Why are the rating systems for questions and answers different?

Question

Answers can be rated either positively or negatively (thumbs up / thumbs down).

In contrast, questions can only be rated positively (starred as interesting).

Why the asymmetry?

Why not either be able to rate both questions and answers either positively and negatively, or be able to rate the both only positively?

Often, it's not the fault of the answerers that they have given a poor answer, it's because they've been given a poor question to answer by the asker.

In other word's why is it only possible to get a good reputation as a poser of questions?  Why can someone not equally well get a reputation as a poor asker of questions?

Yahzmin ♥♥ 4ever · Accepted Answer

When the site first started, they WERE the same. Questions had thumbs up / down as well.

Thumbs down back then were an alert system. If a question or answer got enough of them, the staff would review them and violate them if they were truly bad. But people abused that ability, so for questions, staff settled for the thumbs up -- and the report abuse button that now triggers 'Community Moderation', not staff review. So if a question is 'poor', you can simply report it.

The answers were left alone, though, because the thumbs down were still useful to alert VIEWERS that an answer was wrong or unhelpful. But here, too, the thumbs down are being abused -- and, eventually, the staff may modify this option as well. But for now -- we have what they give us.

Why are the rating systems for questions and answers different?

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