What happens to the orphans on the General and Social sections?

We let them stay indefinitely, hoping that eventually someone with just the right expertise will come along and answer them. The vast majority of the questions asked here get some kind of an answer in minutes, so if one doesn’t get an answer in, say, 24 hours, it’s pretty unlikely that it will ever get answered (though it does happen from time to time). Members can’t remove their own questions, but they can flag it and ask us to remove it. That said, we very rarely remove questions (as long as they meet the guidelines). There has to be a pretty compelling reason to remove one.

They just hang out, occasionally saying things like this to random passers-by.

I’ve noticed that most orphans are technical questions relating to fairly obscure computer programs or websites, and I suspect the askers would have better luck if they posted their questions on a support forum for their particular program/site. Rather than hoping that one other out of the not-very-many active users on Fluther might by very slim chance know something about it.

As @downtide the general orphans tend to be very specific questions (have you had a look through them @DaphneT? Some of them I cannot even understand at a basic level.) Social doesn’t seem to get too many orphans that last very long.

Thanks for reminding me. Time to go save the orphans. (well.. perhaps one or two before my brain falls off)

Thanks for the all the info. I’ll try to really consider my questions before I post to make sure they’re not orphaned. And learn to search the site better, so I don’t post a duplicate.