I recently noticed that 4 of my questions now have a -1 vote.
Up to now, I've been deleting the questions as soon as they go to -1.
Even though I put in a good amount of time to make the question as clear as possible and responded to each comment, I was willing to delete them if they are truly of negative value to this site.
Now, it has happened 2 more times. These last two times do not seem right to me.
The questions have been posted for a long time. Someone without providing a comments or any indication why has down voted them.
This leaves me with a dilemma. I take my participation on this web site very seriously and really want to be a good community member. A 0 votes is legitimate. It indicates that my question is not of interest.
A -1 indicates to me that someone thinks that i did something wrong. Since I am not clear what I did wrong, I am confused how to respond to this.
I am a math amateur who comes to this site out of a true love of mathematics and with a recognition that my areas of interest may tend to be very focused on historical proofs and my own speculations which are usually naive. Even with my speculations being wrong, it is how I learn and it may represent mistakes that others make.
I ask you now am I the type of person that you want on this site? Is there something to be done to stop people from down voting and just being mean?
This experience has motivated me to vote for moderators. I voted for the folks who sound like they will take this site in the direction where I hope it will go: amateur friendly where people can learn, ask sincere questions, and enjoy the mathematics.