I'm on a number of forums and I have to say that Workplace has the most insane voting patterns of all the forums.
I'm all for some downvoting when needed, but I see a lot of questions with heavy downvotes, and a lot of good answers -- maybe not "the answer" answers -- with heavy downvotes.
If you're talking about questions where there's a genuine issue at hand that isn't a troll question or otherwise poorly posed question, there's a natural reason for it. People sometimes field "horrible ideas*" that seem reasonable to them as questions. That garners downvotes, no matter how the question is presented.
For example: Pass on medical information about a job new applicant?
The question is well phrased, gives background, reasons for the proposed course of action, etc... Yet the votes aren't about how useful the question is, they're about the idea and intent behind it. Understandably it's an idea people dislike, so the question gets downvoted.
Basically:
If you ask a question that has any hint that your motivations are greedy, selfish, or even just completely clueless, it will probably be interpreted in a very harsh manner and garner some downvotes. You'll have to be exceptionally careful to put it forward in a neutral or positive light if you want to ask certain categories of questions.
*Some rather horrible ideas regularly get submitted, but they can be good questions.
Some of this, it seems to me, is the nature of the site. On some of the more technical sites, there are questions where only a handful of people in the world may be able to answer. In fact, sometimes even the questions can only be understood by a (relatively) small number of people. Furthermore, answers are often very clearly right or wrong/work or don't work/etc. When answers are shown to be wrong, they are often either corrected or deleted. So, downvotes aren't made so often
On the Workplace site nearly everyone can understand the situations presented and will have an opinion as to what to do. Furthermore, an answer that works for one person in one situation will fail for another person who seems to be in an almost identical situation ... because the particulars of the two work places are different in terms of personnel, policy, culture, legalities, etc. So, you'll get questions where some people will think the issue(s) presented are worthy of answers and upvotes, while other people will think something like "The OP is just being stupid, the only thing to do here is downvote and move on." Answers may be even more susceptible to an individual's opinions and experiences, and lead to widely divergent voting.
I started to write a comment on another answer but realized my thoughts might be worthy of their own answer. Basically, I think @BoogaRoo is more or less correct that downvotes often happen because people think "golly this is a bad idea."
Personally, I try to take the approach of seeing things through the asker's perspective, and assuming they have the best intentions. Or at least, innocent intentions. In other words, to them it may not be a "bad idea" they're suggesting or asking about.
This lets you separate evaluation of the question (it may be a "good" question by TWP standards) from the idea (it may be a "bad" idea). Then, I address bad questions by editing, commenting, and voting. Address bad ideas by answering to point out the badness.
We have to keep in mind that there are people from all backgrounds, with all different perspectives and experiences, gathering on The Workplace. In my opinion, someone asking "should I X?" that causes us to think, DUHHH!!! Why would anyone ever X? deserves an answer just as much as someone asking a question we actually have to pause and think about ourselves.
