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Need A Discussion

To clarify the subject, let me start this post with a real example. I, as a novice user, posted several posts which were deleted naturally or unnaturally. Since some people may doubt whether I am telling the truth or not, let me put them here; I also put the PDF versions of them so that low-rep users can see them:

A Question about Suggested-edits, PDF;

A Question about some moderation decisions, PDF;

A question about some policy of Stack Exchange, PDF;

A question about the closure reasons of some meta post; PDF;

A question about Meta; PDF.

My other posts are still alive, and you can see them in my profile. As you can see well and any community manager and moderators can confirm, none of my posts is off-topic, and I have never violated the code of conduct (I have been called offensive words such as "troll" by some users, but I have never responded them with any offensive word) and any written Stack Exchange guidelines, which can be found in the Help Center (Community managers and moderators are allowed to make all of my posts and messages public; I have nothing to hide).

Now, recently I was suspended for a very long time because of "low-quality contribution". Recently I have been told by some experienced users that I may be post-banned. I agree that I have had some opinions and feature requests most active meta users dislike, but I cannot understand what "low-quality contribution" means. I have spent a considerable amount of my time and energy to find solutions to improve Stack Exchange communities because I care them.

If my posts were not well received by the community while we know how most active users vote here, this means that my care, efforts, and concern are worthless? I should be treated the same as a spammer?

I tried to find the answer of the question by myself. So I tried to find out what posts are considered high-quality; I found the following examples:

A thanks post, an author of such a post can earn almost all privileges only due to writing such a post;

A show-off post, of course, the community needs beautiful hats to be improved;

A question asking why the name of a file is a Hebrew word, maybe the functionality of that file depends on knowing such information.

Such posts are vital to this community? Do they help the community to be improved? My posts are worthless, and the above posts are priceless?

Now, This novice user, who is concerned for Stack Exchange, fears to be suspended; this novice user fears to be post-banned; this novice user fears to express their opinions; this novice user fears what will happen after posting this question; this novice user fears ... .

Need A Support

This question in this section needs to be answered by the Stack Exchange community team:

Do you really endorse such a policy (discouraging users from expressing their opposing opinions and encouraging users to post such popular unimportant things?

If some directors of Stack Exchange answer this question, I do not know how to appreciate them.

Need A Feature

I think it should not be a bad idea that users are not post-banned on Meta.SE only because of posting many downvoted questions/answers which are obviously on-topic and do not violate the code of conduct. I think we need this feature if we want this community to thrive.

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  • 13
    Those pdf links are pretty sketchy with 18+ ads and popups. Could you just take a screenshot of your questions and upload them via the editor instead?
    – Cave Johnson
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:15
  • @KodosJohnson My posts are lengthy needing many screenshots so I had to put PDF versions of them here.
    – Later
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:17
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    "Recently I have been threatened to be post-banned by some experienced users" I just want to take a second and say that 1. Neither users nor moderators can impose question/answer/post bans. These are applied by the system when you have too many poorly-received posts. 2. You were not threatened with a post ban in any way, it was pointed out to you that this will happen automtically if you continue to post poorly-received questions and answers.
    – Spevacus
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:17
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    Does this answer your question? Question banning should work differently on Meta, see also: meta.stackexchange.com/a/122820/282094 meta.stackexchange.com/a/252645/282094 meta.stackexchange.com/a/315232/282094
    – Rob
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:41
  • @Rob Thanks for the links. But I have some questions and suggestions which are not covered in those links.
    – Later
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:46
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    To be fair here... This question is a bit all over the place. It's simultaneously an invitation for discussion about the "low-quality" terminology, a support inquiry about how Stack Exchange the company feels about this overall subject, and a feature request for the post ban on Meta SE to be removed. I would've narrowed this question down to focus on just one of those things.
    – Spevacus
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:52
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    I am a moderator on another one of our sites and I can confirm that I cannot post ban (or un-post ban) anyone. It's automatic. I can issue a time-limited suspension for low-quality contributions, but I only do so in cases where someone is making no effort whatsoever to improve. I have never suspended anyone for longer than a week. It's just not necessary. If you don't learn from that, the post ban will deal with you.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 15:11
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    Later, you didn't follow the advice previously offered; and have the result. - Instead of trying to figure out how no one has been sufficiently helpful perhaps consider how the advice that is offered can reduce the number of concerns you have; and reduce your question to a single question, and perhaps one more that's directly related.
    – Rob
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 15:13
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    You're not question banned - you have a seven-day rate limit. "Question banned" implies that you're prevented from posting a question for six months" - that's very difficult on MSE.
    – Catija
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 15:24
  • @Rob Sorry, I should not have done that. Honestly speaking, I forgot to read the link you suggested in my previous post. However, I am not motivated enough to reduce this question to a single question. Let the community do what they want about this post.
    – Later
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 15:24
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    @Later “needing many screenshots” — Your browser most likely has a full-site screenshot feature. The PDFs seem to be missing a few things like duplicate target links. Make sure to include links from your screenshots as well.
    – Sebastian Simon
    Commented Apr 22, 2021 at 0:59

1 Answer 1

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and I have never violated the code of conduct (I have been called offensive words such as "troll" by some users, but I have never responded them with any offensive word) and any written Stack Exchange guidelines, which can be found in the Help Center (Community managers and moderators are allowed to make all of my posts and messages public; I have nothing to hide).

Your whole focus on 'written guidelines' is what's wrong, and this was explained to you several times. The Code of Conduct isn't an exhaustive list of things you can and cannot do, and you do have two suspensions on your Meta Stack Exchange account and one on chat.

One for excessive discussion in comments, where the written guidelines say to not use comments for that purpose. While you weren't outright rude or abusive, several unkind comments definitely contributed to you receiving that message. The other for consistently low quality contributions, which included the following request: "please don't threaten just posting more low quality posts when your low quality posts are moderated by the community".

You have a history of challenging everything that happens to your posts on meta, from votes, to closure, to answers. Which is your right, but as moderators we're supposed to make sure you don't do so excessively, and protect you against yourself.

Recently I have been threatened to be post-banned by some experienced users.

We don't issue threats, we issue warnings. And since you're now rate-limited/banned from posting for 7 days, it seems these warnings were pretty much right. You would have done better had you heeded them.

If my posts were not well received by the community while we know how most active users vote here, this means that my care, efforts, and concern are worthless? I should be treated the same as a spammer?

As much as I sometimes wish we could treat non-spamming users like spammers, you're not being treated like one. Spammers get their posts deleted as spam, they get automated suspensions for 14 days when we destroy their profiles, and spam-deleting their posts also works towards blocking the IP addresses so that they can never post again.

What you describe as care, effort and concern is not much more than a drain on the community here: In case of your recent questions, you didn't even take care or effort to investigate what was already out there, and to carefully describe how your questions were different from what's already there. The only thing I saw you do is claiming that 'it's obviously different'.

Such posts are vital to this community? Do they help the community to be improved? My posts are worthless, and the above posts are priceless?

Comparing apples to oranges helps no one.

Do you really endorse such a policy (discouraging users from expressing their opposing opinions and encouraging users to post such popular unimportant things?

There's a reason it is much, much harder to hit a question ban on Meta Stack Exchange than on any other site: It is because the people at Stack Exchange know that sometimes, people have to make unpopular posts.

They're not expected to keep digging in the hole they started with their first post though.

I think it should not be a bad idea that users are not post-banned on Meta.SE only because of posting many downvoted questions/answers which are obviously on-topic and do not violate the code of conduct. I think we need this feature if we want this community to thrive.

And this is a horribad idea. You've had 10 chances of asking a good question, one that isn't a duplicate of an idea that was already talked about before, or one that wasn't a long winding story about what happened to your previous post on Meta.SE. In order for this community to thrive, they need to be able to rest assured they won't have to spend their time endlessly on people that never improve, and that either moderators or the system will eventually slow these people down.

You were warned that this might happen, you were given more time and guidance than many other new users ever need to get the hang of this site, and you now have to deal with the consequences of your own actions and behavior.

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    And yet again the community, you in this case, has to spend an excessive amount of time explaining what is obvious to most users but not to OP....
    – Luuklag
    Commented Apr 21, 2021 at 14:48
  • horribad? "A term used for kids who are so bad that not a single word should be wasted in describing them. Hence, the term "horribad" by combining two halves of words we can form a term without actually using a whole word! People who point out that two halves make a whole are considered "horribad" and are generally ignored by the general population." (not the most credible source...)
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Apr 22, 2021 at 10:45

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