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Today I noticed that I've been banned from asking questions, so now I want to know how to get interest in your question again after updated/editing it so that you can avoid reasking the question in another post/question.

I originally posted about a problem I was having with HTTPS on IIS. Someone responded and asked for more details so I edited the post with more information and some screenshots. Since then not much has happened. In the meantime though I had been researching one particular avenue and needed to ask a different question to eliminate it as a possibility. I did this by asking a new question altogether. I got down voted twice with no proper explanation as to why.

If you guys are looking to improve the content on ServerFault then why not force the people down voting to explain why they're doing so? Others reading the question may have found it a perfectly sensible question, but one or two people didn't.

EDIT: The main question is: Once you've edited your question, how can you get interest in it again? Does it show up in the Questions list again once edited?

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    Once you edit your question, it gets bumped to the top of the front page. If you question is on hold, and it is edited, it also gets added to the re-open queue.
    – tombull89
    Jul 19, 2013 at 10:30
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    What exactly did the message about being banned from asking questions say it doesn't look like you'd be banned on quality grounds? You can add a bounty to your question to get more interest in it. Read the tooltip on the downvote for an explanation of the downvotes too.
    – user9517
    Jul 19, 2013 at 10:49
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    Make it interesting and answerable, follow the advice in help but ultimately there's no SLA here, if nobody can or wants to answer your question then 'promoting it' will only get you hated as it'd be a form of spam at the point.
    – Chopper3
    Jul 19, 2013 at 10:58
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    Add a bounty to your question if you want more interest... Jul 19, 2013 at 11:06
  • @Iain He does have a longs string of questions with no upvotes, that might be enough. Jul 19, 2013 at 14:08
  • @Ward: No, I don't think so. I think you have to actively negatively voted somewhat - don't forget how pink & fluffy SE is.
    – user9517
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:25
  • Two more down votes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fantastic!
    – Jacques
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:40
  • Thanks #tombull89 that was helpful.
    – Jacques
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:41
  • Amazing how the majority of you guys completely missed the point of the discussion.
    – Jacques
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:48
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    @Jacques: If lots of people missed the point of your question then perhaps (just perhaps) there is a problem with the question.
    – user9517
    Jul 19, 2013 at 15:46
  • @Iain The point of the question was to try and improve my questions 'without' re-posting them since that would clog up SF. The point I made about improving SF came from the fact that i saw a bulletin somewhere on this site talking about improving the content. tombull89 answered the question perfectly though.
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:27

3 Answers 3

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I think you probably need to spend some time reading the helpful documentation that SE have thoughtfully provided, in particular:

They will explain how the SE ecosystem and specifically SF work and (hopefully) answer all your questions. If not please contact SE and suggest an update.

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  • #Iain, I've read many of these help topics, tips and tricks about asking questions. In fact I've read them on this and a few of the other StackExchange sites that I use. None of them explains why I was booted. The question was valid. In fact when someone eventually linked the question to another similar question it then made a lot of sense. However, it was down voted before someone made that connection. Again, no explanation as to why that person thought it a bad example of a good question!
    – Jacques
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:46
  • @Jacques: How have you been booted ? Like I said earlier in my comment on your question, read the tooltips on the voting arrows.I didn't DV your question but for me your question fails the 'Shows research' stanza. I disagree that it's a good question too.
    – user9517
    Jul 19, 2013 at 15:08
  • I've been booted because I can no longer ask questions!
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:02
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If you guys are looking to improve the content on ServerFault then why not force the people down voting to explain why they're doing so? Others reading the question may have found it a perfectly sensible question, but one or two people didn't.

The idea of requiring people to explain downvotes has been discussed repeatedly and rejected. (Search on meta.stackoverflow.com if you want to see the debates.) If you move your mouse over the downvote arrow, a tooltip pops up that explains what a downvote means: the question is unclear, not useful, or doesn't show any research effort.

Although StackExchange sites allow other people to edit and improve your questions, or to comment on what they think is wrong, there is an expectation that the person asking questions will put in some effort to make them good ones. That includes reading the documentation provided to understand what a good question is, and paying attention to comments you've gotten on other questions.

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  • #Ward, this just gives guys like #chopper3 the ability to down vote as 'they' see fit. To my mind the question was fine. I've read through some of your 'how to ask a question' documentation. This specific thread is something that I'm actively investigating and have posts running on other threads. Look this very question that I asked. It's been down voted.... By who? Why?
    – Jacques
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:40
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    Well yes, the idea of reputation and voting is that people with enough rep can downvote as they see fit. Or upvote, for that matter. You can take the votes personally and stand behind "in my mind the question was fine" and learn nothing, or you can think "Maybe the votes are a comment on the question itself. Hmmm what's this text that pops up if I hover my cursor over a down arrow. Let me look at my question again from that point of view..." and learn something.
    – Rob Moir
    Jul 19, 2013 at 14:50
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    Atually, the people who run SE have repeatedly stated that anyone can downvote "as they see fit." That's how it works. The fact that you have multiple questions going about the same situation with discussion and clarification happening in comments is not the way SF (or any SE site) is intended to be used, so that makes them "bad" questions. Finally, votes on any meta site on SE are different: they mean "I disagree with your idea," or "I don't think your concern is valid." Jul 19, 2013 at 14:50
  • @Ward... when you hover over the down vote button both on Meta and SF the same generic message appears, not useful. Perhaps you could point to the FAQ or documentation that explains what votes mean on the META site? You can download as you see fit yes, but if I'm going to down vote someone I'd at least like to explain why. Yes you can do this in comments if you'd like, but I kind of like the approach the site has for flagging where it gives you a bunch of predefined answers to at least guide the user in the right direction.
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:42
  • @Jacques Click on the help link at the top of any Meta page, the second section of the Help page is "Voting is different on Meta" Aug 2, 2013 at 14:44
  • @RobM The message that pops up over the down button is generic it seems because it's the same in this post as it is in SF. And, the fact that I came to the Meta site was me trying to learn more after reading the FAQs and such.
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:45
  • @Ward thanks I've just read through it and will keep that in mind.
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:47
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OK, frankly your question here is coming off as a whine mixed with a rant (and clearly I'm not the only one who thinks so). There are a few things you need to understand right off the bat before we press on:

  1. Server Fault is NOT Free Consulting (in fact, no Stack Exchange site is).
    Posting a question does not guarantee an answer.
    Getting an answer doesn't guarantee that it's not utter rubbish.
    • Corollary #1: Most of us are doing this in our spare time (either between tasks at our Real Jobs, or $deity help us, after hours)
    • Corollary #2: If you're really desperate for a solution on a time-critical problem Stack Exchange may not be the best choice.
  2. Complaining about a free service gets you zero sympathy points
    (At least zero from me. Some folks probably award negative points for this.)
  3. The Quality Ban is automatic <-- Go read that. I'll wait.
  4. The idea of forcing comments with downvotes has been discussed to death.
    The answer was, is, and likely always shall be "NO, it's a terribad idea!".

Your network profile indicates that you've been on Stack Overflow for three years -- None of the above should be news to you.

Now that that's out of the way I'll address the answerable parts of your question.


Once you've edited your question, how can you get interest in it again?

As others pointed out, when you edit a question it gets bumped to the top of the front page.
(You've had a Stack Overflow account for three years -- It's worked this way that whole time.).

If your question is put on hold and you edit the question to fix whatever problems caused that it is automatically added to a queue of questions to be reviewed for reopening.
If your edits don't address the problem expect your question to remain on hold. Frankly we get a lot of lousy questions - more than 50% of our daily volume - so don't expect too much hand-holding in that regard.
(I'll let you slide on this one - the new /review system and reopen queue are relatively new features.)


How can you get more attention for your question

You have sufficient reputation to set a bounty on your question, which is the standard way of putting up a sign saying "Please pay attention to my question - It's important to me".

A bounty doesn't guarantee an answer faster (or at all), it just calls more attention to your question. You're still relying on someone with the knowledge, skills, and time to read your question and post an answer. That may happen in a few minutes, a few weeks, or never.

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  • Simple way to get negative sympathy points: Complain about a free service not working the way you want it to, then complain about other people not putting in effort to make it work the way you want. Jul 19, 2013 at 17:51
  • @Ward sympathy? complain about a free service? What the hell are you talking about? half of my question was about 'positively' adding to SF by getting valid interest in my questions without having to resort to re-asking questions (I saw the bulletin about improving content on SF which brought me to the Meta section of the site which I've never used before).
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:32
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    @Jacques People are giving you advice... if you want to improve things, you should read the advice. What I'm talking about in my comment is in reference to something voretaq7 says in this answer. Aug 2, 2013 at 14:41
  • @Ward Explain to me how you thought I wasn't 'reading' the advice people were giving? ...something voretaq7 says in this answer. What? Read your comment again and tell me how that was constructive?
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 14:52
  • @voretaq7 you must deal with a lot of people that you seriously dislike, because you just took a constructive question and turned it into "Complaining about a free service...". So basically you're saying that constructive input is discouraged? I've read about the Quality Ban and took advice from it. Came to the META site due to a bulletin I saw on SF looking to improve content. I've been on Stack for three years... I've never been banned from asking questions on Stack. Different rules perhaps? Lastly, you took quite a bit of time to describe what tombull89 explained in one sentence. Why?
    – Jacques
    Aug 2, 2013 at 15:01

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