Answering unpopular, unanswered questions seems to be a trap for new users

Question

I'm trying to use Stack Overflow, but as a new user with experience in only a couple of areas, it is being quite difficult to raise my reputation and be able to use all features of the site.

My "strategy", now, so to speak, has been to find unanswered questions in my area of expertise (MATLAB, in a way) and try to provide an answer. Many times, these questions either lack research, are not explained clearly or maybe are not even MATLAB, but math-related.

Users posting these kind of questions are often new, and frequently they don't ackknowledge the answering attempts, be it with a rejection, additional clarification, comments, etc. I've answered four questions, and one of them has received feedback from the poster, in the form of comments. This way, all four of them ended with 0 upvotes/downvotes.

Thus, I've found myself in a point where I can't answer questions at all, as I've received the dreaded "We are no longer accepting answers from this account."

Is this supposed to happen? Should I avoid answering questions from non-active users so I can guarantee some feedback (good or bad) from the poster?

I guess that non-active users who only enter, answer a question, and then are nowhere to be seen again are not wanted, but this seems to discourage answering them. Is it intended?

For now, it seems to me that my only option is trying to think of clever questions, even if I don't currently have any.

Edit: One of the comments made me remember that one of my previous "answers" (it was really a comment) was deleted for this reason. That is probably part of the reason for the ban Edit2: Added account link to save some clicking https://stackoverflow.com/users/2987396/phonta

Edit 3: Nevermind, a couple of my questions were undeleted by Robert Harvey, so it looks like I get another chance. Thanks!

Answer 1

When answering any question, the question you should be asking yourself is this:

Am I adding significant value to the question and answers that are already there?

This answer seems to be a comment, not an answer. It has a "Not an Answer" flag on it.

This answer also seems to be a comment. You seem to be asking the OP a question, rather than answering.

This answer is link-only; it requires the OP to go to some other resource to get his answer.

This answer points to a duplicate question. Cast a flag to vote to close as a duplicate instead.

This answer is just a "Me Too!" comment.

And so on.

Good answers will almost always get upvotes, if the questions are at all interesting. Note that upvotes are roughly proportional to views, so really obscure or uninteresting questions may not get any answer upvotes at all.

I undeleted a couple of answers, and you're not answer-banned anymore. Try to figure out what can and cannot be in an answer. Hint: anything that is not an actual answer to the question asked doesn't belong in an answer.

Answer 2

The MATLAB tag has pretty low traffic, so it takes longer to accumulate rep. On the flip side, you have a good chance to earn Unsung Hero.

Until you have enough rep to comment, just leave any questions that aren't clear enough to be answered with a few lines of code and some explanation of same. You don't need to limit yourself to unanswered questions. If a question has already been answered, but you think you have an alternate solution which might be faster or uses bsxfun, then go ahead and contribute it.

For maximum effect, answers in the MATLAB tab should work in at least one of the following where possible:

• here's how to do this with bsxfun
• a reference to eval being evil
• you should vectorise this
• you should preallocate that
• dbstop if error
• also, here's how to do this in one line

(I'm mostly joking, except about the eval. I'm deadly serious about eval)

Answer 3

"Unpopular, unanswered questions" on the site, are tough questions, almost by definition. Particularly for new users. Or put another way, they are best left to experienced users, unless you happen to be the next "Jon Skeets" (a person regarded as an answer machine on the site).

To a greater degree than on some other sites, you are held strictly accountable for the quality of answers you do post. If they happen to be of poor quality, there is no offset for "degree of difficulty" or that you tried to solve a problem that others couldn't solve.

The best way to advance on the site is to give good answers to questions, period, whether they are easy or hard. Once you've accumulated some experience and reputation, then you can revisit some of the harder questions, 1) because you'll know what to do and 2) people may give you a bit more leeway for trying, once you have proved yourself.