8

I was going to ask another question today, when suddenly I received a warning in the 'Ask Question' page that I was in risk of being banned(or muted or something similar. It disappeared before I could read correctly). Well I know that some of my last questions weren't exactly accepted with great enthusiasm, or 2 were put on-hold, but I wouldn't think they are banning material. Should I take the warning seriously?

1
  • 1
    The same problem is discussed here. It's a case of a computer trying to gauge the quality of your questions and failing at it. Plus it seems to misunderstand how suspensions are used on this site.
    – C. E.
    Oct 20, 2014 at 21:53

1 Answer 1

12

Update

Sometime (I believe) after writing the reply below automatic blocking was added to the system, as indicated by notices added to the community moderator tools panel. As far as I can tell community moderators (like me) do not have the ability to rescind this automatic block; it must be waited out.


As far as I know we do not have automatic question bans on Mathematica.SE though they do exist on e.g. Stack Overflow as described here: What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?

An account may still be manually suspended for a number of reasons including "consistently low quality questions over time." Briefly reviewing your question history it does appear that you have a higher than normal closed and/or deleted percentage. Although not all cases are problematic I think it would be beneficial for you to read this again and consider the close reasons on some of your closed posts. Mostly I think you just need to become a bit more familiar with Mathematica, both the site and the software, before things flow as well as intended. :-)

5
  • Ok, thanks for the heads up. I'll give my best. Oct 20, 2014 at 21:53
  • This is a bit late, and I haven't been hot with a ban threat. But maybe a deeper question is how the site handles stuff from noobs? Like me, for instance. I have little experience with Mathematica and a couple of times needed what seemed like elementary help (syntax stuff). But a "simple" syntax problem to a newcomer is NOT simple, and the explanations in the documentation are often worse than useless, since they assume knowledge a newcomer will by definition not have.
    – Jesse
    Oct 27, 2014 at 0:35
  • @Jesse In my opinion the most important thing is to write a good question. First search the site to make sure that you are not asking what has already been asked in the same wording. Then write a clear, reasonably brief question with sufficient examples of any code that is troubling you and also exact input and output that you desire if applicable. Such questions, even if later closed, are generally welcomed by the community unless it appears that you are attempting to use the site as a replacement for the documentation, in which case you will be instructed to read introductions etc.
    – Mr.Wizard
    Oct 27, 2014 at 1:39
  • 1
    @Jesse Also related, please see this meta Q&A: (274) -- hopefully the majority of your questions will not fall into the "blatant RTFM" category but even if they occasionally do it may be OK if they are well written as there is often a nontrivial or nonstandard method that can be shared.
    – Mr.Wizard
    Oct 27, 2014 at 1:42
  • 2
    @Mr.Wizard I thought I had heard that the new temporary question bans were active on all sites now, but I'm not sure.
    – David Z
    Oct 29, 2014 at 7:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .