I certainly agree with all three of those points, at least for the most part.
I don't think commenting should go away.
I think flagging a duplicate needs to NOT close the question. Often, further conversation or additional answers are justified.
Downvoting can be useful in theory, but again, there's no accountability. We should have flags for things that are provably bad, and simply withhold upvotes for the rest.
The problem with downvotes is basically...
They're anonymous signs of disapproval, which tend to bring out the worst in people. (Mob mentality)
They have no attached explanation, so no one can learn from them. (Accompanying comments are not required, and are even vehemently discouraged by some elite factions on StackOverflow.)
There is no way to implement accountability. They can be habitually misused, and nothing can be done.
A flag, on the other hand, is not anonymous, has full accountability (it can be rejected), and has accompanying helpful explanation.
So do you follow the advice on SO for that circumstance? Which is to ask a new question, in which you can explain that the duplicate to your previous question didn't provide an answer because...
I certainly agree with all three of those points, at least for the most part.
I don't think commenting should go away.
I think flagging a duplicate needs to NOT close the question. Often, further conversation or additional answers are justified.
Downvoting can be useful in theory, but again, there's no accountability. We should have flags for things that are provably bad, and simply withhold upvotes for the rest.
The problem with downvotes is basically...
They're anonymous signs of disapproval, which tend to bring out the worst in people. (Mob mentality)
They have no attached explanation, so no one can learn from them. (Accompanying comments are not required, and are even vehemently discouraged by some elite factions on StackOverflow.)
There is no way to implement accountability. They can be habitually misused, and nothing can be done.
A flag, on the other hand, is not anonymous, has full accountability (it can be rejected), and has accompanying helpful explanation.
As for the duplicate question thing. If questions could be merged somehow into some kind of subject umbrella that would help.
I hate having a question marked duplicate and go the the linked question and it doesn't have the answer needed.
So do you follow the advice on SO for that circumstance? Which is to ask a new question, in which you can explain that the duplicate to your previous question didn't provide an answer because...
Unfortunately, sometimes that's when your new question is marked as a dupe of your previous question, and you get flagged for spam.
Not making it up.