Why do people get more reputation from lengthier answers?

Question

I want to get peoples opinion on this topic. I generally spend a lot of time preparing answers: I spend up to an hour on some questions and 30 minutes on this question.

As you can see, I don't have much reputation on this site but after giving the question OP a source to read/explaining it in my answer, someone with lots of reputation writes a lengthier post which gets 7 upvotes and I get nothing. That made me want to quit this site. His answer is 2x longer than mine and somehow using big font he gets lots of attention from the answer and I got none because its somehow bad and I apparently didn't answer the question.

I want people to read the question and the answers and give their opinions about this situation: Do you think that voting needs to change?

If you don't understand the point I'm trying to make it is "is the future of this site based on whoever has the most reputation and whoever uses the biggest fonts and whoever makes the longest answer".

Edit: thanks to some awful people on this site who where so rude to downvote my answer I was forced to delete and none of you have answered my question seriously is this website so bad.

Answer 1

I'll be completely frank here: your answer is not of the same high quality as the other poster. It does answer the question, but it does so in a short, rather terse way with not a lot of explanation as to why you make certain suggestions. Nearly everything you mention in your answer is also present in his answer, but explained in a more user-friendly way, with less emphasis on WHAT you do and more on WHY and HOW you do it.

On top of that, the Stack Exchange community in general actually prefers longer answers, especially in the entertainment-focused sections, like Arqade, Role Playing Games, Movies/TV and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. They indicate that you have invested more effort, both in your research and the formatting of the question. Your answer may have taken 30 minutes, with a sizeable part of that likely research on 3rd party sites. The answer you're angry about may have taken just as long or even longer and is stemmed from actual firsthand experience with the game.

Finally: you don't need to sign your answers. That line "Hope I answered your question" adds nothing to the answer. We want just the stuffing without the fluffing.

To address your point: Yes, this site does prefer longer, better formatted answers. Thing is, we don't necessarily require those answers to come from high-rep users. If your answer was just as long and had similar formatting as the one given by DCShannon, we would have upvoted it all the same.

Answer 2

Does voting need to change?

No, voting does not need to change. People are free to upvote or downvote what ever question or answer they feel like, provided they have the reputation to do so (15 rep to upvote, and 125 to downvote). Voting isn't regulated in any way except in the case of serial voting. In this case people most likely felt that the other answer was more helpful, better written, or they simply just liked it better than yours, so they upvoted it.

Answer 3

It isn't unusual, even for people with high reputation, to spend time writing an answer only to find that someone else

• Posted a similar answer just before you did - which sometimes means they get most votes.
• Posted a better answer than you did. In this case I do one of three things
  • sigh, delete my answer (if it adds nothing to the other answer) and move on.
  • leave my answer alone - and move on.
  • improve my answer (rarely worthwhile if the other answer is good).

Like most games (and stackexchange websites are a kind of game), the more you contribute, the less effect these minor setbacks have on you and you can eventually ignore them and stop being upset by them.

It is perfectly OK for someone to write an answer that is better than an existing answer. Even if all it does is explain things in more detail or format the text in a way that is easier to read.

Long answers are not always better. One of my highest scoring answers is only three short lines (and I didn't write one of those). But sometimes someone writes a beautiful and unexpectedly long, but very readable, answer to a short question - This is one of my favourites.

Regarding formatting - use of large text for headings - this is something that can be used to make a question or answer easier to read - and therefor a better answer. I have omitted formatting this answer but it is very hard not to.

Answer 4

I am going to add, as an "answer," that the highly voted one is the only answer that I see here right now. This should add some current information to this meta-question. Mainly, I do not see your answer when I click the link, so I cannot make any judgments there, however desired.

I will also add, for the sake of a lot of new users, that meta QA does NOT affect reputation. As a result, this space makes very good practice to try posting things without risk to your reputation (even with only -2 per downvote vs. +5 for a question or +10 for an answer upvote, this can be intimidating for many new users, as it was for me when I was totally new.) I just wanted to throw that out there with any question about gaining reputation itself on any "main" site (which includes Meta Stack Exchange, distinct from any other SE site like this one with its own reputation, though THIS "meta" doesn't affect any rep!)

At any rate, I am far from sure that "lengthier" answers generate more upvotes overall. I would really like to see people answering their conscience, regardless of length, if adding some value to the Q/A discussion!