> **Possible Duplicate:**  
> [Why do you cast downvotes on answers?](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2451/why-do-you-cast-downvotes-on-answers)  

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Coming to the site, it seemed that downvotes are obvious for questions that are wildly off-topic or simply a mess (no effort in writing, badly written, unclear question, pretentious assumptions, clear misunderstanding of anything and everything ever conceived).

However, I've been seeing a lot of downvotes recently for questions that are either on-topic (specifically about the subject matter of the site) and clearly not a mess (written well, with effort, humble tome, slightly unclear question).

Are there any reasons for downvoting a question that I'm not seeing?  Or should I take these as anomalies?

EDIT: I'm speaking of the Trilogy sites.

EDIT2: Yes, I do expect the downvotes of irony that this question will receive =(

Some examples of downvotes for on-topic questions:

- [How can I wait for a file to be uploaded via ftp then delete it?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3113453/how-can-i-wait-for-a-file-to-be-uploaded-via-ftp-then-delete-it) -- A fully on-topic answer, albeit slightly badly written.  Yet, I was able to understand it completely, and it has a very real answer.  Surely, editing for clarity is the proper course of action here.
- [What is the point of the anti-cross-domain policy?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3113253/whats-the-point-of-the-anti-cross-domain-policy) -- Well written, fully thought out, asker provides his own attempts at figuring out his problem
- [How do Clojure programs/compulers/interpreters actually "work"?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3107299/how-do-clojure-programs-compilers-interpreters-actually-work) -- My own selfish example that may or may not have been the inspiration for this post >.>