November 14, 2005

1:24 PM

A point of AskMe etiquette? I recently posted a question and got no useful response, and I suspect it's because I put the question badly. At this point, it's off the first page. Is it OK to repost the question in a more potentially useful way or should I just give up?
posted by Karmakaze to etiquette/policy at 1:24 PM (17 comments total)

I'd say it's ok, but what do I know.
posted by OmieWise at 1:29 PM on November 14, 2005

Keep in mind that someone's going to link to your other question if you don't.
posted by smackfu at 1:30 PM on November 14, 2005

Well you have to wait a week anyway, I would say give it another try with better wording and link to your original question and a link to this metatalk. If anyone gives you shit let them talk to me.
posted by geoff. at 1:41 PM on November 14, 2005

I'd say give it a week + a few days, sometimes the day of the week makes a difference on who sees a question.
posted by Mitheral at 1:57 PM on November 14, 2005

I'd say explain as a new comment in the existing one.
posted by mathowie at 2:18 PM on November 14, 2005

time of day definately has an impact as well.
posted by phearlez at 2:26 PM on November 14, 2005

At this point, I did comment again in the thread, but I rather doubt anyone is going to revist it to see it at this point. But if mathowie says not to repost, I won't.
posted by Karmakaze at 2:35 PM on November 14, 2005

I'd say explain as a new comment in the existing one.

Matt, have you thought this through? Nobody's ever going to look at the thread again except the poster. So you're essentially saying "Tough luck."
posted by languagehat at 2:47 PM on November 14, 2005

AskMetaFilter has really turned into a BoreZone of late.
posted by y2karl at 3:05 PM on November 14, 2005

Is this the question you're talking about?

I don't know anything about the subject, which is why I didn't answer. Maybe other people were put off by the "Why does IE suck?" format.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:06 PM on November 14, 2005

Matt, have you thought this through? Nobody's ever going to look at the thread again except the poster. So you're essentially saying "Tough luck."

Well, it's good to post the clarification comment early as it's clear people aren't answering it, but if people post and repost questions repeatedly, the quality of Ask MeFi will suffer.

If it's a common question that a lot of people might catch the second time around, perhaps a repost is in order, but in the past I recall one question that was super specific (like that IE CSS question), and someone re-asked the next week and it got even fewer replies (something along the lines of troubleshooting a very specific model of a satellite set top box).
posted by mathowie at 3:22 PM on November 14, 2005

The phrasing of your question above the "more inside" barrier gave very little indication as to what your main question was about. If you ask again, I'd consider making it a bunch more specific above the "more inside" part and say exactly what you are trying to do. I'd link to your old question so that people know what you've already tried. Alternately, this MetaTalk thread may bring more people to that question, so posting some more details in-thread might actually help.
posted by jessamyn at 3:47 PM on November 14, 2005

If you repost it, at least wait until this MeTa thread drops off the page, too, since you've bought yourself some extra visibility now.
posted by odinsdream at 6:06 PM on November 14, 2005

odinsdream, you mean, like a week or so?
posted by fenriq at 8:47 PM on November 14, 2005

I'd say it's ok, but what do I know.
posted by OmieWise at 1:29 PM PST

This really made me laugh. I have visions of you standing around saying "Yes" in the supermarket to all the kids asking if they can buy candy, "Yes" to the folks at the zoo wanting to throw peanuts at the elephants, "Yes" to the Senior citizens wanting to share their free birthday dinner from Dennys.

Yes. Be my guest.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:06 AM on November 15, 2005

I'm actually ok with Matt's call on this. I can see how repeat requests could clog things farther.

And you're also all right that I worded the original question really badly. I was very frustrated about something that should have been trivial not working for no reason I could discern.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:19 AM on November 15, 2005

Secret Life of Gravy writes "I have visions of you standing around saying 'Yes' in the supermarket to all the kids asking if they can buy candy, 'Yes' to the folks at the zoo wanting to throw peanuts at the elephants, 'Yes' to the Senior citizens wanting to share their free birthday dinner from Dennys."

We've met, I see.
posted by OmieWise at 10:32 AM on November 15, 2005