I downvote a lot of posts here because I don't think they're questions appropriate for this community. They're either loaded questions, opinions, obvious bait, or asklemmy material.

If this community is supposed to be the Lemmy version of r/nostupidquestions, the questions should be things that you think should know but don't. Things that might make you feel stupid asking.

A good question for this sub is "How often do I actually have to wash a hoodie?"

A bad question is "Why is [company] doing [something anti consumer]"

We get a LOT more of the latter here.

Or it might just be offensive or a dog whistle.

Serious answer, the question might be one that broke one of the community rules like Rule 5 ("No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda") or Rule 6 (No meme or troll questions, except on Fridays) and voters are expressing their displeasure.

Silly answer, the question wasn't stupid. The name of the community is actually "No, Stupid Questions." The missing comma is a typo.

Yes.

If anything is heavily downvoted on Lemmy, the most likely cause is that people don't like what it says. On rare occasions downvoting is used to correctly identify wrong information or rule breaking content, but most of the time people use it as an "I agree" or "I like this" button.

So if a question here is heavily downvoted, its probably because people don't like the question, despite the necessity of such questions.

Yes.

I'd upvote this post. It's spot on.

Simple answer is : yes

The problem is everyone is going their own way with it.

Either option is viable. Depends on the question. Usually things are either downvoted because it's too stupid to be a legitimate question and it's clearly just someone being inflammatory, or it's a question that, while arguably stupid, doesn't really fit with the idea of the community.

"What are your thoughts on photosynthesis" is a post that's -2 right now. It's probably getting downvoted because it's just a fucking question. It's kinda stupid, but only in the sense that I have no clue what they're wanting to hear about photosynthesis. It doesn't fit the community. Goddamnit I still instinctively type subreddit. It would work better for a general discussion community.

Sometimes there's a rare question that's actually incredibly stupid and clearly not someone trolling, but they give zero further information. Like "Could time start moving faster due to climate change?" How do you answer something like that without knowing how the hell they came to that conclusion? "No." isn't exactly a satisfying response, but it's pretty much the only one you've got.

Hell, your question isn't a particularly great example of a 'no stupid questions' question. It's really more of a shower thought.

People have their own reasons for downvoting. NSQ is for questions that could be considered "stupid" by people in more judgmental settings. When I downvote NSQ posts it's because I suspect soapboxing or an agenda, not an honest question. Or, in some cases, because it seems people take "no stupid questions" as an outright challenge.

Neither. It's because the question does not belong in the community for other reasons, such as being off-topic, or encouraging heated responses.

If you down a question that is actually made in bad faith, just as you've done here, down is completely justified.

Do we have a highthoughts sub for questions like this?

Could be a lot of people see it on their feed but don't know what community it's from, and they don't want to see it so they downvote. Especially when people are browsing local or all.

I know lemmynsfw.com had that issue where people would downvote stuff on local that they didn't like, even though it was a good post for the community it was posted to