I know this has been discussed already, but I asked a while ago if I was asking too many questions:

Should I stop asking so many questions

The general response was:

  • No, I'm not
  • I have more answers than questions
  • My questions are generally of a high quality

So I was surprised a few days ago to see that my account has been blocked from asking more questions (I exceeded the 50 in 30 day limit). I really do try to give back more than I take, I have around 350 questions and 450 answers, only 4 of my answers are negatively scored (all only -1 as well), and none of my questions have a negative total.

I have over 10k reputation on Stack Overflow, the majority of which is earned through answers, (some of my highest scoring answers were community wikid, so I consider I should actually have more rep). I make an effort to accept answers to all my questions, be courteous and grateful to all answers.

The general response to these sorts of enquires is 'you suck and should change your career'. I don't really want to change my career :( There seems to have been a large shift away from the answers I got in my question about if I asked too many questions, and what people are saying now. Which is it?

There are two types of people, those that learn from static resources (books, websites, etc.) and then those who prefer interactive resources (bit of an oversimplification I know). I much prefer interactive resources, Q+A type systems, helping others, getting feedback. At work I was tasked with making an ASP.NET website, I had only developed classic ASP websites for many years so was a bit lost, and was extremely thankful for the Stack Overflow community who helped answer my questions patiently and in detail. Months later, I know consider myself fairly good at ASP.NET, and have a lot to show for it, and my learning from it largely came from the Stack Overflow community, which again I feel extremely grateful for which is why I try and make an effort to answer lots of questions as well.

There really isn't anyone in my life that is accessible and can answer my questions for me, I have Stack Overflow for that. At work I only work with one other developer who is very similar to me and comes from a classic ASP background so we are both learning. I find that I have learnt JavaScript, jQuery, ASP.NET, C#, database design practises and much more from scratch or significantly improved my skills in these areas from my 350 questions which I think is an excellent result. If someone was teaching me, I'm sure I would ask a lot more questions to get to where I am now.


So it seems rather abrupt and uncalled for really. I understand the need for it if the powers to be decide there is a need for it, but perhaps you could introduce something where it is 50 questions per 30 days, but you get another question bonus for every accepted answer you have in that 30 day period? So if within the last 30 days I gave 10 answers of which 2 were accepted with the green tick, my 30 day question limit should be 52.

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There's a reason that the general response is "you should change your career": the vast majority of people who ask lots of questions also ask really bad questions. At first glance, you're the exception to the rule. The false positive, if you will. –  Pops May 2 '11 at 14:29
Wow! this even hit 10k users ... –  YOU May 2 '11 at 14:32
Call up your buddy and ask them. When they ask why you don't post on SO, tell them you ask too many questions. They may offer to answer your question for you, after consulting with SO.... –  Adam Davis May 2 '11 at 19:47
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2 Answers

Quick clarification: the 50/month limit isn't telling you to stop asking questions or change your career (even if some folks here might do so) - it's telling you to slow down!

For the first 8 months you were active on SO, you averaged a bit over 20 questions a month. In the past three months, you've almost tripled that, punching in just over 60 questions a month. Many of these are good questions, all are well-written, but some are... Well, if you had to pick 10 questions you'd spend a bit more time with a debugger for to avoid hitting your limit on SO, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

And that's really the point of the limit: just stop and ask yourself before you ask the rest of us: is this really worth one of my precious monthly allotment of questions?

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Fair enough, I've just had a lot of pressure recently to get things done in new areas is all, I was aware I had picked up the frequency somewhat. –  Tom May 2 '11 at 15:08
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Gentlemen, in individual cases like this where the user is clearly both benefiting and contributing at a higher-than-average level, wouldn't it be possible for a responsible mod to take some executive action?

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Mods don't have the ability to do this, I think you need a dev. –  Manishearth Apr 7 '13 at 9:41
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