-5

Today I asked a question

Later on I found the answer & I posted the answer it thinking it might be helpful for other users. After which both my question and answer starts receiving down votes.

Is it wrong to ask such type of question/answer or not? Before you reply I want to clear following points.

For those who thinks the question is not good, here is a similar up voted question at - Can you change the location of the Desktop folder in Windows?

For those who think the answer was written in a poor format, I want to mention that my English is not good, so they can just pointed out the poor format to me so that I can try editing the answer.

Seriously, I really hate when I get down votes without a good reason.

11
  • 5
    "I really hates when I get down votes without a good reason" – you did receive a comment explaining what's wrong. Users can choose what to vote for, and we can't really tell them how they should vote. If someone thinks your post is not useful, they might downvote it. If you can address the issues that were mentioned, the downvotes might also be removed.
    – slhck Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:32
  • @slhck I have used the word good. In the comment I don't find any good reason.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:02
  • Now my discussion on meta starts getting down votes. That's great. I don't think I can understand this site ever.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:32
  • the two questions aren't similar by any means. The linked one asks how to do it. Your question is I did, but nothing happens - why.
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:33
  • 5
    also, inb4 crying, Meta downvotes == we disagree. try to not take downvotes so personally. People are free to vote for any reason. We don't see you crying when you get excessive upvotes, do we?
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:35
  • @Sathya I have not contributed here so much. But, those people who contributes here, don't ask for money. They only want some reputation. Reputation is more important than money for them.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:46
  • I'm not going to argue any more. I believe if many people same the same thing, we should accept it. May be, I will learn my answer later in future.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:48
  • 2
    Here on Meta, a downvote means that people disagree with your statements or think the discussion is not constructive. I can honestly just recommend to shrug off the occasional downvote. It happens—we've all been downvoted, even without a reason. The reasons given might not appear "good" for you, but you will have to accept that, sorry.
    – slhck Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:52
  • 2
    @VarunDotCuDotCc If Stack Exchange gave out money, I'd rather have more money that reputation here. Just sayin.
    – James Mertz
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 16:16
  • 1
    @KronoS Why not you join Experts Exchange.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 2:45
  • 1
    @VarunDotCuDotCc touché my good man, touché. However the point that I'm making here (and JourneymanGeek answered already so well) is that reputation doesn't really matter all that much. What matters is producing a high quality environment for questions and answers. Downvotes are going to happen, people are going to disagree. Welcome to the internet. It's a scary, and brutal world, but luckily Super User and Stack Exchange is a little bit less scary and brutal. Enjoy your time here, and learn from other peoples views/opinions.
    – James Mertz
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 14:38

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Downvotes happen. Its a fact of life, and the least one can do is try to get used to it. Complaining about it can be counterproductive at times. Its not personal

You might want to reconsider what you're asking. Ask not why you got downvoted. Ask... how you could turn up the awesomeness of your question up to 11.

We have a clear problem (which in this case, you could probably replicate easily). You have a few possible solutions - logging in and out, and rebooting. Why not test it again, and improve on that answer? Inquire more - note that logging in and out resets environmental variables, and re-booting reloads the hive. Do some research (the answer should be pretty obvious from the clues I've given) and post a better answer.

That should turn your answer from an unloved sad urchin into the prom queen.

4

Self-answers are explicitly and strongly encouraged! This has been explained in detail in the blog post Encyclopedia Stack Exchange.

Generally, when you write an answer to your own question, you don't have to pretend like you're answering someone else's question.

For example, you can simply write:

I neglected to reboot after I changed the registry value. Rebooting resolved the issue.

That is sufficient and perfectly acceptable.

9
  • 2
    I actually disagree with this fundamentally as most times this approach tends to not lead to enough detail in the post
    – James Mertz
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:25
  • @KronoS: In how much more detail do you want me to describe how rebooting solved the issue? :D
    – Oliver Salzburg Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:25
  • 4
    Perhaps the question should be closed as too localized. ("Have you tried turning it off and on again?"… reads like the generic Windows troubleshooting advice)
    – slhck Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:27
  • @OliverSalzburg In this particular case I agree that the solution is quite simple :) but in most cases the solution won't be and the more detail the better. It's been my approach to answer my own questions as if I were a third party to the Question.
    – James Mertz
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:28
  • @KronoS: I didn't want to give the impression that every self-answer should be a one-liner :P
    – Oliver Salzburg Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:29
  • @slhck: It has actually been flagged for that. I didn't move forward on it though, as I assumed that would have escalated the situation.
    – Oliver Salzburg Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 14:30
  • I also don't like the idea of answering question bu using words like "I neglected to reboot after I changed the registry value. Rebooting resolved the issue." I think the answer should be like a question/answer. I don't we write answers in this format in exams.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:04
  • 1
    @VarunDotCuDotCc: So you don't like answering that way and you don't like receiving downvotes. That would only leave us with the option of changing the community as a whole. That is not going to happen. The reason why your question and answer received such negative feedback was explained very well in KronoS answer. You'll just have to accept that we expect contributions to the site to follow a certain format. You're free to deviate from the format, but then you must accept that people might not appreciate your contribution.
    – Oliver Salzburg Mod
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:55
  • 1
    @VarunDotCuDotCc - If you don't like answering questions with answers "After I rebooted the problem went away" it means the original question wasn't well researched in the first place. I would agree a good question shouldn't have such a simple solution as restarting your system although some problems really do have solutions that simple ( and those questions might be good or bad depending on the question itself ).
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 16:36
3

There are two parts to this and I'll address each briefly.

First the Question is asking to do something that isn't recommended

The reason for the down votes on the question is that you're asking how to do something that really shouldn't be done, and isn't supported by the software vendor.

Microsoft's own documentation explains that while its possible moving system folders like your desktop to another partition can cause weird behavior to happen. The registry keys exist because every setting in Windows requires a registry key. You can move the installation location of Windows Store application that doesn't mean there are not major problems that surface by doing so. – Ramhound 2 hours ago

Questions like this are going to be down voted simply because as a community we don't recommend doing things like this as they tend to lead to unintended and unwanted behaviors later on.

Your answer is of poor quality, and not because of your 'lack of English'

We understand that Stack Exchange is an international arena, and we're pretty lenient on grammatical, spelling or other English errors. What your answer is lacking is an actual solution. You say "it might be..." and "try this..." when it's your own question/answer you should be able to be a bit more authoritative than that.

7
  • >>First the Question is asking to do something that isn't recommended, then this question at superuser.com/questions/328763/… is upvoted.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:06
  • @KronoS - You pretty much explained my objection to the original wording of the answer the user posted.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:06
  • @Ramhound Then, Could you please tell why questions are up voted.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:13
  • 3
    @VarunDotCuDotCc - Just because the question you are linking to was upvoted doesn't make your question a good question. I actually feel there is much to be desired in the question your linking to be honest and if it were a recent question would likely downvote it.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:15
  • 3
    @VarunDotCuDotCc - Question are often upvoted and downvoted without a reason. I have seen well researched questions that should recieved hundreds of upvotes get downvoted into oblivion.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:17
  • @Ramhound Then there is a need of starting a new topic on meta about "How to decide if question should be up voted or down voted". Why Don't you start the new topic. You are pretty old user. And You can better explain than me. Don't consider my words as irony.
    – user157242
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:22
  • 3
    @VarunDotCuDotCc - I am not going to ask that question because I don't care to ask that question. I see no reason to even ask the question. In this specific case there is a reason your question and answer was downvoted.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 3, 2013 at 15:31

You must log in to answer this question.