If a question is downvoted on !nostupidquestions, is the question too stupid or was it not stupid enough?

I downvote a lot of posts here because I don't think they're questions appropriate for this community. They're either loaded questions, opinions, obvious bait, or asklemmy material.

If this community is supposed to be the Lemmy version of r/nostupidquestions, the questions should be things that you think should know but don't. Things that might make you feel stupid asking.

A good question for this sub is "How often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?"

A bad question is "Why is [company] doing [something anti consumer]"

We get a LOT more of the latter here.

A similar problem would happen on r/ELI5 that drove me nuts. Originally the kinds of questions you were supposed to ask were things like “the origins of the Gulf war” or “the rules on how to play poker”. But instead there were too many questions that were like “what’s going on in my stomach when it growls”.
- "Can someone explain [complicated geopolitical conflict] to me like I'm 5?" were my least favorite. At least pretend you tried to get the answer yourself
- That might not be the best counter example. Now I'm interested in why exactly my stomach growls, and would probably need it explained in simple terms since I'm not a doctor.
I appreciate your work. (sincerely)
- I just wish it did anything lol
Okay but like, how often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?
- You should wash your hoodies (and jeans) when they are soiled, sweaty, or smelly; if they've been wet; if they have any sort of chemical on them.
  
  Your situation will vary, and thus you must rely on your own judgement.
- I don't know!!! Someone should pose the question in a post
- Sometimes.
Ah, I wasn't familiar with the subreddit, so I was just taking it as a free for all, so no question is out of place. Especially as lemmy is smaller, and lacks enough traffic in niche communities, it makes sense to have a bigger community for just answering whatever comes to mind.

But obviously there's issues with that, if the community was swamped it would make sense to have a stricter guideline.
- I mean if this is gonna be a catch-all for every question ever, why do we need it when asklemmy exists?
  
  Guidelines make communities unique. And why did we remake the sub if we weren't going to continue the spirit of it?
The asklemmy ones are the annoying ones. It's less a question and more a conversation starter
- There's one up now that's basically "can someone recommend some songs to me?"
perhaps you need a refresher.... NO. STUPID. QUESTIONS.
- Perhaps you completely missed the point if that's what you choose to reply with

Or it might just be offensive or a dog whistle.

ive wanted to make an alt account and name it something like dog, and just bark at comments that hurt my ears
- Do it
What's a dog whistle?
- Frequently how it shows up on "No Stupid Questions" is that they're pushing a bigoted agenda under the guise of "I'm just asking a question and everyone's attacking me for it." Like if someone came to No Stupid Questions and asked (and this is just an example, not my position at all) "why is there so much trans propaganda on Lemmy?" or whatever. (And in the thread when people are like "you're a bigot" they respond with "I didn't say anything bigoted. I just asked a question.")
  
  But yeah. Like what Xtallll said, it's more generally using language/symbols that for the in group is a reference they'll all get but for everyone else at least retains an air of plausible deniability. Often it's done by politicians (particularly right-wing politicians) to try to straddle the fence between the extremits and more moderates in their party. If a politician speaks in support of "states' rights," they'll get the vote of the extremists who know that "states' rights" actually means racist policies and also the moderates who still think or perhaps are still deluding themselves that it means somthing vague but more benign.
- urban dictionary Dog whistle is a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is "in the know" will take away the secret, intended message. Often involves code words.
  
  Republicans say they want to make civil rights for gays a state issue, which is really just a dog whistle strategy for saying that they will refuse to grant equal rights on a federal level.
- An actual dog whistle sounds at a frequency (?) inaudible to humans but is heard by dogs. The “secret phrase” can be said out loud, but like the whistle, only the big dogs hear it - the rest of the humans don’t. Does that make sense? It’s used as an analogy.
- It's a shibboleth, a way of asking a question that people who share your ideology will recognize as pushing it, while those who do not will not. This is like a dog whistle that can be heard by dogs but not by humans.
  
  In question form it's also often subtle propaganda, asking a question that presupposes something controversial, like "Why are trans players allowed to win so much on sports?" where the simple shibboleth might be "Should trans players be allowed in sports?" Both are confronting the same point, but the former assumes a trend that has not been demonstrated, while the latter simply assumes some reason without making it clear what the reason is.

Serious answer, the question might be one that broke one of the community rules like Rule 5 ("No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda") or Rule 6 (No meme or troll questions, except on Fridays) and voters are expressing their displeasure.

Silly answer, the question wasn't stupid. The name of the community is actually "No, Stupid Questions." The missing comma is a typo.

Rule 5 (“No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda”)

That has the problem of blocking genuinely stupid questions that could be used to educate away ignorance. Instead the only people willing to answer their questions are nut jobs with an agenda. E.g.

Do black people sun burn?

Would get downvoted for being racist cos everyone must know the answer to this (I don't)

Where does the 'Jewish conspiracy' originate from?

Everyone would assume you're antisemitic instead of educating you on conspiracies by Nazis and Russian slike The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But you know who does answer? Those conspiracy theorists who are more than happy to give you (wrong) answers!

Do women get horny?

Everyone assumes an 'incel agenda' cos it's OBVIOUS what the answer is. No it's some poor 13yo kid who's unsure about things so they asked. But you know who does answer (wrongly) those questions liberally? Andrew Tate is FULL of answers and sends them down a very dangerous rabbit hole.

I can't help feeling a lot of the modern shift towards alt-right bollocks is an almost elitist attitude that everyone has an agenda and there's no such thing as ignorance anymore. I'm sure that was QAnons next level goal. Sow distrust in people so they refuse to answer questions (downvote, shutdown, ignore) while providing (wrong) answers to people themselves.

As I've gotten older I've come to realise Hanlons Razor covers SO much more than people realise.

Stop assuming malicious "agendas" behind everything. At the least don't downvote things. At best answer people genuinely.
- To answer the three bolded questions, yes they sun burn, the birth of Christianity, yes and possibly more often than men do.
- That has the problem of blocking genuinely stupid questions
  
  It sure does. If only people would avoid trying to slip shit under the radar, there'd be no reason to consider genuinely stupid questions with such suspicion.
- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
  
  Every so often, Robert Evans from Behind the Bastards mentions this. I want to know what it is so badly, but also don't want that shit in my search history
- I didn't say I'd downvote in those situations. I would guess that Rule 5 needs to exist for a reason. Without it the community could get overrun with ragebait posts. Personally I wouldn't consider any of your examples questions to be ones that violate Rule 5, but I'm not a mod and I don't make or enforce the rules. I also wouldn't downvote such a question myself, but I would consider reporting it if it seemed like the OP was consistently trying to pull the conversation into fractious territory. Anyway, if we want to to discuss the rules and downvoting vs. reporting, that should probably go in a meta post.
That reminds me of the Simpsons “no money down!”
- I know, I couldn't resist the urge to make a Lionel Hutz reference.

Yes.

If an answer was downvoted on NoStupidQuestions, was it too stupid or a serious reply to a joke question?

If anything is heavily downvoted on Lemmy, the most likely cause is that people don't like what it says. On rare occasions downvoting is used to correctly identify wrong information or rule breaking content, but most of the time people use it as an "I agree" or "I like this" button.

So if a question here is heavily downvoted, its probably because people don't like the question, despite the necessity of such questions.

Simple answer is : yes

The problem is everyone is going their own way with it.

Either option is viable. Depends on the question. Usually things are either downvoted because it's too stupid to be a legitimate question and it's clearly just someone being inflammatory, or it's a question that, while arguably stupid, doesn't really fit with the idea of the community.

"What are your thoughts on photosynthesis" is a post that's -2 right now. It's probably getting downvoted because it's just a fucking question. It's kinda stupid, but only in the sense that I have no clue what they're wanting to hear about photosynthesis. It doesn't fit the community. Goddamnit I still instinctively type subreddit. It would work better for a general discussion community.

Sometimes there's a rare question that's actually incredibly stupid and clearly not someone trolling, but they give zero further information. Like "Could time start moving faster due to climate change?" How do you answer something like that without knowing how the hell they came to that conclusion? "No." isn't exactly a satisfying response, but it's pretty much the only one you've got.

Hell, your question isn't a particularly great example of a 'no stupid questions' question. It's really more of a shower thought.

Yeah, I figured I'd get more relevant answers asking it here rather than [email protected] or anywhere else. It is a bit meta though, might have been better posted on Friday
No but, you see, climate change increases entropy, which does something to time, I think.

I'd upvote this post. It's spot on.

People have their own reasons for downvoting. NSQ is for questions that could be considered "stupid" by people in more judgmental settings. When I downvote NSQ posts it's because I suspect soapboxing or an agenda, not an honest question. Or, in some cases, because it seems people take "no stupid questions" as an outright challenge.

Do we have a highthoughts sub for questions like this?

Neither. It's because the question does not belong in the community for other reasons, such as being off-topic, or encouraging heated responses.

If you down a question that is actually made in bad faith, just as you've done here, down is completely justified.

Could be a lot of people see it on their feed but don't know what community it's from, and they don't want to see it so they downvote. Especially when people are browsing local or all.

I know lemmynsfw.com had that issue where people would downvote stuff on local that they didn't like, even though it was a good post for the community it was posted to

It means it's boring.

Sounds like a philosoraptor question.

This is why I stick with kbin. did you downvote me? would be a shame if I literally never find out.

Yes

My record for most downvoted post was when I asked how much people tip their landlord. Didn't even get any good advice. I got a new landlord and just wanted to make sure he has enough to feed the kids and cover the mortgage.