Why do people deliberately misuse their VTC?

Question

As many of you can guess from the title, the mood of this question is frustration and desperation.

As a background, my question on why Nazgûl did not kill other hobbits on Weathertop is marked duplicate with another question asking why Nazgûl did not attack a second time on Weathertop. While the answers to both question includes the fact that Nazgûl were afraid of the barrow-blades and were reluctant to engage any further than necessary, they are clearly different questions. My question completely disregarded Frodo and the ring and focused on why Nazgûl did not bother to kill other hobbits. However, the duplicate question focuses on why Nazgûl did not attack a second time to get the Ring directly from Frodo.

Note that while the fear of barrow-blades constitute the main part of both answers, some additional information unrelated to other question may be included in the answers as well.

The duplication policy has been discussed extensively. This is a discussion I myself started on this issue. The consensus was that answers themselves do not make questions duplicate; they can only be used as a litmus test.

Even though I linked the above meta post and stated once again that answers do not make questions duplicate, two more people VTCed, showing that they deliberately VTCed in spite of the previous discussions on Meta.

From my point of view, closing a question as duplicate simply because it resembles another one is not helpful to the discussion. Had it been closed before, I would not have the chance to read the excellent answer Shamshiel provided.

Finally, the question is, why do some users with quite high reputation deliberately misuse their VTC privilege?

Addition: My comment under the question where I link the meta post is removed.

Answer 1

Finally, the question is, why do some users with quite high reputation deliberately misuse their VTC privilege?

They don't. They use it appropriately. One or two votes to close might be misguided, but five votes suggests that there is something about your question that needs to be looked at more closely.

Keep in mind that votes to close are part of the system here. If your question is closed, it's not the end. You can (and should) edit your question to fix the issues that are mentioned in the comments and/or come to the meta here and ask about the closure of your question.

It's going to be clear to you that your question is on-topic and not a duplicate, but others can't read your mind, only your question, so if they are seeing something different from what you intended, it's almost always because there's something about what you wrote in your question that didn't convey your actual intent.

Again, in that case five other users have gotten a different idea about your question from what you wanted to say, so it's more likely that something has broken down in the communication than all five people are conspiring to unfairly shut you down.

Stack Exchange demands a lot from us users. We have to work hard to communicate effectively. That hard work is rewarding because Stack Exchange also provides access to some of the best knowledge available on the Internet, with no paywall and no flame wars. It's the systems like VTCs and the meta and all of the other things that make SE effective, and it's all of us that have to work hard to build this repository of knowledge. When a question of yours gets closed (or downvoted or whatever), it's very easy to feel that others have done the wrong thing, haven't understood us, or have a personal vendetta against us, but almost all of the time, we bear some or all of the responsibility.

Notice that you opened a discussion of this on the meta and your question has been re-opened. That is how the system is supposed to work. A question closed for any reason is not the end of the line for that question, it's a sign that some kind of edit and/or clarification or further review is necessary. Upon further review, your question was re-opened. No one misused any of their votes.

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Edit regarding whether and how answers should be used to evaluate whether questions are considered duplicates.

I quote a bullet from the highest voted and accepted answer on the linked meta regarding duplicates (emphasis mine):

It makes sense on some level to close question A as a duplicate of related question B if the latter has answers which satisfactorily address question A. The duplicate banner, after all, does say "This question already has an answer here".

I'm very confused about why the asker of this question accepted that answer but in this meta is asserting that answers are not relevant to whether questions are duplicates. I suggest to this asker either un-accepting and downvoting that answer quoted above, or retracting any objections to the use of answers when evaluating whether questions are duplicates. The current situation is self-contradictory and confusing.

Answer 2

Let's begin at the end:

Finally, the question is, why do some users with quite high reputation deliberately misuse their VTC privilege?

Because they disagree with your interpretation of our policies.

Now, as it happens, your interpretation is correct and theirs is wrong. But that doesn't make them bad people, and starting a conversation by looking for someone to blame is unhelpful.

Now, to the substance of this matter:

The questions are clearly distinct. Why did the Nazgûl not attack a second time at Weathertop? makes no mention whatsoever of the Nazgûl failing to attack the other Hobbits (in the question; answers don't count). Looking at just the questions, these are clearly separate and independent questions about different aspects of the same event. The question has now been reopened, and should not be re-closed.