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I got banned without warning whatsoever who knows when (since Stack Exchange does not let you see the ban issuance date and time), and waited patiently until some days ago when it was lifted to ask a question about a possibly dead laptop (link here if you are interested and want to help me out).

Now, before someone says anything about my past writing skills, I know I was not a great writer back when I started using Stack Exchange in ~2016-2017, and I still am not perfect. I tried editing my past questions, but no luck there.

Back to today. My current issue is that the ban is now reinstated after my new question, as stated in the Help Center section about question bans (https://superuser.com/help/question-bans). I was ready for this, but shouldn't a reputation increase and an upvote or more be enough to lift me out of the block? Upvotes indicate a "useful and clear question", as the tooltip says.

What about people who are new to Super User and are not that tech-savvy? Will they get banned because they can't clarify when requested due to poor tech knowledge? Turning to Tom's Hardware Forums, for example, is really not an option, since I can't get any really useful answer(s) there, in contrast to Super User. From my experience, at least.

No one is perfect at anything, and I think that Stack Exchange fails to recognize this, especially with their "asking questions is a privilege, not a right" statement. I get that they don't want their communities filled with low quality questions, but they don't have to ban every flaw, in my opinion. Isn't the network there to solve problems?

And no. Although I want to, I'm can't really asking for a ban lift, since Stack Exchange cannot lift question bans by request.

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  • 1
    My guess would be this is your six monthly 'grace' question and it recalculated right after that. We don't know what the algorithm is for question bans so at least on the mod end, we really have no idea 'how much' is good enough to get out of your question ban.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    May 28, 2021 at 15:15
  • @JourneymanGeek At least you're being honest about it. Props to you. Also, thank you if you were the one who gave my question a second upvote to get me out of the new ban.
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 15:26
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    Well - I'd never vote to get someone out of a ban. On the other hand, if a question is well written and has merit on its own - Its probably the least one could do
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    May 28, 2021 at 15:47
  • @JourneymanGeek I know, that's why I said so. A couple users helped me make the question more clear, so I don't see any real reason for a second ban over the previous one just because of a possibly dead Toshiba laptop.
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 18:55
  • @Ramhound Wait, what? One every 6 months? That's over the top, isn't it?
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 19:23
  • @Ramhound OK then. I have a question about audiodg.exe ready, so I'll try my best at this.
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 19:39
  • @Ramhound Just one if I recall correctly. The last question before the ban was asked in November 2020.
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 19:52
  • @Ramhound I just found out that I had deleted another question from more than 2 years ago, but that had 0 votes.
    – na-no.
    May 28, 2021 at 20:23
  • That the system doesn't let you know that you're still banned even if your 6-month limit has opened up is a common source of confusion. I've filed a feature request on our general meta site asking for that to be fixed; you may consider supporting it.
    – gparyani
    May 29, 2021 at 4:44
  • Also, the system doesn't give any extra consideration to questions asked after a ban was imposed during the 6-month rate limit. It just considers that question equally along with all your other questions, so if your previous questions were received extremely negatively, one question won't be enough to get you out.
    – gparyani
    May 29, 2021 at 4:47
  • @gparyani - As we learned the author has had numerous (seven to be precise) questions deleted. The reason a single question wasn’t enough is obvious (their total score of all their questions was extremely low before they asked the single question).
    – Ramhound
    May 30, 2021 at 3:06
  • @Ramhound Yes, I'm aware. The purpose of my comment was to point this out to the author.
    – gparyani
    May 30, 2021 at 3:17

2 Answers 2

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Now, before someone says anything about my past writing skills, I know I was not a great writer back when I started using Stack Exchange in ~2016-2017, and I still am not perfect. I tried editing my past questions, but no luck there.

So you were aware that your writing skills were likely linked to previous downvotes. You know that downvotes can be reversed provided an edit is performed. Knowing this information you still asked a question, revision 1, that still required significant clarification. Thankfully, the question really was never that unclear, I would just argue it just contained a significant amount of information that has no real baring on your issue. I mentioned this all to help you write a more concise detailed high quality question in the future.

Back to today. My current issue is that the ban is now reinstated after my new question, as stated in the Help Center section about question bans I was ready for this, but shouldn't a reputation increase and an upvote or more be enough to lift me out of the block? Upvotes indicate a "useful and clear question", as the tooltip says.

Your question ban was never actually lifted. Once a user reaches the threshold for a question ban they are able to ask a single question every 6 months. The entire reason you are able to ask a question once every 6 months, is to eventually, no longer be question ban and be able to ask questions normally.

So if your last question was in November 2020 and your newest question was in May 2021 that would have been your one question. If you are now unable to ask a new question it means the ban was never lifted.

Since little has been shared about the system itself, there is no way, to know how close you are to NOT being question banned.

What about people who are new to Super User and are not that tech-savvy? Will they get banned because they can't clarify when requested due to poor tech knowledge? Turning to Tom's Hardware Forums, for example, is really not an option, since I can't get any really useful answer(s) there, in contrast to Super User. From my experience, at least.

Users (all users) are expected to perform an adequate amount of research to ask a question that is clear and concise enough so it can be answered. This means using the proper names for technology (I.e PCI-E, etc.) so the community is able to comprehend the question enough to answer it. Questions that are not detailed enough or are unclear are unlikely to get a meaningful answers.

No one is perfect at anything, and I think that Stack Exchange fails to recognize this, especially with their "asking questions is a privilege, not a right" statement. I get that they don't want their communities filled with low quality questions, but they don't have to ban every flaw, in my opinion. Isn't the network there to solve problems?

Sure, but those questions must be answerable, sadly unanswerable questions are not helpful to the community. Questions bans only happen after a continued pattern of asking bad questions, the number isn’t static, and completely user specific. However, it’s absolutely never due to a single bad question, a single bad question simply could not make a user reach the threshold for a question ban.

What normally happens is there are numerous downvoted questions, that might have been deleted by the community or the user themselves, and numerous questions that receive zero votes in either direction. A user with 4 questions like yourself, one that has 2 upvotes, wouldn’t ever be question banned (if those were their only questions). Even if you include a couple deleted questions with 0 votes you still wouldn’t be question banned.

You have at least one question with 0 votes, that received an answer, yet you deemed it unsalvageable and simply deleted it last month. Deleting a question after an answer has been submitted isn’t a positive event. Deleting a question should be reserved for a question that cannot be salvaged by any edit.

As for 3 year old questions, about Windows Vista and Windows XP devices, trying to diagnose those questions today will likely be impossible. Of the questions I saw that had automatically been deleted, were undiagnosed hardware failures, attempting to formulate an answer today would be impossible. It doesn’t appear you are very far into the question ban threshold, but having 7 questions out of 11 questions deleted, isn’t a positive event especially if they received downvotes.

Contributing to the community positively, accepting answers that have been submitted, provided they answered your question are all events that eventually will result in you no longer being question banned.

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  • I have asked a moderator to provide you links to your deleted questions. You must have more than 2 deleted questions linked to your account.
    – Ramhound
    May 28, 2021 at 21:31
  • 1
    Done. OP see my answer.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    May 28, 2021 at 22:00
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The ban is now reinstated after my new question

You have asked 11 questions (of which 7 are deleted):

Deleted:

That gives you a net score of -3 at this moment in time.

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  • Studying for university admission exams has made me forget everything... Thanks for reminding me these abominations existed. I can learn from my mistakes now. I have a question though: the ban was instated after the VMware menu bar question, which had 0 votes. Shouldn't I have been banned earlier if the older ones had 1 and 2 downvotes?
    – na-no.
    May 31, 2021 at 20:09
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    No idea. The ban algorithm is not public.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    May 31, 2021 at 20:13
  • Okay, then. I have to be more careful in SE now.
    – na-no.
    May 31, 2021 at 20:15

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