vote up

What is voting up?

Voting up is how the community indicates which questions and answers are most useful and appropriate. Both posts (questions and answers) and comments may be voted up.

When should I vote up?

Whenever you encounter a question, answer or comment that you feel is especially useful, vote it up!

You have a limited number of votes per day, so use them wisely.

When should I not vote up?

Posts should be voted on based on the content in the post rather than the person who wrote it. Voting for specific people, whether you know them or not, can negatively impact our ranking system. Here are some examples of common cases that should be avoided:

• Repeatedly upvoting several of a user's posts to say "thanks" for one great answer.
• Repeatedly upvoting posts created by people you know because you know them – often friends, family, or coworkers.
• Targeting a specific user with votes for any other reason.

In cases where voting patterns appear to be targeted, the votes are likely to be reversed, either by automatic systems or manually following an investigation by the staff, which will cause a loss of reputation earned from these votes.

How do I vote up?

Click the large up arrow to the left of a post, or the small up arrow to the left of a comment.

You can undo your vote by clicking the same button you used to vote, so click the up arrow to undo an upvote or the down arrow to undo a downvote. To change a vote from up to down, click the down arrow, and vice versa. Votes can only be changed for a short period of time, so be careful with those clicks!

What happens when I vote up posts?

When you vote up, you are moving that content "up" so it will be seen by more people.

• By default, answers are sorted by number of votes.¹
• Upvotes on a question give the asker +10 reputation.
• Upvotes on an answer give the answerer +10 reputation.
• You can vote on posts 30 times per UTC day, plus 10 more times on questions only.

¹Except for the accepted answer, which appears first unless it was written by the asker.

What happens when I vote up comments?

By voting up comments you help ensure the comment remains visible when there are many comments on a post.

• Upvotes on comments don't award the author any reputation.
• You can vote on comments 30 times per UTC day - this is separate from post upvotes.

Badges

There are several badges you can receive for voting - but only votes on posts count towards badge progression:

• The bronze Supporter badge.
  First upvote.

• The bronze Suffrage badge.
  Used 30 votes in a day.

• The bronze Vox Populi badge.
  Used the maximum 40 votes in a day.

• The silver Civic Duty badge.
  Voted 300 or more times.

• The silver Sportsmanship badge.
  Upvoted 100 competing answers.

• The gold Electorate badge.
  Voted on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions.