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@pituach the votes are to move things up in the roadmap, and users have a limited amount of votes. If we allowed them to vote when, for example, the item is completed, then they will never get that vote back.

That said, I agreed that In progress status should allow votes, and I have granted that. Thank you!

hi [@saldana-msft](/answers/users/470/saldana-msft.html) (Sandra)

There are two common uses for "voting" also known as "like" or "valuable".

(1) Using the voting as feedback/credit to the person who wrote it: In other words to say that you liked the message or you think the message is useful. Therefore you want to say something like "well done👍"

This is what we have on Facebook, linkedin, Stack Exchange system (obviously including stackoverflow which is one of these systems), Yammer, MSDN & TechNet, and basically most forums

In this case, there is no place for limitation in the number of voting. A person can like multiple threads and the more he does is better.

(2) Using the voting for ranking (more fit the word "vote" and not related to "like" and less related to "useful")

This fits perfect for ranking system, like Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest - You can give each judge X points which he can split in the way he want to the songs. In fact, I thought about the option to use this voting approach in the TechNet Wiki monthly contest (ask each judge to select 100 points to the wiki article in the way that he find best, which mean he can put all in one article or split between several)

There are many advantages for this approach when your goal is to rank the entities in compare to the others. but if you want to rank each entity by itself and not compare to the others then this approach fail.

For example, you cannot use this approach to rank students exams. What of you have 10 students and all answer all the questions well, but you have only 5 points to use for voting? Will you fail the rest of the students?!? In this case, the ranking must be done on each exam separately and not compare to the others.

Think about the option for example that Facebook will limit you to have only 10 "like", and if you want to give the next like then you must first remove the like from an older message. Is this make sense? Obviously not.

In some case, this approach (limit number of points) might fits for feedback system like the old Microsoft connect and the UserVoice. Personally I do not like this approach in feedback as well but I understand the advantages, but it definitely do not fit to forums or community communication channels where we want to motivate the users with credit/likes/points...

Hey @pituach, we have the two concepts you mentioned above in Q&A:

1. Voting on questions, answers, comments, or help articles. Voting on a question means "I have the same issue", voting on an answer means "This solution worked for me", voting on a comment means, "Good clarification", voting on article means "I found it useful". Those votes are unlimited. The only restriction is that you cannot vote on your own post and you can only vote once on a give question, answer, or comment.
   

2. Voting on site feedback is limited to 10 in total, so we know that you are voting for the features that are important to you. We give you the votes back when the feature moves to "On roadmap", "In progress", "Completed", or "Closed" categories, to ensure you can vote for the next great feedback.