So, I recently asked a question about how we know that Latin "venio" is not related to English "wend", and it was rather well-received. That was rather surprising to me, as, a few years ago, I asked a similar question about whether German "Tier" and Latin "fera" are related, and it wasn't received nearly as well. Why is that?
3 Answers
As a rule of thumb, our users hate etymological speculation. A question whose main point is "these words look similar, I bet they are related" tends to be received very poorly.
There are random effects on the score (what kind of comment or vote comes first, do you make it HNQ, who sees the question, …), but there are certainly features that correlate well with higher score:
Check a source and tell explicitly what you found. Something like "According to Wiktionary, X and Y come from the same PIt root" will go a long way. Give a link to the relevant page if you consulted an online source. This saves time for those considering to answer and shows that you have really tried to answer your own question before coming here. Voters across the network greatly appreciate these.
In your older question you did not indicate any such research, and you did not respond to a comment asking about that.
Reply to comments. When users see a reasonable question in a comment that you either ignore or dismiss, they will often vote down. If you feel you are misunderstood, it is your job to edit your post and explain yourself better so that you are understood as you intended. Always assume good intentions and reply professionally — and if a comment is clearly out of line, flag it and disengage.
Again, you did not do this with the older question. With the newer one there were no comments.
Ask a more specific question. A general "are these two words related" falls easily into the category of etymological speculation. People like it more when you ask a more specific question, such as: "Wiktionary says that X and Y are not related but gives no reasoning. What are the cognates or other hints that suggest this?"
Your newer question was specific this way, the older one was not.
Also related to question reception: If you are on the site for a long time and ask about similar topics repeatedly, you are expected to learn. If you always have to be poked by a comment to include the conclusion of a dictionary lookup, people get fed up. If you keep making the same kind of assumption that has been repeatedly pointed out as false, people get fed up. So, for better reception, pay serious attention to the feedback you have gotten so far.
It's good that you ask questions like this on meta to improve, but at least my first two points should not be news items. You have been told about those before, several times. Pay more attention to what you are told, please.
As the person who answered the second question: "how do we know X comes from root Y rather than root Z" is much more concrete and less speculative than "what if X and Y were cognates from some hitherto-unknown root". You also showed an understanding of Proto-Italic sound changes, which helps in making a clear question.
Specific questions are also much easier to answer—etymological dictionaries like De Vaan devote a lot of words to "why X" and very few words to "why not Y".
Draconis you are concerned about why not Y even if it was not asked, as in my question. What you call etymological speculation can be judged as a question.
