I got banned from asking questions once in 2015. I will assume it was fair.

Since then, I've only contributed positively, my answers have been well received, and the ban was finally lifted. Until I asked a question two days ago. It received no downvotes, but I was banned from asking questions once again.

I would improve my previous questions, but there are only 6 of them, all with accepted answers, and I really don't see how they can be improved.

I'm not complaining, just saying that maybe the ban algorithm needs a bit more flexibility. I might not be a big contributor, but I don't feel I deserve to be banned.

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    Not quite sure what's going on there but think you should be okay now. (Although clearly you're teetering on the edge of a q-ban so make sure it's the best question you can make it) – Jon Clements Apr 9 '17 at 15:10
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    Thanks, that was really very nice of you! Ok, I'll try... – Ash Apr 9 '17 at 15:12
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    I wish users were given a warning that it was their one special opportunity, as I mentioned here – Andrew Grimm Apr 10 '17 at 1:43
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    @AndrewGrimm Sounds reasonable. Why not make a feature-request? – Andrew Myers Apr 10 '17 at 22:26
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    As a 5k+ user, I was banned for deleting a post a few posts during an innocent, albeit rather out of the ordinary, tidy up when I first joined the site. The ban wasn't lifted for years. Crazy system. – danday74 Apr 11 '17 at 9:42
  • You have upvotes on all six questions. How do you explain that (it is unlikely that it is due to the meta effect)? – Peter Mortensen Apr 11 '17 at 10:29
  • @PeterMortensen A few had already been upvoted and some had zero upvotes (no negatives). But yes, there has been an unexpected positive meta effect since yesterday, both on my questions and on my answers (especially on the most recent question, which went from 0 to 24 upvotes). Thanks to those people I'm now far away from the q-ban edge. – Ash Apr 11 '17 at 10:53
  • But I hope I am not wrongly assuming that if my answers/questions were of low quality, then the meta effect would have been negative instead of being positive (saying that because of the "sympathy votes" mentioned in the post you linked to, since it was not my intent to exploit such an effect) – Ash Apr 11 '17 at 11:08
  • @Ash I'm inclined to vote-to-close your question as "a simple typographical error" or "must include the complete code in the question" (unless it's a really popular library, but then the answer should be more specific), or maybe as a dup of some question asking about the undefined reference error (because the answer is the same - you need to link the library containing the class). Take that with a pinch of salt though, because I tend to find the community's upvoting, downvoting and closing patterns to be highly illogical and inconsistent. – Bernhard Barker Apr 11 '17 at 17:55
  • I understand your inclination. The library in question has some popularity in the robotics/vision communities as far as I know (for processing GPS data). I am sure that it is not a typographical error, all I did was clone the git repository of the lib, add two lines to their CMakeLists.txt using CMake's documentation to generate a dynamic library (in the same manner they generate the *.a), but with the results described in the question. What I give in the question is the complete code. Maybe it will be better if I post a link to the CMakeLists.txt in question? I will do this as soon as I can. – Ash Apr 11 '17 at 18:26
  • @Ash My argument behind "must include the complete code in the question" is, while it can presumably be reproduced by downloading the referenced library, it... still requires downloading the referenced library. Note the answer was somewhat vague and speculative. Typographical error because it "was resolved in a manner unlikely to help future readers", or at least it won't help them more or as much as another question about the same error (although I suppose this argument mostly leads to closing as a duplicate). But it's enough of a grey area that my inclination would've been to just let it be. – Bernhard Barker Apr 11 '17 at 20:28

You were still considered blocked the entire time. You were only allowed to ask the most recent question because we always allow users to ask a new question once every six months in order to give them the opportunity to prove that they've improved over that time.

Upon asking a question after the 6-month grace question, you are always immediately blocked again because a brand new question with no votes or any activity whatsoever will never have changed your block status. You've asked your one question per 6 months, and now the system is waiting to see what happens with that question. It's entirely possible that the question will be well-received and get you out of the block. It's also possible that won't happen.

Also keep in mind that your deleted questions still contribute to the block. You see 6 questions on your profile, but there are also 5 more deleted ones, two of which are closed and two of which are heavily downvoted. It's not a lot, but it was apparently enough to put you right at the edge. You've already been unblocked because of the recent upvotes and as long as you continue contributing positively you won't see the block again.

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    Thanks for those clarifications. However, I think (I know it is not trivial) that it would be a great improvement if the ban algorithm could adapt itself to some sort of cluster the user belongs to (based on his/her interests or tags). I think you'll agree that the effort to upvote ratio varies greatly from a topic to another, and that can put some users at a disadvantage. – Ash Apr 9 '17 at 15:50
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    Questions are often voted down when a beginner doesn't understand enough to answer it. – Eddy Apr 9 '17 at 22:13
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    @Eddy: Can you give evidence for this, beyond questions that were voted down for reasons you aren't sure of? I see this idea a lot, and I'd like to see if there's any merit, or if it's just the sort of justification people tend to come up with spontaneously to explain downvoting they don't understand or agree with. – Nathan Tuggy Apr 10 '17 at 2:12
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    @Eddy Typical argument from someone who doesn't understand why their question is bad. It must have been a user who don't know the answer. Of course. I can't be the fact that the question is actually bad. – Tom Apr 10 '17 at 11:36
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    @Tom you've got it backwards. I think Eddy is referring to people who downvote (even vote to close) when they don't understand a perfectly clear question, something I've also noticed on occasion. The [nltk] tag might be a good place to look, but I don't have any examples atm. – alexis Apr 10 '17 at 12:07
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    @alexis That's just your interpretation. – Tom Apr 10 '17 at 12:10
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    Of course. But I think it's more plausible than yours ;-) – alexis Apr 10 '17 at 12:11
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    Another reason why a list of your deleted posts should always be visible in your user profile, and not just recently deleted posts. – Tot Zam Apr 10 '17 at 18:16
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    Since the downvote negatively affects the asker and not the downvoter, why not give the asker benefit of the doubt? It would be difficult to find evidence that a person downvoted because of ignorance, so the asker is stuck with the downvote. – Glen Despaux Jr Apr 10 '17 at 19:38
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    @Glen because the only "reasoning" that this system attributes to up or down voting is that of the tooltip. The system assumes that those using the voting system are doing so correctly, as there is no way to determine if they are or not. – user4639281 Apr 11 '17 at 0:40
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    Is this information clearly shown anywhere (without needing to go search for it)? It seems like it should be visible enough that this question shouldn't need to be asked in the first place. – Bernhard Barker Apr 11 '17 at 17:07
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    This same question will be asked again and again and no one in their right mind is going to know this if the UI doesn't express this in some way. This is a bad user experience if I should say so myself (IMHO). – JonH Apr 11 '17 at 17:08
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    I am also one who has been banned from asking questions. That was painful. I learnt a lot from stackoverflow by asking questions. At 60 years of age, I have no intention of becoming a programmer for a job. But I do some programming for my satisfaction just to make sure that I swim with flow of technology even though I am nobody in that. Actually stackoverflow moderators can delete the questions if not found useful rather than banning from asking questions. – Unnikrishnan Apr 12 '17 at 6:58
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    Evidence? No they never say why it is bad. I have read questions that are very clear and to the point which were voted down. I have likewise see questions where there have been clear lake of research that were voted up. They should remove the up/down vote and banning of users because every question can be useful. – Eddy Apr 14 '17 at 11:11
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    The comments here are starting to get fairly off-topic. The question here was not about the mechanics of downvoting as an indicator, but just why the ban rrinstates immediately after asking. If you'd like to discuss the merits of downvoting, please start your own discussion rather than running one in the comments below an unrelated answer. – animuson Apr 16 '17 at 2:48

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