Why hasn't my question posted?

It might because the staff here consider your question as unworthy to be posted. (they won’t tell you if your question can’t be posted). Actually there’s no certain benefit at all. Because no one will actually care about that.

Is it a stupid question?

I didn’t think it was stupid. I was asking how to convert AVI files to other video file formats. And they sent it back to me twice to correct what they thought was bad. I did what they asked.

What were their reasons?

Formatting. Which I edited exactly as told. That seemed to end everything! No more replys, orders, suggestions, kiss my ass or thanks. Just nothing.

Sometimes it just takes us some time to get to the pending queue. We volunteer, so if no one happens to see a Q that has been resubmitted to approve it, it won’t be back up.

Yours is, by the way.

So, how long does it normally take? I posted it about 3:30 pm. Made my first edit at 3:35 and the 2nd edit at about 3:50 pm. Someone was on the ball, and my responses to edit were immediate.
As stated, I also posted on other sites after this attempt to ask a question became a struggle. And before I even got THIS reply about my first question (not TO my first question which hadn’t posted) I had multiple answers on other sites. Makes this site look like a nit picking gang who arbitrarily decides quality with no need to meet any standards if the judges like you.

@EmpressPixie Thank you. But I still don’t understand how this type of subjective and heavy handed moderation improves the quality of this site.

It takes less than a day for a question to go through the editing process usually. Sometimes moderators are around and the moment your Q hits the pending queue, it goes up. Sometimes it takes a few hours. It really just depends on who is around.

Your second comment has been brought up many times before in previous questions—you are welcome to see the responses or start your own question about it.

@EmpressPixie Well, if this is an ongoing problem with no solution, why should I bother?
Since getting an answer is a struggle here, I will continue to post questions on other sites and only answer questions here. This system provides no higher quality. I will be happier with poor punctuation and good, fast answers elsewhere.

Perhaps Fluther needs to hire the security firm that provides escorts for American Idol.

You know, the guys that take out the contestants that insist they really can sing.

other door

It’s not an on-going problem so much as an on-going debate. There are very strong opinions on both sides—many people feel there is too much moderation while many others feel there is not enough.

I had the same thing happen to me with a previous question. Once I sent it back to editing and solved the problem I never saw it again. It was disappointing because it was a question I really enjoyed asking and looked forward to the responses. They said they would look into it but nothing ever arose…

Just in case you couldn’t find your question, it is posted here.

@augustlan Thanks, but I was able to find it after @EmpressPixie told me that it had finally been posted.

That happens to me fairly often. I get a question back for “editing.” I edit it, and it vanishes, never to be seen again. If you get a question sent back, you’re better off abandoning it, and then reposting it as a new question with the suggested changes.

@HungryGuy Actually, we’d prefer that you not do that. Then it will end up getting flagged as a duplicate. If you ever have a question or concern about where your question is in the process, it’s better to contact a mod and ask. We’re always open to discussing it, and helping you with it. If we decide it should be reposted, I can find it and reinstate it.

Windows is a big clunky American luxury car. It doesn’t go very fast, breaks down a lot, but everybody and his brother knows how to work on it. But the seats are just soooo comfy. The A/C is icy cold, and the stereo is awesome! And while parts and accessories aren’t exactly cheap, there’s plenty of discount auto parts stores that stock just about any aftermarket gizmo you could ever imagine. Oh, and the theft rate is through the roof, so you better have a good alarm installed, too!

Mac OS is a safe reliable car. It’s reasonably stylish and hardly ever needs repairs, but the only place you CAN get repairs is from the dealer. There’s not much of a market for aftermarket parts. While the radio is decent, you can either take the factory radio or not. Same for all other options as well.

Linux is a kit builder’s dream. Just out of the showroom, it’s sort’a ugly, but it’s a powerful sports car that can to 0–60 is under a second AND gets terrific gas mileage. But you want a radio? You want power windows? You want air conditioning? Well, you gotta add those yourself from aftermarket parts. The good part is that for all intents and purposes, parts and accessories are free. Yes! You heard me right! FREE! But the bad part is you better know your way around a tool box if you’re going to do anything but park it in your driveway and admire it from your living room window.

Same thing happened to me as well.Just dissapeard

Yeah! You see a lively discussion going on and then you spend 5–10 minutes composing an answer, and poof! It’s so incredibly FRUSTRATING and ANNOYING sometimes!!!!!

And I didn’t want to waste all that effort, so I posted my answer here….

Exactly I mean what makes anyones ques. more important then anyone elses? As long is you not attacking anyone. I think some of the answers are far worse then the Ques. lol

@HungryGuy I am glad to have your informative, well thought out, well composed and very entertaining answer posted to my question! I loved your comparisons to cars, which I am facinated by.

@Jewel – Thanks! Too bad my answer was to a different question :-/

@HungryGuy I was wondering about that…

@augustlan – lol :-) You can probably figure out what happened from the last few quips. I was following a lively discussion, and was composing the answer above, when Poof! the question was pushed back for editing. Aaaaargh!!! The question was never re-submitted and approved, and I hated to just throw my answer away, so I posted it here.

If you don’t mind my saying, that’s a common problem here on Fluther. It’s so frustrating when that happens.

May I make a suggestion? When someone posts a new question, it’s closed to answers for the first—say, 10 to 15 minutes. If a mod hasn’t pushed it back for editing in that time, it’s opened for answers. At that point, once it’s open for answers,a mod can’t send it back for editing except for a very serious issues like obscene content or a personal attack. Whaddya think?

@HungryGuy I understand your frustration, but mods don’t work on any set schedule. At times, there aren’t any present at all. A lot of questions that don’t meet the guidelines would stay on the site if we couldn’t pull them after 15 minutes, or after they’d received answers. I think the overall quality of the site would suffer for it. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I agree it’s something we should think about.

@augustlan How would it harm the quality of the site? If no one knows a question is in the wings, then no one gets frustrated by it’s not posting…except the questioner, of course. And it would certainly reduce some of the anguish that this current system causes, don’t you think?

@Jewel Well, if a question was not able to be removed after 15 minutes (or after it had received an answer), a lot of not-so-great questions would be on the site. Since there’s not a mod on site 24/7, we wouldn’t catch them all within that 15 minute time frame. More ‘bad’ questions on the site = lower quality.

@augustlan What I was going for was, hold ALL questions until viewed and OK’d by a moderator. Then post them, have them corrected, trash them, whatever the powers feel is appropriate. Then you avoid this irritating posting, pulling and deleting. The site would appear to be more ‘put together’ and you would have less problems with upset members wondering where their questions have gone, and others posting disconnected answers to the wrong questions. See?

BTW, my original question had a reply before it was repeatedly pulled for editing. So, this wasn’t supposed to have happened? (Regarding your first sentence.)

@Jewel Ah, now I understand. That’s an idea to consider, and I’ll pass it along to Bendrew.

Regarding your last sentence: Right now, there isn’t any rule about not removing a question after it’s received an answer. Many of the questions that are returned for editing already have one or more answers when they are pulled. I was just referring to @HungryGuy‘s proposal.

@Jewel You’ve sparked some good debate this morning! I’m not totally opposed to making it so that new questions have to be vetted (which would certainly improve the quality of the site!)—but that would 1) Exponentially increase the work the moderators have, especially as we grow 2) Increase the time it takes to get responses for the 70% of questions that don’t go through moderation.

@andrew This is the first I have heard that ALL questions were not subject to moderation. 70% slide through unmolested? No wonder that it appears you practice favoritism! The ones being harrassed feel singled out, and essentially, they are!
Perhaps, if there were a list of questions waiting to be checked, and the nit picking over comma placement and normal type-o mistakes were relaxed in favor of the quality of submissions. the moderators would have the time to do this.

One of the problems with my original question was they thoiught the heading was too long, and the body of the question was too short. It was! But I am not a frequent questioner. Not being aware that a second box would appear to contain more text, I tried to fit it all in the only box I saw. Maybe you could try looking at this site like a newcomer. It isn’t as streamlined as you seem to think. It works great for long time users who have learned where you hide things, but not for the new, or casual user.

@Jewel You misunderstand me. All questions are subject to moderation. About 30% (on average) go through the moderation process currently.

There currently is also a list of questions waiting to be moderated—the team gets alerts every time one is edited.

I’m guessing you didn’t notice the text “You’ll add details in the next step.” right above the question title box?

@Jewel Just to further clarify @andrew‘s answer, all questions can be moderated, but only those that don’t fit the guidelines actually are moderated. It’s not favoritism (nearly everyone has been modded, even Andrew!), just a matter of which questions meet the guidelines and which don’t. Of course, since there’s not always a mod on duty, we do miss some Qs that should have been moderated.

@andrew & @augustlan No, I didn’t see, or I may have misunderstood the box and text. It may be that it wasn’t what I was expecting to see. Most sites seem to follow a similar format and yours is a bit different.

Re: moderation. If I understand your explanation correctly, I did not misunderstand your explanation of the 30/70 moderation split. What I am getting is that approximately 30% of all questions are deemed to need moderation of some sort, while 70% do not. My question about it would be, do all 100% of questions get read? Are these 30% chosen randomly? Or is there some process for selecting them beyond randomly reading and choosing whatever strikes the fancy of someone with a red pen?

@Jewel We read as many questions as we can, but since we’re not always here, some do get missed. We also rely heavily on the community to flag questions and answers that they feel don’t meet the guidelines. Every one of those flagged gets seen by a moderator, and a determination is made after one or more of us looks it over. We have guidelines that we measure things by. If it fits, it stays. If not, it either gets returned for editing or, in the case of answers, it gets removed.

@andrew & @augustlan & @Jewel – In light of the lengthy discusssion that occurred since the lat time I peeked in, how about this?

1.) Keep the moderation policy as it is.

2.) If someone is actively composing an answer at the moment the question gets moderated, that answer is allowed to be posted.

3.) People who have already posted answers to a question that has been moderated are still allowed to observe the question up until the time that that question is either approved or abandoned, even though they can’t post any more answers.

4.) The original asker is allowed to view all the answers even while the question is being edited.

5.) A little message can appear on screen saying something like: “If you wish to continue this discussion while the question is being edited, take it to the Chat Room…