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Currently, when a user with less than the required reputation needed to cast a vote on a post attempts to do so, they are shown this message:

Thanks for the feedback! Votes cast by users with less than [x] reputation are recorded, but do not change the publicly displayed score.

While it is technically correct in that their attempted vote is recorded as feedback, it's rather confusing. It implies that the vote is still recorded as...a vote, not as feedback. This can mislead users into thinking that their old votes will be counted once they reach the required reputation (also see its duplicates here as well as on per-site metas), or that such "votes" may still change the author's reputation (i.e. still a normal vote with the sole exception that it doesn't change the score).

Can we please change this message so that it no longer implies that an actual vote is recorded?

Examples:

Thanks for the feedback! You need at least [x] reputation to [up/down]vote this post.

or:

Thanks for the feedback! You need at least [x] reputation to cast a vote, but your feedback has been recorded.

In my opinion, the "Thanks for the feedback!" text implies to me that the feedback has been submitted and recorded; there's no need to point that out explicitly.

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    I agree. In particular, I think your first alternate wording is best. It would likely cause less confusion, as shown in today's closed post: Will a downvote from a user below 125 in rep give a rep penalty of -2 to the poster? Commented Jun 29, 2019 at 19:00
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    Honestly, I was really confused about that as well when I first joined Sci-Fi SE, so I think that this is a great idea! Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 16:15
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    Am currently and have been repeatedly confused by it, so I support this idea fully. Commented Mar 18, 2020 at 18:19
  • This is crazy-- this is a feature request/proposal, right? So upvotes/downvotes here don't mean the usual thing, they mean agree/disagree with the proposal, IIUC. If that's so, shouldn't I, and everyone else, be able to see these vote counts? Should I file a separate feature request for that?? Commented Mar 25 at 13:27
  • @DonHatch The required reputation to see vote counts was reduced to 100 from 1,000. It's gatekept for technical reasons: if everyone had the privilege, it would lead to excessive load on the server. Commented Mar 25 at 23:24
  • @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Thanks for the information; that's unfortunate. And even more unfortunate for me, apparently I downvoted something a while ago, thus decreasing my rep from 100 to 99... which makes me unable to see any vote counts at this moment :-( Commented Mar 25 at 23:40
  • Finally noticed that I can see vote counts with the help of a user script / extension. This is mentioned in this thread in which the threshold reduction from 1000 to 100 was announced. Commented Apr 4 at 20:42

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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We ended up going with your second option:

Thanks for the feedback! You need at least [x] reputation to cast a vote, but your feedback has been recorded.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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    The text is still confusing, because in case of downvote the 125 limit seems relevant to any cast. It should be changed dynamically to “ You need at least [x] reputation to upvote( or downvote)” Commented Aug 14, 2021 at 6:52
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I find the proposed message

Thanks for the feedback! You need at least [x] reputation to cast a vote, but your feedback has been recorded.

to be confusing to new users (and most existing users), because >99% of users have no clue what "your feedback has been recorded" entails, and the remaining <1% don't really care about such feedback, so that's just wasting new users' time.

As a result, I'd suggest to replace it with something like:

Thanks for the vote! Unfortunately, you need at least [x] reputation to cast a vote.

or simply

Unfortunately, you need at least [x] reputation to cast a vote.

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    Hmm... Perhaps the "has been recorded" sentence could link to the SEDE query where those votes are listed, since the 10K page is obviously not available to those with <15. But I'm pretty sure they aren't going to change it since they just did. Commented Jun 13, 2021 at 23:10
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    @Ollie good point, otherwise link to some meta SE page with an explanation. Commented Jun 13, 2021 at 23:12
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    I personally am also not sure if this fits here since it already has a status-completed tag. Maybe a new question with the options you've listed here (and possibly the one I wrote above)? But I'll wait and see what happens. Commented Jun 13, 2021 at 23:14
  • @Ollie thanks, no idea either Commented Jun 13, 2021 at 23:15

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