Ben
I draw arrows on tab opposite from you.
I used to draw them as you have until someone pointed out to me that
the down strum should be drawn pointing from the Low E to the High E towards the floor.
The up strum being from the High E up to the Low E.
Dermot
In standard tab a down stroke is a down arrow on paper and an up stroke is an up arrow.
Hi Luke_L
Thanks for the reply and explanation.
Dermot
This is two measures of a song I’m practicing in 2/4. The A note on beat one I would have a tendency to play on an upstroke and the C on the one/and I would tend to play on a down stroke. The D on the two/and I would play on an up stroke. Then the C on the second measure I’d play on a down stroke. (two counts). The reason I chose those strokes is because of the staccato dot under the A and the D notes and the accent above the C in the first measure.
Please tell me want you think and would you approach it differently?
Myself I’d learn to do it at least 2-3 ways…then figure out which I’d like best for comfort and being able to put the emphasis where I wanted it…
Banjo Players do it in all directions 
There’s definitely some disagreement about this. I learned the way Ben creates tab, but many others, including the TablEdit app Ben uses to create the tabs, uses arrows the way you describe.
I can see the validity to both ways, so I never really gave it too much thought.
Interesting observation about fretboard depiction and stroke direction, never thought that way!
I come to understand I should follow the down and up strokes religiously watching Ben’s tabs. And that it always starts with a downstroke unless it started with a half beat where you start with an upstroke.
I thought one of the reasons to do so was to “free up” the memory from thinking about stroke directions by making it a second nature, as then this pattern would become common for any song, to be able to focus only on notes particular to a song. But it would be interesting to do it differently like you mention to support the accent on a note.
I’d start with a downstroke and the second and third notes should be an upstroke. The fourth note is another downstroke. This follows the “guitar rule” of keeping your right hand always churning the right hand down/up pattern, even when syncopation lands those notes on different beats.
Tim_C
I think it might be UDD
The missed up goes up, just doesn’t hit the strings.
GPro Strum arrows on are opposite to TablEdit (Nice App).
If you hold the paper vertically like a guitar, the arrow for down is from low E to High E.
I’ve used both but now think like the guitar senario.
E Down to e, or e up to E.
Having taught guitar forever, I must admit that I taught this wrong. When writing strum rhythms and flat picking tunes, I would write a down arrow for a down stroke (low E to high E) and an up arrow for an up stroke. I found that beginning to intermediate students found this more easy to read than the opposite. Once a student reached a level where they were looking for tunes themselves, I would show them how it was actually written. It seemed to me that, on occasion, it was more important to get music into the hands of students quickly, than to burden them with confusing music writing.
I almost always do down on the downbeats, up on the upbeats… I thought at first that holding to that would be impossible, but now I don’t have to think about it. It’s like second nature, and my brain hurts if I conciously try to break the rule.
Now, I am somehow hoping this will happen with fiddle bowing patterns. 
