Since I was one of the "bullies" that initiated the closure of this one, I might add a few words:
- About closing as duplicates
On a daily base, many questions are asked. Some categories of questions are asked repeatedly. People put a lot of effort in answering questions, many times on a high level and answers are edited many times afterwards to give a more complete solution to the question. You also have to understand AU is not a personal help desk, but we are creating a database of answers to offer solutions to a broad variety of problems.
That is why the site's policy is to prevent repeatedly giving the same answers over and over again, and that is why similar questions are marked as duplicate.
Sometimes, questions are marked incidentally as duplicate, sometimes because the title suggests so, sometimes because of circumstances, not mentioned in the question. You have to understand reviewers (bullies) have to look through lots of marked questions, and we are humans.
As mentioned, that is why it is important to communicate if your question is marked, and mention what you did and what is the difference between your question and the dupe.
- About downvoting
As mentioned before, I am not much of a downvoter. I only downvote on answers if they are potentially harmful or include incorrect information, on questions if OP obstructs the creation of a useful answer. The truth is that although voting should be a rational and objective thing, in practice that is not always the case. We all suffer equally from that I guess. I am pretty sure however that especially the "bullies" you are referring to do not misuse the reputation system and show integrity in the way they vote.
So in a nutshell:
Don't take marking your questions personally, but look at the supposed dupe and see if it helps you. If not, indicate what is your remaining problem. In case of unexplained down votes, see if there is anything wrong in your post. If not, ignore the down vote and move on.
