If any generous-hearted javascript guru has a spare second, you might care to check out this bug and tell me what you think...
Anonymous
07:08
> Anton GeraschenkoNov 26th 2012 Yes. It's taken a surprisingly long time to get the legal stuff done (partly my fault, sorry), but hopefully it will be done in the next two weeks or so. More updates soon.
Anonymous
(That's re: MathOverflow joining Stack Exchange.)
Anonymous
No more news since then. That very slightly worrying.
user200500
07:57
We should have a word filter that prevents people from posting questions with the phrase "does not work".
@balpha - OK... was thinking this could be useful info for moderators and trusted users (at least when it comes to users posting programming questions on meta)
@Oded Shog posted an answer recently indicating that a small percentage of people posting on Meta were likely to have a question ban at the time. It seems that in general the main cause is people just not paying attention, for some reason.
I'm not sure why they don't find the lack of relevant tags suspicious, but...
@TimStone - Wasn't aware of that statistic. And yes, lack of attention seems evident, but I do wonder if there is a path that new users take that ends up bringing them to meta more often than experienced users. Perhaps a query of the referrer headers would uncover something.
@Oded I think that's a really good idea. Find out where they all come from, to see if maybe there is just some slightly confusing workflow somewhere on the site (possibly one that only new users get exposed to).
Can anyone help word this question better, there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm trying to accomplish? I'm a math guy not so much an english composition guy.
Ok, after seeing the idea here, and following the chain here, and seeing it here, I think I have the best time/stress saving option for closing as off-topic.
How about we put a checkbox in the close as off-topic dialog box that will let you input a comment (as if you had flagged other), and then...
@Oded Should be visible to all mods in the near future... Waiting on a small change to how it's presented first. Don't want folks getting the wrong idea - since it's possible to be q-banned but not know you're q-banned, just slapping the status onto the profile can end up breaking communication in cases where, say, a mod-message really does need to be sent.
I certainly have the idea that there is a correlation between low English reading skills and high likely hood of being q-banned.
add to that that they get a link leading to Meta, they don't yet realize they have been postbanned, so they think they've been redirected somewhere else they need to ask the question instead, perhaps.
@Martijn - I am certain that low English skill contributes, but there seems to be a general issue with people who just are not detail oriented. This is reflected in the questions, usage of language and of course posting to the wrong site.
@Shog9 - Fair enough. I know that in the past, when I saw a programming question pop up on Meta I wanted to know if the user was Q banned, so I would know how to phrase the comment - in particular if they were not...
@Oded First thing I do is check to see if they've managed to ask a question on SO before. Then, yeah, the q-ban thing - but even then, there's always a chance someone is using a new account because their old one was blocked and hitting the IP-level ban, so you don't know for sure.
@MartijnPieters the last guy I looked at jumped straight from "how to ask" to MSO. There is a small "discuss on meta" link there - I suppose maybe you think, "Ah, finally, a place to discuss this error message I'm getting..."
@Oded yeah. SO is big enough at this point that betting against someone doing something - even something obscure that makes no sense at all - is a losing bet.
At the same time, you gotta remember that the vast majority of folks find their way through to asking a question without any issues (and some even find their way to an answer via that search box without ever having to ask).
I am a foreigner here (Dutchie in Norway) and this does happen to me from time to time. That I misunderstand what a Norwegian word means just because the synapses in my brain misfire based on synonyms or homonyms or context.
@MartijnPieters FWIW, that was sorta distilled from the guidance we give folks who contact us directly:
> Your question block was triggered automatically by the system. Most of your questions have been either down-voted or not voted on at all. The intention of a posting block is to ask that you work on your existing content before trying to post further.
All I can suggest is, if you would like your ability to post reinstated, please follow the suggestions offered here: What can I do when getting “Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account”? How to Ask I'm sorry but we cannot lift posting blocks by request.
I think we'll probably replace the MSO FAQ on this topic at some point with something similar to that - right now, it's entirely too long and detailed, which is great for folks who just want to understand how it works but not great for folks who need to know how to get it lifted. The take-away should almost always be, "improve your existing posts" and that's... sorta buried right now.
Probably should have two FAQs: "what is the quality ban and how does it work?" and "what should I do when I get..."
