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As I recently received a question ban, I went again through my questions to improve them. I have a total of 3 questions which have no accepted answers (1 off-topic (deleted), 1 without answers, 1 without an answer which actually answers the question). Many of my questions have no votes at all (6/11, including the deleted ones). Also I have at least 3 questions with more than 5k views.

As I said, I went through all my questions and tried to improve them. In the end I only improved 1 question, which promptly lead to another downvote on the question. All other questions are pretty exhaustive or at least describe the desired answer detailed enough to get the actual answer (see this question). As the questions are either already answered or the desired answer is clearly described, I have a hard time to improve them in any meaningful way (not just random edits to bump them to the active questions).

So my question is, how should I improve my answers in a meaningful way to lift my question ban?

My current upvote downvote ratio is 6/15, including the deleted question. Is it necessary to even the ratio out to lift the question ban, or what are the requirements?

Please note that I know that questions should show a minimum effort of research, yet again I learned from stackoverflow that questions which are easy to answer, but not yet present on the stack are valid as well to build a collection of knowledge in a central place which else would be scattered around many places.

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    So with regards to the last part, we are not Stack Overflow, our posting rules are different. If you're posting simple questions just because they aren't on the site already, we're not going to look too kindly on that. We generally don't like questions that are asked simply to satisfy your curiosity, but rather prefer questions where you're trying to solve a problem in game.
    – MBraedley
    Feb 27, 2019 at 13:29
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    @MBraedley questions that are asked simply to satisfy your curiosity assuming that is true, then for the [apex-legends] tag, there should be around 5-6 questions left, as all other questions are not an actual problem, but more curiosity like this high voted question (at least I don't see an actual problem there)
    – XtremeBaumer
    Feb 27, 2019 at 13:36
  • So a) there's a reason I put "generally" in there, and in italics, and b) I completely disagree with you about the questions in apex-legends, because they all look like the answers would have material impact on how the game is played. By definition, solving a problem has a material impact on how you play a game, which is why I (and others) use it as a short hand for a much broader category of questions.
    – MBraedley
    Feb 27, 2019 at 14:16
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    Looks like we use different definitions of problem. Yet there is a good amount of question which don't change how you play the game and are only curiosity. Also I don't quite see what this has to do with the question at hand. I have 2 question (1 deleted) which are only curiosity and would never change the way I play the games at hand (question 1 and question 2)
    – XtremeBaumer
    Feb 27, 2019 at 14:25
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    It has nothing to do with your questions and question ban specifically, it has everything to do with the last paragraph in this question. You can't necessarily interact with our community the same way as you do with other communities. You have to learn how we like to do things and how we don't like to do things.
    – MBraedley
    Feb 27, 2019 at 14:42

1 Answer 1

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I think the main misunderstanding here is what MBraedly brought up in the comments:

[W]e are not Stack Overflow, our posting rules are different. If you're posting simple questions just because they aren't on the site already, we're not going to look too kindly on that.

This is reflected in the downvote's tooltip:

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful

Or, in other words, it is possible to ask questions that are simply too trivial, or not useful enough, and no amount of editing will salvage them. This is especially true here on Arqade, since video games (usually) guide a player through their most intricate features and mechanics, or use intuitive enough design and UI to provide players with the answer to many questions they might have.

I see your question ban was lifted, maybe due to the meta effect, since you posted three more questions, all of which were quickly downvoted. The answer to all of these questions is easily found ingame, or with a short search of the internet. There's nothing wrong with the questions' style, formatting, or clarity, but they are just not all that useful.

To answer your bolded question, I'm afraid that the question ban is simply working as intended. Improving a post's clarity or style won't change how the question's content is perceived by the userbase, so there's no universal way to improve questions in order to lift a question ban. Take this as a chance to learn which kinds of question are useful and which are not, and try to do better in the future.

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    First of all thanks for the answer. If we are honest, then more than 90% of all the questions on Arqade can be answered by a quick google search. Example: question, mildly well received and the google result. It seems that the usefulness is pretty subjective on Arqade. And please correct me if I am wrong in assuming that the goal of Arqade is not to be collection of knowledge in a central place.
    – XtremeBaumer
    Feb 28, 2019 at 11:32
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    @XtremeBaumer It's not. We're not trying to collect all knowledge about something. Asking a question for the sake of having it at Arqade won't get a good reception. We're not trying to be a game wiki. Your best bet is to ask questions where it's a problem you're actually having, and can't find an answer elsewhere.
    – Frank
    Feb 28, 2019 at 12:47
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    @Frank good to know. Yet as I already pointed out can't find an answer elsewhere is in more than 90% of the questions here not the case. Thats why I have a hard time to judge if a question should be on here or not
    – XtremeBaumer
    Feb 28, 2019 at 12:51
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    @XtremeBaumer Many people say they can't find anything. It's an incredibly common excuse to get around the need for research. Many people won't believe it, especially when there's no actual evidence of research in your question. "I looked, and couldn't find anything" looks lazy. "I found this related bit here, but it didn't have the details on this aspect that I wanted to know about" is far better.
    – Frank
    Feb 28, 2019 at 12:54
  • To add to what Frank is saying here, a lot of questions at the time may seem to have low research also, but when they were asked that information was not available. This happens a lot with newer games, where the information is certainly well known like a month later, but it seems like a good question at the time.
    – FoxMcCloud
    Mar 1, 2019 at 16:28

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