Downvotes on a specific question - understanding the rationale behind them

Question

I have a question concerning this question of mine:

How to prove $f(x)=\ln x$ continuous by proving first that $f(x)$ continuous at $1$, and then by using $\ln(xy)=\ln(x)+\ln(y)$.

The question is simply the following:

1. why was this question so downvoted?

I feel the actual answer to the problem is far from obvious (at least for me, and it took me a bit to see all the steps behind the accepted answer – as can be noticed by the comments below it). Moreover, I do not see what I should have added to the text to make it more clear.

True (as can be seen by the recent edit), there where two problems in my original question:

1. I did not mention what had to be proven (i.e. that $f(x) = \ln (x)$ is continuous);

2. I used $\log$ instead of $\ln$ (which actually comes from my problems with logarithms...).

[Mind that, from the comments of two users below the question, I edited the original question few minutes ago accordingly, after having realized the problems]

Thus, to expand the original question a bit:

2. is the case that the question was downvoted due to these two points?

3. If that's the case, wasn't it better to comment (as the users did) before downvoting?

Just to explain one point, this metaquestion does not come from the fact that – so to speak – downvotes imply losing points. It's just that this site is extremely helpful for people like me, without any possibility to formally learn math.

As a matter of fact, I would like to understand what happened, because I would like my questions to be as efficient as possible for all those people that are kind enough to spend their time helping me understand.

As always, thank you for your time.
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It is difficult to guess why other users voted the way they did. But let me try anyway.

The question has, at the moment, one close vote and the chosen reason is: "This question is missing context or other details: Please improve the question by providing additional context, ..." If you follow the link, you can find more about what is meant by providing context.

One way of doing so could be showing what you have tried. Or you can add the origin of the problem. For example, you write in your post: "I read that this can be proved in two steps." Maybe you could include information where you read this.

Additionally, I can see two ways of interpreting the question (even in its present form).

• Use the fact that $\ln x$ is continuous at $x=1$ together with the identity $\ln(xy)=\ln x+\ln y$ to show that logarithm is continuous everywhere. (I.e., the continuity at the point $1$ is given.)
• Prove first that $\ln x$ is continuous at $x=1$ and then use this fact to prove that it is continuous everywhere. (I.e., the continuity at the point $1$ is supposed to proved.)

If it is the latter, then the question is difficult to answer if you include what your definition of $\ln x$ is.

I should also say that I consider using $\log x$ instead of $\ln x$ as an unlikely reason for the downvotes, since $\log x$ is commonly used to denoted the natural logarithm.

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Maybe some people would consider these points too minor to be a reason for a downvote. But different users of this site have different standards for upvoting and downvoting, closing and reopening.