>And as a sidenote, why do people downvote a question rather than answer it? Some of us like answering questions and deadening a question removes that ability.

if its just [dead] (no [flagged]), as the case with tyromaniac, that's automated by the site (suspected spam/ai/bot/etc.).

the comment can be vouched for to lose the [dead] status by users with 500+ karma (i think? maybe 1000)

comments don't gain [dead] due to downvoting.