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[META] Are users allowed to bump their own questions or other users' questions?
Sorry if this question seems silly, but I don't think this has been asked before. (At least it doesn't come up in a google search.) I think many people silently assume it's not allowed, but are users allowed to post a comment on their question with the word "bump" in order to bump a question to the top of the question list? Or is this frowned upon and possibly a reason to downvote a user?
All the FAQ has to say about bumping is:
"What if I don't get a good answer? In order to get good answers, you have to put some effort into the question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it."
The problem I have with this guideline is a user might not have any more information to update his/her question with despite any further effort he/she puts into researching it.
My other problem with this is what if a user posts a question in the middle of the night and/or the question drowns due to a moderator going through the moderation queue of 30+ questions. In both scenarios, it's likely a question will hardly get any views, and therefore, it's less likely to be seen by the right person.
When people don't get their question answered, sometimes they make a pointless edit to their question to bump it. Or they end up reposting the same question entirely. Both of these things could be removed if bumping was allowed.
I don't think bumping would be a bad thing if it was limited to every few hours. It also lets people answering the questions know that the asker is still paying attention to their question.
That said, I'm not expecting a Unity employee to see this or anything, but by the off chance that one does, I think it would be nice to have a bump "button" implemented. All it would need is a limit to how frequently it can be used.
Bumping after a few hours is no issue and I do think it is wrong to claim that bumping should be banned. If the question is off topic or answered many times, a bump will simply put it back up and someone will tell the OP about it.
If not answered, maybe no one with the knowledge was there at the time of posting and maybe someone with knowledge is currently online and may help.
What is wrong is to bump after 10$$anonymous$$ and spam$$anonymous$$g over and over again.
I strongly feel that UA should not become like Stack Overflow where before asking a question, you have to apologize for asking it and if for any reason you missed the thread that was helping you, then you get downvoted frenetically and told off by all the old users.
They probably feel powerful as they can moderate.
So yes, do bump moderately, if the question is worth it, it will be answered. There are everyday tens of GetComponent questions and they still get answered. The reason is simple, they provide easy karma to those with low level. If we apply the rules in SO style, there should not be any of those ever again. Still...
Let's remain friendly shall we?
I'm perhaps jaded by recent experiences of bumped threads, which were all of the "I need this script urgently but don't want to learn how to do it myself" variety. I suppose it's not the bumping per se that's the problem - it's the attitude that normally goes with it.
I think we all agree that we'd like to see more high-quality questions and answers, and a courteous, useful site - where we seem to differ is our opinion of whether bumping threads contributes to this aim or detracts from it... :)
Just to be nit-picky : Literally speaking, it is impossible to post a comment with only "bump" as its content. Comments have a "more than 10 characters" condition to meet... ;P
Personal opinion. It is okay to bump a question once or twice, but the OP should wait at least 12 and preferably 24 hours between bumps. Unity Answers has followers in many time-zones, and the person that has the answer my only check in occasionally. In addition to bringing a question back to the top, bumping a question tells me that the OP still cares about the answer. There are any number of times that bumping has enticed me to spend time answering a question. If after two, well-spaced bumps, the questions is till not answered, the OP should consider a complete rewrite of the question.
Note as mentioned below, putting 'bump' into a comment is not necessary to bump a question. Editing the question will put in back on top of the queue.
Answer by Kiwasi · Sep 08, 2014 at 10:42 PM
It may well be that bumping is not the problem.
Another solution is to have effective filtering out of the questions we have answered a thousand times before. The site only gets about 2-3 genuine new questions every day.
Answer by tanoshimi · Sep 07, 2014 at 04:25 PM
Bumping adds no value to a thread, or to this site in general. It is rude, non-constructive, and should be discouraged if not banned. I tend to give a warning to users who attempt to bump their posts. I have in the past deleted entire threads which the poster refused to stop bumping.
That's my opinion, anyway :)
So what do you think a user should do in the scenario where he/she posts a good question, but it hardly receives any views for the reasons I mentioned above? Should they repost a duplicate of their question?
Absolutely not. They should continue to research a solution to the question themselves, and update their thread with *meaningful" information that they discover. Listing, for example, a number of things they attempted to solve their problem, even if not successful, is helpful information and it also shows some effort on the part of the poster.
This is a community site - nobody owes you a reply to your question. Nor will you get very far in program$$anonymous$$g (or, indeed, in life generally) if you just repeatedly ask for others to give you solutions to your problems - but, we all get stuck sometimes and if you show that you're trying yourself to solve your issues, I for one will certainly be much more inclined to try to help.
@tanoshimi So you don't think there have been questions asked here where users have spent hours looking for a solution, and used this site as a last resort including everything they've tried in their post, therefore, leaving their post with nothing meaningful left to update it with ?
I know I've held back "what I've tried" just to have something to bump my post up with later just in case. I'd like to think there are situations where askers put in the effort with all the information upfront.
@kacyesp, it's my experience that "$$anonymous$$ost"(hate to generalize) users don't even know what they are asking, research goes out the window if you don't know the question/problem they're trying to solve. We see silly questions where all the user has to do is plug the BCE##### error and BOO$$anonymous$$ answer(s).
If someone comes in and bumps there question with a comment or whatever, that's inappropriate(Referring to begging for help or just a "bump"), users should update their question with relevant information on how there research is going and what they tried while waiting for a good person to answer their question or try and help them. They don't and as a matter of fact, there are a lot more users that combative when you try and help them lately... sadness.
@tanoshimi, was that you who gave me my first down-vote? I don't know who did it and believe me, I want to know who and why. You seem to be aggressive towards my comments and answers recently, so that's why I'm asking you first.
Answer by JusticeAShearing · Sep 07, 2014 at 03:59 PM
I assume that by 'bump a question' you mean to 'bump it up' to a higher position on the list of questions.
If a question has 'activity', it will be bumped to the top.
There are several ways to do this.
Get a comment posted
Edit your question or comment
I think that likes and perhaps dislikes count as activity
I think that an answer counts as activity, but will not work if you are trying to bump an unanswered question, naturally.
Please bear in mind that the last two I am not sure of.
In my experience, those with so little karma that a question or answer must be approved by a moderator must simply be patient, unfortunately.
I hope that this helps you.
Sorry, I should've been more explicit. I edited the question a bit. I'm aware of ways to bump a question up to the top of the list, but I was wondering if it's acceptable behaviour to explicitly type a comment saying "bump". I never see anyone do this despite this being common behaviour on other forums. And recently, when I finally did see someone do this, he (half-jokingly) said he'll eventually get banned for it.
I doubt that you would get banned for it, but it is unacceptable to write a comment for no reason but to bump it.
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