Some people may have seen your question as a rant or whine.
I don't; to me it looks like a genuine question from someone who is trying to figure out what the community response to a question means.
The community here can be a little weird for an outsider, and the signals sent to you are not always clear.
If you question is closed as a duplicate, you haven't done anything wrong. The Stack Exchange sites are designed so that the exact same question is not repeated multiple times, but instead new instances of an old idea are linked to the first one.
This is what a duplicate is.
If you think the thing given as a duplicate is not really a duplicate, then elaborate on your question and explain the difference to the proposed duplicate. In my experience, insufficient explanation is what typically leads to confusing responses.
When you ask at meta about responses to some question you asked, please link to that question. People want to see with their own eyes and reinterpret the situation based on their experience.
Why did your question get so many downvotes?
I can only guess and the downvoters are not obliged to explain (for a good reason!), but I see these reasons:
- The meta question looked like a rant. (I disagree, but I believe many saw it in this light.)
- You did not link to the specific question your experience was about.
- Your question indicated a misunderstanding about the nature of duplicates. (This was a popular comment.)
- Many sites have a mechanism for undoing wrong duplicates. I don't know about Stack Overflow, but I assume there is at least one dedicated meta post for this purpose.
- The question seemed to concern only SO, not the network at large, so the question was somewhat off topic here.
The SO meta is the place to ask about specific questions posted at SO.
I hope this clarifies the issue.
