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Way to know when a question was auto bumped even after it was changed
Can we get more info in the “Interesting questions” tab?

When I see an old fossil get dug up, I'd like to know why. If it's Community that did it, well at least there's an explanation. If some user did it, I often have to trowl through the page to find some miniscule edit, or a comment to a bottom-feeding answer, and sometimes I can't see the bump at all. Seeing old questions get plopped back on the stack for no apparent reason is thoroughly annoying.

It seems like it would be a good idea to have a function that people can look at to instantly see what the last bump-worthy action was. A description beside/rollovered the bump time ("edited 2m ago", "answered 7m ago", "commented 33s ago") seems like the easiest idea; on the question page itself maybe putting something similar just under the title (just throwing out ideas here). Noting whether the bump was deleted (e.g. Question is marked as active, but nothing changed, not bumped by Community) would also be helpful to know.

While this would really help for old questions, it would theoretically help for any question, especially long ones.

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    Clicking the last activity link will usually take you to what caused the bump, although it's not a link unless there's at least one answer for some reason, and it won't clue you in to deleted answers that caused activity you might not be able to see.
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Nov 25, 2011 at 15:06
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    Comments don't cause a bump, and if a question was modified by Community, it can either be an unanswered question that was bumped or an anonymous editor edited a post.
    – a cat
    Commented Nov 25, 2011 at 15:21
  • I have voted this up because it would make it clearer which activity shows asking and answering as opposed to just modifying an existing post. In my opinion, though, only "asked by user" and "answered by user" activities should appear on the home page (if needed, a view showing edits too can be added.)
    – Peter O.
    Commented Nov 25, 2011 at 21:12

2 Answers 2

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to tell what's changed about an old bumped question

That's only useful when you've read (and remember) the old question.

The whole idea of bumping seems to be to stir them into the flow of new ones. They should just be taken at their content and current state.

When Community bumps one there will be no change.

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    If I remember the question then I don't need help to know what's changed. If I don't remember the question and it's old then I want to know what's changed so I know if I should care about the bump.
    – Toomai
    Commented Nov 25, 2011 at 18:16
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I have voted this up because it would make it clearer which activity shows asking and answering as opposed to just modifying an existing post. To a casual observer of the home page (not merely someone familiar with old questions) this difference is not immediately obvious. (The request could be implemented by showing "edited 10m ago", "asked 15m ago", and so on, rather than just "10m ago").

In my opinion, though, only "asked by" and "answered by" activities should appear on the home page (if needed, a view showing edits too can be added). Unless I'm mistaken, in most traditional forums, threads are not "bumped" by being edited, but almost always by having a new post added to them. There are exceptions, however, such as when a user edits his or her own question to add information.

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  • "In my opinion, though, only "asked by user" and "answered by user" activities should appear on the home page" I disagree. If a post is closed because of missing info (which happens all the time), the user has the chance to get it reopened by adding information. That only works because adding info bumps it. If you take away edit bumps, it doesn't work. I agree on bumps for editing an answer though.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Commented Nov 26, 2011 at 22:51
  • You have a point: Many edits to questions are made by the user himself or herself to add information and are important enough to appear to the home page, whereas many other such edits are minor and made by other users: such edits tend to just affect formatting or grammar and are hardly of note.
    – Peter O.
    Commented Nov 26, 2011 at 23:11

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