MATLAB: Who can see the vote of an answer or a question

vote

I was just wondering who can see the votes given to an answer or a question. Just curious. I surfed through the internet and couldn't find the answer to my question.

Best Answer

Who can see them? Are you asking to know who voted for an answer or question, or how many votes something has gotten?
Anyone can see the NUMBER of votes. I believe even if you are not signed into the site, you can see the NUMBER. (I might check that in a minute: Just tested that claim, and indeed as a test, I voted for your question, signed out, and could still see that your question had one vote. I could not remove my test vote however, until I signed back in.)
However, nobody is given information as to WHO voted. Well, I believe the FEX admin probably has that info. There is one caveat on that, IF I vote for your question or answer, then I will see that I did indeed vote, and I am also given the option to un-vote my vote. So I know the information is stored. But only I am given the opportunity to know that I voted for something, and I am not told that for anyone else. Reputation is NOT a factor here. This is true for anyone. You know who you voted for, and can undo that vote at any time.
You CANNOT vote for your own question or answer. That option is grayed out.
Finally, I find that in some cases, I am willing to tell someone that I was one of the voters who gave an up-vote. If so, then I'll post a comment that starts with +1.
Personally, I think it a good thing to NOT know who has voted for an answer or question. Making it essentially anonymous may well make it easier for some to give an up-vote when they might be reluctant otherwise. And since, as I said, you can always do the +1 thing in a comment, nothing stops you from removing the layer of anonymity for yourself.