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I asked a C++ question and it vectored off into a discussion about the sort, so left it for a while, not sure how to make it better. Later came back with different example -- was told new example was easy (no example given that answered the question), and asked what my problem was -- was even shown how to get another non-answer of addressing the outermost data struct.

I went off to try to test and came back on a browser history page to a question page where I was told I was in danger of being blocked for bad questions. The message I got was:

Wait! Some of your past questions have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from asking any more.

For help formulating a clear, useful question, see: How do I ask a good question?

Also, edit your previous questions to improve formatting and clarity.

I had a 2nd Q with 0 score and no downvotes at the time, but YIKES!... WTBB!!! All of a sudden I felt bad and wrong and had no clue what I'd done other than be "unstellar and/or unpopular in asking questions that were hard to answer. I've barely gotten started on this site and already received warnings for not being good enough.

Looking at my stats I see 4 total questions. 2 had a +1 on the question and a total of +13 rep. Two had a 0 rating on the Q. So where are the heavily down voted/zero voted/deleted posts? One or two "bad" posts (posts that are not easily answered by the normal site readers?).

Now, of note, I had just done a first revision on this question because people were answering part of the question that I hadn't meant for there to be focus on. But that rewrite also resulted in a -1 on the Q, and a claim that it worked fine, so I tried to make that work and was accused of going off into the weeds.

If I so easily trigger warnings on questions that weren't horrible - and even after 2 rewrites, I think people are even less clear about what I was asking - then I was hoping that the same level of "AI" put into the warning system, could be put into the a system that is a bit more specific on what was being done wrong and how to fix it.

I thought a bit more hand-holding might be helpful for people making such novice errors.

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  • Please link to your question so we can gather more information as to why it was closed/downvoted.
    – whatsisname
    Sep 29, 2014 at 21:55
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    Was it this question - programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/256140/… ? If so, it was migrated to Stack Overflow.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Sep 29, 2014 at 22:07
  • cross-site duplicate: Should we be afraid to ask questions? at MSO (FWIW you hardly qualify as "beginner" - 6 months at Programmers, over 2 years at Stack Overflow)
    – gnat
    Sep 30, 2014 at 7:15
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    is your issue similar to one described in “You have asked terrible questions, please get away or ask better question” - where asker was "guilty" of infrequently asking not very well received questions?
    – gnat
    Sep 30, 2014 at 13:07
  • @whatsisname - as reference only -- not to get into a discussion about that Q(please); stackoverflow.com/questions/25845941/…; What I got was an "automated message"... will edit Q w/more details.
    – Astara
    Oct 1, 2014 at 0:28
  • @gnat -- in evaluating 'beginner', you need to look at number of contributions and questions asked. I registered, ages ago to ask or answer some question -- I have answered more than asked, but in searching for my own stuff , If I see something I might be able to answer I try to add something. That is VERY far from making me "experienced" on the site. See the difference?
    – Astara
    Oct 1, 2014 at 1:17
  • @gnat -- in regards to your 2nd Q, I'd say it was very similar --- and Paul's comment strikes a chord in how I am feeling about this as well: > Which I still find silly. I have no idea why I am > "hitting a block".. This (apparently new?) system > gives no feedback and i really have no idea what I can > do to fix this.
    – Astara
    Oct 1, 2014 at 1:23
  • Also, I don't see why this Q about "SE" issues, was tossed back into meta.prog.se? How is this only about programmersSE, or is the prog.SE site the only one that puts up question bans for having 2 questions with 0 votes?...
    – Astara
    Oct 1, 2014 at 1:27
  • this was migrated to Progremmers.SE because you've got warning about questions quality at this site; that is users and moderators here are assumed to be best qualified to evaluate whether it was fair or not
    – gnat
    Oct 1, 2014 at 6:49
  • I was trying to focus on process rather than specifics which was why I was vague about the question to begin with. If this becomes another 'focus on specifics of this persons case', then one can always come up with reasons to support specific cases, rather than looking at the problem on a more systemic basis. Perhaps the tendency to steer away from beneficial solutions that are cross site applicable and view each case in isolation is part of the problem? I.e. forcing each question about such into a separate 'case' vs. a class-action?
    – Astara
    Oct 1, 2014 at 10:34
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    consider clarifying whether you're interested in Could we please be a bit nicer to new users? or Is it OK to downvote new users, or whether it should be that first question doesn't count when system decides on warning / rate limiting, or whether you are interested to learn what went wrong with your removed posts (FWIW your posts that aren't removed shouldn't trigger a warning)
    – gnat
    Oct 1, 2014 at 12:12
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    I tried to focus your question to the actual issue, and in doing so I removed quite a large part of it. If you feel my edit is too drastic, or that it changes the intent of the question, please feel free to roll back.
    – yannis
    Oct 1, 2014 at 14:41
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    as a site regular, I believe that it's generally fair that migrated questions could trigger warning. I am here to learn and share on-topic knowledge, not to read off-topic questions and redirect those who don't know. Think is though, in your particular case, warning doesn't look okay, the harm done by two zero-voted, successfully migrated questions in a month isn't much per se, and coupled with the fact that your other questions were received fine, it feels plain wrong
    – gnat
    Oct 1, 2014 at 21:17
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    @Astara Stack Overflow == Implementation & programming tools questions. Programmers == Conceptual questions (workflow, practices, theory, etc). Meta == Questions about the community, the site and the engine that drives it. All this is documented in our help center.
    – yannis
    Oct 2, 2014 at 12:08
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    asked for clarification at MSE: For quality blocks / warnings, system seems to penalize migrated answered questions the same as deleted ones
    – gnat
    Oct 7, 2014 at 13:06

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