The question was closed quite quickly because this topic, maybe not word for word, has been discussed on meta over and over again.
If you have an issue with getting a down vote or your question being closed as a duplicate, not a real question etc etc then the only thing I can suggest is take time to ask your question.
- Check and check again that someone else hasn't already asked that question (or a similar question that answers your question)
- If you find a similar question but it doesn't answer your question then link to it. This shows that you have actually looked and may prevent it from being closed as a duplicate.
- Make sure your question makes sense, gets to the point and is formatted properly. sounds silly but it it more likely to get an answer.
Lets put this in to perspective, you get a down vote and you lose 2 rep. Get one up vote on an answer and you get 10 rep. Ask a good question and you'll 5 rep.
It's not going to be difficult to get the 2 rep back. I really don't see why people get the hump about down votes and/or closed questions. It seems people bitch and moan about it but you don't get rewarded at work if you do a bad job.
@Tony - StackOverflow is designed to be run by the community so the community can decide whether a question is valid or not. In the same vein, they can decide whether it should be re-opened.
You can still comment on closed questions so it's not as if you can't ask or comment as to why it was closed.
I can't see how placing a time limit on a question before it can be closed is going to change anything - it will still get closed. As I said before, if you ask the "right" question then it won't get closed. Ask a duplicate question, it's going to get closed.
The idea is to keep the relevant questions open and get rid of the rest. If I search for something I don't want to look through 10-20 (maybe more) duplicate questions - I just want the answer but more importantly I want the correct answer as decided by the community.
That's why StackOverFlow works so well - you get good questions with good answers and you get them quickly.