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Last evening I got downvoted with a reason "This question is asked tons of time, and you having 9K points should not answer, indeed you should close the question". I even voted to close the question and was the first one to answer the question and also got a few upvotes. Later, I removed my answer.

Please guide me: what should I do if this situation occurs again, should I not answer?

Edit: After posting this question here, I undeleted the answer, so that you can see it.

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Answering and also voting to close is a contradiction. Choose one. In the case of duplicates, you may vote to close, and also add an answer to the other question (the duplication target). –  bfavaretto Feb 28 '13 at 3:37
I added the link you can go through, and suggest me what should I do? –  Anoop Vaidya Feb 28 '13 at 3:38
@bfavaretto I don't believe it's always a contradiction. Sometimes the question is mostly a dupe but you want to answer the OP's more specific case. –  Wesley Murch Feb 28 '13 at 3:58
@WesleyMurch In such cases I usually answer and post a link to other related questions (either on my answer, or in comments), but don't vote to close. I see closed questions as either "doesn't belong here", or "has already been asked, and the answer can be found here". –  bfavaretto Feb 28 '13 at 4:03
@bfavaretto I answer and vote to close all the time (except on the sites I moderate), there's no contradiction. I don't assume my opinion for the question will be shared by four others, or that the question won't be re-opened if improved. Voting to close is just a way to say to others "Hm, I thing this question has problems", and who knows, the next person who reads the question might be kind enough to fix those problems. –  Yannis Feb 28 '13 at 4:09
@Yannis That's probably why I didn't get this joke when I saw it. I'll give it some more thought. –  bfavaretto Feb 28 '13 at 4:16
@bfavaretto: Please see my updated question, meta.stackexchange.com/questions/163785/… –  Anoop Vaidya Mar 2 '13 at 14:48
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1 Answer

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Why did I get downvotes from answering a duplicate question?

First of all it was one downvote, and I think you know the answer to that. You, with 9K reputation, answered a question that someone else thought was an obvious dupe, it offended them, and so they downvoted. That's their choice, although I don't 100% agree with it.

You can find some discussion about this here: Closing Etiquette: Why Do Some Answer *and* Close?

If this situation occurs again, should I not answer?

It's totally up to you, just be aware that some people view this as "rep-whoring" or a cheap way to earn quick rep, especially if your answer is very short, and especially if you have the ability to close questions. The more common and obvious of a dupe question is, the more this might happen.

If you really want to help someone out, closing as duplicate is a great way since it points them to the answer and doesn't water down overall quality by dispersing the answers over several questions. If you have a helpful answer, go ahead and post it on the dupe.

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Yes you are correct, I got the answer now :) –  Anoop Vaidya Feb 28 '13 at 3:49
And as soon as He downvoted, I deleted the answer. –  Anoop Vaidya Feb 28 '13 at 3:51
Don't be scared of a downvote once in a while. Personally I think those types of people are way too uptight. –  Wesley Murch Feb 28 '13 at 3:52
I answer and vote to close all the time; it takes 5 people to agree and sometimes the question doesn't even get closed (or gets reopened), or the dupe really isn't that much of a dupe, or whatever. –  Wesley Murch Feb 28 '13 at 3:53
It's good that people don't agree with each other all the time, but I see answering and also voting to close as not agreeing with yourself, and that's another story. –  bfavaretto Feb 28 '13 at 3:57
I am new to SO, and last month i was getting downvotes everyday on 3-4 old answers. So I changed my pic and name, only then it stopped. As you see, i earned points so fast, so i was worried that someone has targetted me. (for 15 days I went to my native, so stopped SO resuliting in less points). Suddenly yesterday got a downvote as such, so today early morning I posted here :) –  Anoop Vaidya Feb 28 '13 at 3:57
@AnoopVaidya If someone was targeting you personally, that's wrong. The system has tools that try to detect that kind of thing automatically, but they may fail sometimes. If you feel you were being serially downvoted, and has some kind of evidence to support that, flag one of your posts for moderation attention with a custom reason, and explain the case in detail. –  bfavaretto Feb 28 '13 at 4:00
Please see my update meta.stackexchange.com/questions/163785/… and suggest what to do for this kind of mis-happening? –  Anoop Vaidya Mar 2 '13 at 14:48
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