User asked a question about a specific problem, I gave him a specific answer based on my experience and it got voted down?
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Note that after posting this it moved from -2 up to 0, but I think the question is still valid. Down votes for reasonable answers drive people away.– JishAug 3, 2012 at 18:50
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I had this question downvoted: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/64235/… From a user perspective how are we supposed to learn how to write a better question if there is no guidance as to why question was down voted? I think it's important to offer some sort of direction as to why a particular question is down voted so a user can re-write,expand or clarify a question. Anonymous down voting is obviously the way to go, but down voting with not direction, not so much.– MortOct 29, 2012 at 15:32
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3 Answers
It was down-voted because somebody with at least 125 reputation points decided to cast a downvote. Really, that's all we can know.
Voting is anonymous, and voters don't need to explain their votes. Voting against an answer removes two reputation points from the person who receives the vote and removes one reputation point from the person who casts the vote, so whoever decides to vote against an answer is sacrificing some of their own reputation to do so.
Your answer could have been down-voted because someone thought your content was irrelevant. It could have been down-voted because someone wanted to up-vote it, but clicked the wrong button. It could have been down-voted because someone was having a bad day and took it out on your post. Because votes are anonymous, unless the voter choses to explain her/his vote, we don't know more than that.
There are many down-votes with which I disagree, but even the moderators don't see who casts them or know why they were cast.
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I guess my experience elsewhere is that downvotes are reserved for more egregious types of answers, but it is what it is.– JishAug 6, 2012 at 12:35
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1@Jish It sounds like you think they should be, and I think they should be, but in fact, policy is what decision makers decide to do, and and as long as our site is based on distributed decision making (i.e. voting), this is the best description we're going to get.– Daniel ModAug 6, 2012 at 12:38
It was probably downvoted because - at first glance - it looks irrelevant. Your point on interference is entirely correct, but going on about RF interference is irrelevant, as Apple Remotes use infrared.
At first glance, I would have flagged your answer as "not an answer". Here's why:
You ask a bunch of questions within your post. That is a definite flag as a bad post. You also have irrelevant information included within your post, such as the point about your Wi-Fi dropping.
That being said, your answer is a good answer (you'll now find it has a score of 1). My best suggestion would be to condense your answer and remove irrelevant info.
