or downvotes it receives.

It's worth remembering: it's hard to judge the quality of an answer because there are so many factors at play. One answer may offer great insight, yet contain a minor inaccuracy somewhere; another answer might be completely correct, yet it doesn't provide much substantating evidence or explaination; still another answer might give good information, but be formatted sloppily with spelling and punctuation errors. Such partly-good/partly-bad answers are probably justifiably upvotable or downvotable, for the various reasons given.

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Part 2. On the plural of belief

As for the answer that prompted this thread, I think you make one very problematic statement:

The reason to use beliefs is to prevent any confusion.

Hmm. I don't think any editorial boards or dictionary editors got in a room one day, and said, "Let's pluralize beliefs with an f and s to prevent any confusion." That's a very misleading and oversimplified statement. Worse still, it contradicts an example you give later in your answer: halves. If we pluralized beliefs to "prevent any confusion", then it would stand to reason that we would write halfs to prevent any confusion as well. I find that unexplained contradiction to be very sloppy work, and potentially confusing for the learner. I see no problem with these downvotes.

More telling still, when people tried to reason with you about this, you only became more stubborn:

I don't see any valid point in your comment.

That comment has double-digit upvotes, yet you still responded confrontationally. Your attitude reminds me of the joke where the young boy tells his parents, "The whole marching band was out of step except for me!"

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Part 3. On the negative remarks found in this post

I believe you would understand why the voting system here doesn't work and why I don't care about it.

I doubt that's true. If you really "didn't care" about the voting system, you wouldn't raise a stink in such a negative way, and you wouldn't lodge so many petty disputes in the comments, like this one:

considering there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of lousy and even horrible answers saved in this community

That's a bit negative. If you think an answer is giving bad guidance, either downvote it, leave a comment, or do both. (Comments would be the more constructive option, because you could explain why you think the answer has problems.)

Overall, I think you'd be best off following Colleen's advice. When you get downvoted, keep an open mind rather than an argumentative spirit, and look for ways to improve your answers based on the feedback given.

So any answer trying to show some patterns (with real examples) will be punished while any simple answer that can be posed by any primary school student get upvoted. Do you think it is fair? I don't.

This is very telling. This isn't a matter of "punishment" or "fairness", this is a matter of you wording an answer in a very misleading way, and refusing to listen to anyone who is trying to point out legitimate problems with your original answer.

Answer 3

I upvoted your question. I agree that the voting system is a joke.

For instance, this answer, written by you currently has a positive upcount and is the selected answer despite the fact that it is wrong and contains misinformation.

But sometimes the voting system works. Here is an answer, written by you that "deserves" (your word) to be downvoted, because it is wrong.

I downvoted the answer you ask about in this meta question for many of the reasons that Colleen V mentions.

And I downvote a lot of your answers. Why? Because your grasp of English is not good enough to answer most questions here. Most (probably almost all) of your answers contain non-idiomatic English. I don't believe learners interested in learning idiomatic English are helped by reading what you write, or how you write.

The evidence for the above abounds in your answers and comments but your comment here about article usage, along with the two preceeding comments, is a good example.

A very great many of your answers are wrong because they contain misinformation or half truths. At other times you are just wrong.

You also often insist in correcting other people's answers in comments, but many times your "correction" is wrong or inaccurate. (Example: your insistence that someone use a colon after be.)

Frankly, your habits and reputation bring you downvotes.

There are other non-native speakers here who identify themselves as such when they answer a question. I think that is a good practice, especially for someone like you. You know only enough English to be dangerous. This means your knowledge of English is nothing near native competence and you therefore spread false, misleading and ultimately hurtful and wrong information at an alarming rate.

An excellent example of this is in one of your many comments to this post. The entire conversation about what all the time means demonstrates in no uncertain terms that you have no idea what you are taking about when it comes to idiomatic English. To make yourself look more uninformed, presumptuous and argumentative, you presume to argue with native speakers with well-established reputations (indeed they are moderators) over meanings of idiomatic English. All the time is not ambiguous as native speakers use it. It is ambiguous only to someone (you yourself) who insists that they know English better than native English speakers; the least incorrect statement you have uttered on this site is I am really at a loss.