How Could I Have Improved My Question To Avoid Getting Downvoted?

Question

I have a question about my Super User post: Router Blocks Access To Single Site, Only On Selective Devices

I asked what I thought to be a detailed question but with no answers or comments -- only a downvote -- something tells me I overlooked a posting rule or something.

Any idea how I could improve the post?

Answer 1

I asked what I thought to be a detailed question but with no answers or comments

On my personal opinion, there are too many things that could have caused the problem that you've described in your question.

Yes, your question is detailed, but the problem described therein is relatively complex. The solution is not quite obvious. It is impossible to provide a precise correct answer that will resolve the problem fast just based on the data you've provided.

Compare this to a question like "How do I set FTP proxy settings in Firefox?". A very precise and detailed answer can be given to this question. While yours is like a technical support request.

It would be possible to resolve your situation but it will require some effort from those who will try to help you and I guess people do not want to invest their effort in resolving this particular problem.

Probably it will draw more attention if there would be bounty associated with the question, because people will feel that they can get something back from their effort.

Answer 2

Let's look through How to Ask:

• Search, and research? Check, you mentioned in the list of what you've tried that you've been through places like forums looking for solutions. Thank you for trying things first and listing what happened when you did what.
• Be on-topic? Check, the question is about "personal and home computer networking," and nothing in the list of off-topic things applies. Besides, there's no close vote on the question, which is what you'd get if someone believed it was off-topic.
• Be specific? Check, you've included the exact devices that are involved.
• Make it relevant to others? I believe this mostly exists for "write me a big script that does this exact thing from this exact input" questions. I believe your question would be useful to other people with this networking device, so check.
• Keep an open mind? This really only applies once you get an answer.

Your question is fine. Tim Post must have lost his keys again.

Sometimes, well, people just do odd things. It's one down vote, don't worry about it - as long as you're sure that your [post] is good, then put it out of mind. The amount of entropy involved in a site of this scale is just too much to even hope for any kind of accuracy in a guess as to why it happened.