How can I fix these downvoted answers?

Question

Sorry, and yes, this is legitimately more than 2 times I would post a question like this, but I just need info for the future.

So, answers like mine in this question are downvoted, just like any other. I included all the backup information I will need for the answer, and followed the recommendation from the community wiki. There are comments including what I should do to improve it, but that just fell flat with no change whatsoever.

What is it? What's wrong? Have I offended anyone? I post my own comment saying what the heck is it, but no one responds, a tumbleweed passes by. Am I being helpful, is it too many websites, or do I need to post a short and teeny answer?

Answer 1

The question you have answered fringes on the borderline of the scope of Arqade. Some people think that the question is off-topic, as such they should be closed and not answered.

The downvotes you received are probably from users who vote on answers based on the question. They thought that the question was off-topic, and that you shouldn't have answered an off-topic question.

I personally was not one of the downvotes and I disagree with downvoting answers to questions that should be closed. Instead, just vote to close and downvote the question. The answers can be kept on a neutral vote.

If the question is borderline, like this one, I may consider still upvoting answers that are helpful because they may be from users who thought the question was okay.

Answer 2

I am not one of the downvoters, but in the specific case, the biggest thing for me is that most of your answer is just a fairly long list of links to external resources, and the rest is pretty much just paraphrasing one of them.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, you're not in "not an answer" territory or anything, since it isn't only a set of links devoid of context, but for me it's not a great answer because it's just not particularly well-written.

My advice would be to reorganize the answer a little bit. Start your post off with your suggestions on how to address the asker's question. Since you have a few different ones, it's probably a good idea to go paragraph by paragraph through each of them in order of what you think may be most effective. I would then move the external resources to the end, and maybe cut out a few of them since 6 is maybe slightly excessive.

You have the makings of a reasonably good answer here, it's just a little disorganized is all in my opinion.