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By way of example, I have just come across this question: When you are at school as having been "bumped to the homepage by Community" with the comment "This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed."

In what way should we "review" it: ideally to prevent it being bumped periodically for the indefinite future?

I should point out that I have read the question & answer for The Community bump- what are the rules, and are these rules proper? and have noted that certain actions, e.g. "up-voting or down-voting the zero-scored, sole answer would stop it from getting bumped", but also that "up-voting and down-voting ... should be based on an appropriate assessment of the answer."

In my current example, a comment shows that the original questioner was clearly happy with the answer - but they did not formally 'accept' or up-vote it. I am also not inclined to up-vote (or down-vote) the answer. Neither am I inclined to vote to close the question: in fact I propose to edit the question for 'tidiness' & clarity. I note, from the Meta question linked above, that I could "request to have [the question] locked", but what are the grounds for locking a question, and how would I do that if appropriate?

The linked Meta question also states that "What's relevant ... is whether the question is on-topic and of a sufficiently high quality."

My example question is clearly "on topic" (although probably more appropriate for ELL) and the answer is brief and too the point -- but certainly not "high quality". I could propose it for closure on the grounds of lack of research, or that it belongs on ELL - but that would, of course, require others to agree. Or should I just leave the question 'as-is' for periodic auto-bumping ad infinitum? The problem with that is, of course, that the number of periodically auto-bumped questions will also grow ad infinitum, with the increasing risk of everyone ignoring them!

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    Action: Vote to close it.
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 1, 2019 at 18:17
  • @Mari-LouA Are you referring just to my example Q. or as a general principle on 'Bumped' questions?
    – TrevorD
    May 1, 2019 at 18:49
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    To the example. It's no loss if it gets closed and then deleted.
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 1, 2019 at 18:50
  • @Mari-LouA I don't dispute that - but it doesn't address the general Q. of 'Bumped for review' questions, which was my main point.
    – TrevorD
    May 1, 2019 at 18:56
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    You could write an answer that would be worth someone up-voting and/or that the author might be willing to accept.
    – ColleenV
    May 1, 2019 at 20:30
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    @Colleen: That is what the system is designed to encourage, certainly. But if the OP is not coming back (for whatever reason) no answer can ever be accepted; hence the question.
    – Tim Lymington
    May 1, 2019 at 22:50
  • @TimLymington Answers don’t have to be accepted, just up-voted, to keep the question from being bumped.
    – ColleenV
    May 1, 2019 at 22:56
  • @TimLymington: Yes, I didn't previously know that - but do now! And the answer in the Q. I mentioned has since been up-voted. But is it appropriate to have to up-vote an answer that one wouldn't normally have up-voted, just to stop a Q. from being bumped for review every month?
    – TrevorD
    May 1, 2019 at 23:03
  • @TrevorD I’m surprised no one mentioned this: downvote the Q. If it has a negative score it won’t get bumped.
    – Dan Bron
    May 3, 2019 at 11:06
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    Voted to delete and so deleted. In general, treat any question as any other, up-, down- vote, vote to close, comment asking for clarification, put a bounty on it, do nothing out of lack of interest, etc. etc. It's bumped to give it attention, so give it the attention it deserves (no attention if that's what it deserves).
    – Mitch
    Jun 1, 2019 at 20:17

3 Answers 3

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There are a few things you can do that you haven’t mentioned.

  1. Edit the question, tags and title so that it will attract more answers that could lead to one being up-voted.

  2. Write your own answer that resolves the things that you believe make the existing answer not worthy of being up-voted. Ideally almost every question worth answering on a site would have at least two answers. Explaining things from different perspectives helps people understand them better.

  3. Put a bounty on it to attract better answers. It’s a great way to give new users an opportunity to earn more privileges by tackling an unloved question.

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The question that the OP of this meta question linked to is a very poor question. (This meta question is fine.) I am usually creative on editing to make a poor question passable, but I see no option here other than:

o Briefly answer in a comment, as an act of mercy to the OP. Non-native speakers deserve all the help we can give them.

o Then, immediately VTC. No matter who wrote the linked question, a question so poor should be closed.

Possibly an English linguist could transform the linked question into a deep and subtle question, but if so, it should have happened by now.

I just voted to delete.

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  • Your comment - especially when read alone - that "This is a very poor question" reads as if you are describing my meta question above as poor. But I think that you are indenting to refer to the question "When you are at school" which I which I mentioned in my question. Please clarify.
    – TrevorD
    Jun 4, 2019 at 22:56
  • Clarified. Is it now clear that I meant the question you linked to? Sorry about the ambiguity. Sloppiness on my part!
    – ab2
    Jun 4, 2019 at 23:24
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I am unable to evaluate this particular question. Generally speaking though, it is not important that the question has been bumped by the bot. Just treat them like you would any other question. Also, keep in mind that Stack Exchange is primarily concerned with the long haul, so questions are not meant to be buried and never seen again. If the bot occasionally nudges a question it is really no big deal in my opinion.

You might disagree, which is fine, but do keep in mind that this is probably happening because questions that have posted answers that have no votes are basically considered unanswered questions, because it has not yet been found to have a satisfactory answer by anybody. If none of the answers are satisfactory, then you might want to try answering it yourself, if you can. There is a pretty good chance that questioners might appreciate the effort, and given that these are unpopular questions you might find that you have more time to research an answer for submission than you would with a freshly asked question.

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