My question was down-voted, then abruptly locked. Why was it down-voted? How long will it take to get unlocked? Why was it locked?

Question

A few days ago, I asked a question. This question asked for evidence to support a popular belief about the game "UNDERTALE", which didn't make much sense to me.

This post seemed to cause sparks to fly. I think a few informal response posts were made, which were then quickly deleted. They claimed the belief to be "common sense", and didn't properly justify their points. This seems a bit ironic, since my question was basically asking for people to justify, calling this belief "common sense". I'm not sure whether they deleted them them themselves, or someone else deleted them.

I then received down votes, and I'm not sure whether they were actually due to the quality of the post, or unfair bias towards the question I raised. I just checked the guidelines in the help center against my question, and I don't see how it could be considered poor quality, or bad in any way. I would appreciate it if someone was to evaluate my post, and let me know what they think of the quality. What did I do correctly? How can it be improved?

My question was then edited. The edit split the first paragraph, and I felt this ruined my post. I quickly rolled back to the initial revision. Later, someone else rolled back to the edit again (which was very anoying) and edited my post further, removing a link which I thought provided a useful example and drew attention to a question which seemed to need attention. I was not happy with these changes, and asked the editor to fully explain why they made these changes; warning them that I would rollback to the initial revision again if they couldn't do so.

It seemed lightly that this user may have had unique views on asking questions, and hadn't grown fully accustom to their privileges. I felt it was necessary to make sure that this wasn't the case before I allowed them to make changes that could be harmful to the post. I still wanted to wait before I rolled back, as I was aware that there could have been a reason for these changes.

The editor only said that I "singled out" another post. I don't know what this meant and now felt that it was no longer necessary to wait, so I rolled back (as I forgot that you could just choose a previous revision from the edit screen) and edited to try to fix this problem, taking assumptions about what they meant.

My post was then rolled back to the disproved edit again, and locked. I understand that locking can become necessary in order to prevent a "rollback war" from taking place, but I have several problems with the scenario:

• It was done abruptly. I was given no warning, while I had given a warning before I made the most recent edit (and the rollback). I believe this to be unfair.
• I still haven't received a full explanation as to why the changes were made.
• The editor only commented on the link, which could have easily been deleted without rolling back the whole thing to something I wasn't happy with.
• There was hardly any chance of a rollback war from happening. Another user made a comment supporting the editor just before the lock (this wasn't quite what I wanted, but it would have been enough for me to except the link being removed). I commented to make it clear that I was willing to remove the link if there was still problems.

Please can someone evaluate my post, and let me know of anything that they think they should let me know that could help me understand these circumstances, and make better posts in the future.

Responses to answers and comments so far.

Frank.

I have been trying to understand how to adapt to the community. I have read through a lot of posts and comments, to under stand how everyone wants us to write. I am still quite new to stack exchange and I had no idea that Wipqozn was a moderator, and no one was backing him/her up at the time. Had he/she told me (or implied it) straight away; I would not have put the link back in, and only fixed everything else I wasn't happy with, like he/she said.

When my post was rolled back to something that I rolled it back from, I was very annoyed and wanted to roll back straight away. I knew better than to do so, as Wipqozn may have had a reason for the edits and making contradictory edits straight after someone else edited, would definitely be considered a "rollback war". I posted a warning that I would rollback if an explanation could not be given for the edits. I was told only that it "Wasn't required to make the question more concise" and "singled out other answers". This is not an explanation. Why was this the case? How was this a problem? Is there anything in the help center on this?

I wanted to make sure I didn't ignore Wipqozn because as you said, I have to insure that I adapt to the community, so I edited my post to try and please him/her and was surprised to see my post locked.

Answer 1

Downvotes

To start with, let's address probably the easier portion of your question.

How other people choose to vote, and whether they divulge that info is entirely up to them. We don't require users to explain their downvotes. The tooltip when hovering over the downvote button reads "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful". Other than that, there's not much definitive we can say here.

I can say that Plot/Lore questions such as yours are one of many small dividing lines of our community; a not-insignificant portion of users here dislike them and feel Arqade is not the place for them, and may feel inclined to downvote based on the 'not useful' clause. Either way, I think it's worth pointing out that as of writing the question is at +4 and -6 votes respectively, meaning 4 people voted it up, and 6 voted it down.

It's just a contentious question, some people like it, some don't. It happens.

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The Edits

As the initial editor, here's my reason for performing the edits to the title and body:

The title

Your original title placed too much emphasis on the views of others, rather than the in-game plot point in question:

Why do people believe that Chara and Frisk are different people, but never give any evidence? What evidence is there?

The bolded parts distract from the topic at hand. Instead of focusing on Whether Chara and Frisk are the same person or not and making your point that way, you argue against the people claiming otherwise: This is known as an Ad hominem argument. Instead of focusing on what they believe, you're focusing on 'them' and their (perceived) lack of evidence.

The edited version by comparison, is straight to the point: What evidence is there that Chara and Frisk are different people? This question can be answered with facts and references to in-game plot points, it doesn't waste time worrying about what other people believe to be true.

The body

...the top answer just claims Chara to be a different person without giving any evidence. This actually made me a bit angry.

What emotion you feel when reading another question isn't really relevant to the point at hand. So I removed it.

The subsequent edits

At the time I edited, I didn't read too closely around the context of the link, at first glance it seemed harmless: Person A makes a point, Person B wonders why that is. However, reading more carefully, I can see it is surrounded with a similar sort of wording that made up the title.

As the link's only use is to provide an example of the opposite-held belief, with the main point made earlier in the paragraph, it's really just noise and 'singling out' the other answer at that point. It probably would have been better had I simply removed it entirely. So I believe that it's good that Wipqozn picked up on that and made the edit.

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The Rollback war & Lock

Which brings us to the lock. You said it yourself, an 'edit war' or 'rollback war' was happening on the post. In such situations it's appropriate to lock a question until the rollback dispute can be resolved.

So why was the rollback war happening in the first place?

There's no need to single out other answers in your question. I've removed all references to the other answer. Please do not add them back in again.
_{- Wipqozn ♦}

and

...The other information was removed since it wasn't required and to make the question more concise.
_{- Wipqozn ♦}

Wipqozn clearly states his reasons as to why the subsequent edits were made.

However, you seemed to brush right past them...

You have not explained why the link should be removed...If you feel that the the edits you suggested will help my post, then please explain how.
_{- Super S (emphasis mine)}

...and jumped straight into a edit war. Just because you disagree with a reason, doesn't mean a reason was not given. The help center for Editing states the following:

Editing is important for keeping questions and answers clear, relevant, and up-to-date. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your contributions being collaboratively edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.

Edit wars are bad. Don't encourage or participate in them - You chose to ignore Wipqozn's comments and start an edit war. When Wipqozn realised that this was what was happening, he (rightfully) locked the post.

The lock will end in half a day or so, hopefully once tempers are cooled.

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Conclusions

Let's summarise what's happened:

• You posted a question, ostensibly about whether Frisk and Chara are the same person or not.
• However, your question title, as well as the text surrounding the link, contained parts that were effectively ad hominem arguments centered on the person, and not the position they held.
• Those ad hominem arguments were removed by editors in good faith, to focus the question on the core point: Whether Frisk and Chara are the same person.
• You were given three separate reasons as to why the edits were made (two by Wipqozn, one by Ash post-lock.
• You rolled back the changes, stating disagreement with the reasons given (or that reasons were given at all)
• The amount of rollbacks and edits prompted Wipqozn to temporarily lock the post, to stop an edit war that was occurring.

Whether or not you believe that calling out the example link was 'singling out' or 'attacking' the poster, that's how it was interpreted. To quote community member Frank: There are a rather large number of people who frequent Arqade, and our tastes can differ wildly. That's part of being a community...Just because you don't find it offensive does not mean it's not. The community may view it as offensive. In order to participate in the community, you have to conform to the norms inherent to it.