Skip to main content
2 of 4
Migration of MSO links to MSE links

Closing a question as off-topic or not a real question gives it an automatic downvote (the downvote is recorded as by the Community user).

There is nothing wrong with a bad question being downvoted. You should never upvote a question just to compensate: upvote only if you think the question deserves an upvote.

If the question is reopened, the automatic downvote will be removed. (This wasn't always the case, but it is now.)

I disagree that the question you cite is “clearly not deserving a downvote”. There is too little information in the question to say anything — this isn't only a bad Stack Exchange question, it would a bad forum post too. The asker hasn't said anything about what kind of problem they're worried about. The proper reaction to this kind of question is to vote to close as not a real question and leave a comment saying what information is missing from the question, which has been done here.

Delete votes have nothing to do with downvotes. You should always give the asker some time to improve a question. In particular, the ability to delete closed questions before 48 hours are up when you have at least 20k reputation is only for extreme cases, do not make it a matter of course. There is no consensus on how long to wait, but two days is a minimum for most users with the delete privilege for a reason. See How long should I wait before deleting a closed question? on the main meta.