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I'm a recipient of too many downvotes, but sadly I cannot see the downvoters explaning the merit of their vote.

Also, I'm suspecting any questions or answers relating to Pope Francis is automatically downvoted by some users.

I can see the pattern of downvote on my question and answer thread.

Does CSE see the users who usually downvoted my thread continouosly without posting a justifiable vote?

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    So you aren't confused, voting on the meta site is a show of agreement or disagreement, whereas on the main site, voting is a show of finding the post interesting or useful. – 3961 Aug 25 '18 at 17:53
  • no, i'm not confused, in fact i'm enlightened on the topic that would get an automatic downvote. i have tried multiple times and it works, i can easily discern it in their comments. what topic sparks hatred or disagreement.hanks – marian agustin Aug 26 '18 at 2:13
  • @fredsbend kindly look at my answer at "is sharing fake news", as of this time I've got three downvote & 8 doenvote from the question, My answer is rooted of Pope Francis statement, I never put any personal words, the answer are with links . what can you conclude on the 3 downvote? only dislikes to Pope Francis is the answer, the downvote is not objective but an expression of dislikes and this is what i'm hoping CSE would address.thnaks – marian agustin Aug 26 '18 at 2:30
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    Since you are new here, and since many new users don't understand the difference between the main site and the meta site, I was only telling you what votes mean on the two. – 3961 Aug 26 '18 at 16:27
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It's absolutely ludicrous to say that your downvoters have never explained their votes. Here is just a selection of some of the comments your questions have received. Votes are secret so we can't know for sure that all of these commenters did downvote, but it's reasonable to assume that some did. And note also that many of these comments were themselves upvoted, implying agreement. When someone else has already said what you think there's no need to say it again yourself.

You're asking about two things: "fake news" and gossip (detraction, calumny). Perhaps limit your question to one of those.

I originally voted to close based on the question being too broad, but now it seems off-topic because it depends upon knowing what "fake news" is, which doesn't pertain to Christianity.

How does he define it?

This seems like a topic for forum discussion rather than objective answers.

What does it even mean for mercy or orthodoxy to be above the other??

Without any linked sources that Pope Francis either said or wrote that "God's mercy is over or transcends orthodoxy" and that this based on your "understanding of things", this question is opinion based to say the least.

Could you clarify why you're assuming any sexual reference or context at all? I see nothing in the narrative to suggest this is anything other than a tree with fruit on it. Gen. 2:9 indicates the tree was there before Adam was even placed in the garden (2:15) and certainly before Eve was even created (2:21-22), so how could it be reasonably be tied to the sexuality of humans?

@marianagustin the verse you are asking about plainly states “GOD said you must not touch it” God brought the word touch into the equation

@marianagustin, I don't see any way to support the assertion that "the tree is just a metaphor." It goes completely against the plain sense of the text. You might as well claim that the whole garden was merely metaphorical (symbolizing the sinless state of humans) and not a real place.

@marianagustin, so your reasoning is: Eve was punished, Adam was punished, serpent was cursed, ground was cursed, therefore the trees must be metaphorical. It's a complete non sequitur. And again it goes against the plain sense of the text of Gen. 2. "8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

@marianagustin, I'm using comments because I can't make any sense of the question (which appears to be based on a stack of a priori assumptions that run contrary to the text). Answers are for when the question is answerable -- if you have to question the question (which I do and am), then that's what comments are for.

What's the source of your idea that Satan was envious?

Could you be confusing the concepts of "angel" and "guardian angel"? I don't think that Exodus 32:34 is necessarily referring to Moses's guardian angel but to another, unnamed angel, who would help the Israelites in battle.

Your question is worded in its' body in a rather confusing manner.

For one thing, the FSSP is in total unity with Rome. Some of your sentence construction needs improving as well. You want Apostolic, Church Fathers and Vatican I teachings about the relevance about whether the future Mass of Pope Paul VI in Latin is assumed to be in union with Rome and pleasing to God?

Your question deals with the Church of Vatican II, yet you quote Arch. Fulton Sheen from 1948. None of your statements are linked to a source.

I wasn't the downvoter, but I can help you understand the downvote. This question is verbose, hard to read, PRONE TO CAPS "and" "unecessary" "quote" "marks," some missing citations to substantiate personal beliefs, and is a bit unclear (by "holy decree" do you mean "the official stance or belief of the Catholic Church" on the subject?). If you reword the question to be rid of the caps and quote-marks-used-as-emphasis, reduced it by 50%, and better expressed your question to avoid all the flourish and provide a more specific request, you'll get upvotes.

Are you asking how to be saved? Are you asking if God forces some people to be saved, but not others? The Catherine quote and Matthew quote seem to create a conflict that masks your question.

Take a look at this question. Also, the presentation of the question is not helpful. You abuse of bold and italics; the quotes are not clearly marked as quotes (using the ">" symbol); and the question is unclear. Please edit to improve formatting and clarify the question

If I were to try to summarise these, I think one of the major issues people have had with your questions is that they are not clear enough.

Here are two basic tips:

  1. Give quotes for whatever you can
  2. Give links for whatever you can, including all people.

If you do that, then even if a question is still a little bit unclear, the community will be in a much better position to do some further reading to try to understand what you're asking.

And you can always ask for more help here in Meta too. There's no limit to the number of questions we can ask here, so you can ask for help with an individual question if you want. (Though one at a time please, not all of them.)

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  • the comment section provides avenue for clarification for the user to edit the questions, to addressed the objections and the edit will follows.but the downvote is a different "animal" per se. look at what i've got to "is sharing fake news" and my answer sourcing it from "Pope Francis" a total of 10 downvote, it's speaks volume on the identity of downvoters. – marian agustin Aug 26 '18 at 2:17
  • @marianagustin I honestly don't know why so many people have downvoted your fake news question. I don't think it deserves them all. – curiousdannii♦ Aug 26 '18 at 2:34
  • So, i would suggest that you make a "like & dislike" button separately, and then the downvote must be explained in fairness to the effort made by the user in forming a question and especially in formulating an answer.to downvote an answer for a mere dislikes is injustice & unfair. – marian agustin Aug 26 '18 at 7:45
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There's absolutely nothing wrong with downvotes without leaving a comment. At the very least, it's somebody saying. I don't think this answer should bubble up to the top. People don't have to justify their votes and if there's a conspiracy to downvote you, the system is supposed to trigger some alarms and undo any malicious action.

One thing to keep in mind is that we're not really after a multiplicty of views on most topics, just the correct answer. It's not always a good or useful thing to write about Catholicism from the context of what you know about Catholicism or the saints and popes you like to write about.

My suggestion, as a longtime Catholic contributer on the site, is to use references in this order

  1. Catechism
  2. Canon Law (even though, I don't think we necessarily have the faculties as lay persons to interpret it, sometime it's very cut and dry)
  3. Encyclicals (post Leo XIII) and Concilliar documents
  4. Church Fathers + Summa
  5. Writings of contemporary authors and journalists and recently deceased ones (esp. Chesterton)
  6. Writings of Other saints
  7. Bible (usually NAB with link to USCCB website)
  8. Other mystics
  9. People who hate Catholics
  10. CNN, Fake news, etc...

So, if you stick to that order, you can probably make the exact same points you currently make in a way that is more palatable to the average drive-by downvoter.

And yes, there are a lot of Protestants who participate and help this site who have very strong opinions about Our Lady and don't particularly care to see impassioned defenses of her. So, in this regard, keep it up. I can't do anything to reverse downvotes, but you get upvotes in Heaven, so that's all that really matters!

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    This post is okay right up to the last paragraph, but I in the end I think it misses the point. It's not fair to suggest sectarianism as even a secondary or tertiary cause in this case. There are many Protestants like myself on this site who disagree with your views on Mary but still upvote anything that is clear and useful. As curiousdannii noted such is not the case for this user's posts—almost all of which suffer from quality problems that make them hard to read and follow. Answering this meta post will require addressing that issue. – Caleb Aug 24 '18 at 11:45
  • @caleb FWIW, you're completely right. I still think it's worth noting that there are ways of talking about Mary which would be work on the ethereal Catholicism.SE that don't on Christianity.SE. Maybe it's because we have rigorous scholarly standards or maybe it's because we hate mystics, the nature of the commentless downvote makes it impossible to tell. – Peter Turner♦ Aug 24 '18 at 13:17
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    You seem to be forgetting something: SE sites don't check credentials at the door. You can't make a site where only bona fide Catholics get to vote. Even if the topic matter was scoped differently you still can't regulate the user base. I already have a suspicion that Catholic reform factions (whether individual crazies or organized groups) are responsible for more of the anti-Catholic trolling than Protestants are around here. The recent string of ranty RCC questions kind of backs me up on that. – Caleb Aug 24 '18 at 13:34
  • "but you get upvotes in Heaven". I think there's a tee-shirt or bumper sticker somewhere in there. – 3961 Aug 25 '18 at 17:56
  • @peter turner thanks i've really appreciated your answer, but somehow I think when the user respond to clarifications to edit addressing the objections then a downvote sholud not be necessary. on the otherhand my interpretation of downvote is just merely spark not from objective criteria but subjective to person's inlcination or to put it directly its an expression of dislikes eventhough the question is good. – marian agustin Aug 26 '18 at 2:24
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    @marianagustin Downvotes can be removed or even reversed after edits if the objections were addressed. The idea that the author may fix those things is not a reason to not vote. Votes are a signal about the perceived quality/usefulness of posts in their current state. They aren't even primarily for you the post author, they tell other site visitors about how the community ranks the relative quality of posts. – Caleb Aug 26 '18 at 8:57

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