15
\$\begingroup\$

Not for lack of trying, I get downvotes on some questions. And on those questions I nevertheless often get answers. So if I try to delete the question to approach it differently, I get the warning that doing this repeatedly can get my account question-banned by the system.

Should I instead first post a question draft on Meta if I have any doubt about its suitability? Is it really what Meta is for?

And as a side note: shouldn't SE sites have a draft/review section where people can get feedback on questions before they ask it? Because once a question has both answers and downvotes, even with significant improvements, the downvotes seem to severely impact chances of further answers.

\$\endgroup\$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
16
\$\begingroup\$

The best thing to do is to read the Help Center, and specifically, in your case, where your questions are not off-topic, but not that well received:

How do I ask a good question?

That said, Meta is not meant to check if a question is OK before asking it, usually. The guidelines are pretty clear, and generally downvotes are used by members to indicate it is not a very good question, i.e.: it's not off-topic, but it could be improved. Meta can be used to ask about a specific type of question, if it's unclear per the guidelines whether it would be on-topic. The tag is used for those.

Rather, Meta is intended to discuss how the site works and the various minutiae that comes into play, including specific posts. If you feel that a post you made was mishandled, then ask on Meta and use the or accordingly.

If you are truly unsure, feel welcome to drop by The 2nd Monitor chat room and ask about it. Just put your post in a PasteBin or Gist and we can have a look. This is generally not needed, but it is an option for you to get feedback ahead of time.

As far as drafts go, Stack Exchange does save an unpublished copy of your post, should you navigate away from the page, but other than that, there is not a system to manage draft versions of your posts. If you wish to request such a feature, you should post on Meta Stack Exchange with the feature-request tag.

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ PPCG has a meta "sandbox" post for question prep. On CR, some people have asked people in the chat to read the post in a Gist... \$\endgroup\$
    – user34073
    Dec 25, 2016 at 1:05
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Hosch250 thanks I added this suggestion to the post. \$\endgroup\$
    – Phrancis
    Dec 25, 2016 at 1:10
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ Meta.CR also contains a wealth of information about writing good CR posts. Here would be one. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mathieu Guindon
    Dec 25, 2016 at 1:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ Beautiful post! \$\endgroup\$
    – janos
    Dec 25, 2016 at 8:04

You must log in to answer this question.

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