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Received about 4 downvotes on this: How to show the theme "What happened??"

Don't care about the "points", just want to know how to improve this kind of question so that it doesn't look like a discussion probe (assuming that was the reason of the downvotes).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ @ShutterBug how is that a duplicate? I am not talking about tags here. please re read the question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Mar 27, 2012 at 13:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ Extremely sorry, actually I realized it a moment later and did not finish the close-voting process. Unfortunately, I can see its already posted and there's no way to undo it. Apologies. \$\endgroup\$
    – fahad.hasan
    Mar 27, 2012 at 14:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ Removed the dupe comment. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Mar 27, 2012 at 14:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ShutterBug that's okay, we are humans after all. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Mar 27, 2012 at 15:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ I only show 2 downvotes on that btw. \$\endgroup\$
    – rfusca
    Mar 27, 2012 at 15:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @rfusca Now, I saw keenly - there are 3. two downvotes and one unupvote (whatever that means). anyway, I am not least bothered about the points. I will be asking such questions in future, so I thought it will be better to learn how to frame it properly. \$\endgroup\$
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Mar 27, 2012 at 17:25

3 Answers 3

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Question related to improving composition skills are good and should be encouraged. I do not see any violation of Photo.SE terms in such questions.

Please do not mind the down-votes. As someone mentioned earlier, if a good post somehow gets down-voted, people normally up-vote it just to balance and you end up around 0/+X votes. There could be several reasons for your post to get down-votes, maybe someone did not like the theme "What Happened??" or maybe someone did not like the picture you posted, its impossible to tell. What I've seen here is, questions having a narrow audience gets down-voted. In most cases, the same question can be asked for a broader audience just by changing a few words. I am not a language expert so I'll save the suggestions to those who are, but hope you get my point.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ thanks for the sweet reply. I don't care about the "points". I just wanted to improve the question there. ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Mar 27, 2012 at 15:13
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Certainly, questions about composition are absolutely allowed. I'm not really sure your question is about composition though...I guess I would refer to it as "storytelling", which is a bit different (but in my opinion, still entirely on topic.) I'm not really sure why you've received down votes, however I think @mattdm's answer really nails it: context. Without any other descriptive context, a photo can and will be interpreted in as many ways as the number of people you show it do. Lacking an explicit context, people create their own, so if your goal is "storytelling", you need to set the context yourself.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ how should I have added context to that thread? The context was the theme. you meant something else? \$\endgroup\$
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Mar 27, 2012 at 15:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ @AnishaKaul: You wouldn't...the use of context was the answer to your question, offered by Mattdm. I don't think the question is badly worded myself, I think it was rather concise and to the point. I was simply offering that, instead of tagging it "composition", the better way to tag it (and describe it in the question itself) would be as "storytelling". I think mattdm added the storytelling tag already, so your good. \$\endgroup\$
    – jrista
    Mar 27, 2012 at 19:51
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Questions in general about composition are quite acceptable, so yes, it is OK to ask them.

Vote downs happen now and then and I generally do not worry about one or even two, there seems to always be one person somewhere who does not understand my questions which is understandable because some things are difficult to explain until you know the answer.

Now, if you get many votes down - and 4 are many IMO - there is certainly something wrong with your question particularly since there was not been more up votes to bring you into the positive.

As a hint you should look at the flags to see if it is considered a duplicate or off topic (such as asking about composition for video on the photography site). If there are no such flags, then you have ask someone else to read your question. Then ask them if they think your question is clear and can conceivably have a non-subjective answer. StackExchange sites are about answers much more than opinions, so try to ask for the former.

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