Having a bad start. Is that normal?

Question

I'm sorry to bother you with my thoughts but since I'm quite new here, I am not familiar with this. Stack Overflow was my first choice for help for a long time. I decided, now that I'm a bit better in my programming skills, to "join" the Q&A. But I somehow had a bad start and after writing 6 answers I had sadly only one (so far) that was rated positively. The other five have just no answer (yet).

So that obviously leads to the question whether or not my answers are not really that good. What's more, I got "banned" from answering.

Well, I don't know, it might be that I'm not the best for every answer. But from other forums I'm used to post what might help to give a direction - even if it is not the perfect solution. So I did the same thing here with the conclusion that I can't answer any more.

I somehow have the feeling that it is difficult to get a vote for your answer, especially since I'm not a professional programmer with many years of work experience. And I have the feeling that some people who ask don't easily give a vote after reading the answer. Perhaps they want to try the solution immediately and forget to vote. I don't know. But re-editing my answers don't seem to work much. I don't think I will get a vote for it if the solution is already given and they don't come back to see my re-edit.

So here is my question.
Is it normal that it is so "difficult" at the beginning? Do many people have this problem? Or did I simply have had a bad start? I'm a bit lost, since I see some questions I'd like to help but I can't. Well, that's it. I just wanted to hear if my case is a strange one or if everyone has difficulties at the beginning.

I really want to participate and help other people with my knowledge.

Thanks anyway for all this. You make a wonderful work every day!

Answer 1

I've skimmed through your questions and answers, and I've seen some easily fixable problems:

1. Always provide context for links

Whenever you include a link for reference in one of your posts make sure to add a short summary of the main points of the link. There are two reasons for that, the official and the real one. The official is that links sometimes break, and your link becomes useless as it points to nowhere, and the real one is that we are just too lazy to follow a link to find out what you are talking about.

1. You talk a bit too much

In several of your questions I've noticed that you have a tendency of adding a lot of irrelevant (to the core question) information. You need to keep your questions as concise and to the point as possible, people reading them have limited time and might lose interest if they don't get to the core question after a few seconds. I've edited a couple of your questions to show you what I'm talking about:

• What is the Samsung Galaxy S3's Heap Size?
• Sensor Orientiation -> GLRotation doesn't work properly
• How to disable backlog (no waiting Connections)?
  
  

You'll notice that my edits aren't anything special, removed a few words, taglines and salutations (your name and gravatar is under every post you make, and it's enough), and fixed your formatting just a tiny bit. I'm not promising that my edits will help you get upvotes, they are just examples of how you can (slightly) improve your existing posts in less than five minutes.

1. Stack Overflow is not a forum

As Bart already mentioned, you've fallen in the classic new user trap. This Q&A thing is complex. We have quite a few rules & guidelines (perhaps too many for our own good), and it will take some time before you learn the basics. But you will, no doubt about it. For future reference, only post answers that directly answer the question as asked - don't post comments or questions as answers. Since you are new, and a bit in trouble, I'd advise you avoid posting partial answers and concentrate on questions you can fully and thoroughly answer (more up votes your way, this way, especially if you back your answers with solid references).

Some general pro tips:

• Don't get discouraged

  As you may have noticed from your first Meta Stack Overflow adventure, we are a very friendly bunch. If you continue approaching issues constructively, we are all here to help, feel free to ask about everything and anything (relating to the site or your questions and answers).

  Meta Stack Overflow can be a harsh mistress sometimes, but even if you catch us in a bad day don't worry about it, we usually revert to our usual friendly self soon enough.

• Use chat

  There is a ton of chat rooms on Stack Overflow. Visit the ones that are closer to your expertise (Android development) and ask for feedback on your questions and answers. Sometimes people will just vote on them (up or down), and that's OK (it's feedback after all), but most of the time people will be happy to discuss your posts with you (at least in the rooms I frequent) and provide helpful pointers.

• Learn from the best

  If you click on any tag, you'll notice a "top users" link and if you follow it you'll find the list of top answerers and askers for the tag. For example, these are the top Android users. Visit their profiles and read their questions and answers, try to find out what made them top users. You'll probably notice that most of them write concise, crystal clear and to the point posts. Try to adopt their style.

  Important: Resist the urge to vote on posts you found by visiting a user's profile, that's considered serial voting. It will be reversed and it will get you in trouble. The reasoning is that you didn't discover the posts naturally (through browsing the site), and the system can't distinguish whether you are honestly voting for the post or the user. There are a few people around who vote everything their friends / colleagues post, or even worse create secondary accounts to vote for themselves, and spoil the fun for everyone. Always vote the post, never the user.

• Keep improving your posts

  Ban or no ban. A couple of days ago I edited a +18 PHP answer of mine (on Programmers), to remove a paragraph that a commenter pointed out was a bit... I could have just ignored the comment, it was a highly up voted answer, but the edit brought it back to attention and:

  1. It's currently at +25, earning me a silver Good Answer badge (and it keeps getting attention),
  2. A core contributor of the language noticed the (oldish) question and posted an excellent answer.
     
     

  I call that a win! Don't abandon your old posts just because they got upvotes, check back every now and then and see if you can improve them (I check them every three months). Don't do minor edits just to bump them though, that's generally frowned upon, and it may result in a rain of down votes.

I'll close with my usual story: I've asked my first question on Programmers back in May '11. It was closed, as was my second one, and I'll admit it stung a bit. I've read the FAQ (twice), and started scouting for great questions and answers to model mine on. I did everything I'm advising you to do, and after a while the reputation started flowing. If you check my network reputation graph you'll notice that after a (very) slow start, I started earning reputation rapidly. It takes a while, and it took a while for everyone, it's absolutely normal.

Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the philosophy, structure, and guidelines of the site. Be patient and respectful to the community and you'll soon start harvesting the sweet rep!

That's about it, young padawan.

Answer 2

In your case it's the deleted answers that are causing the ban. (I don't know the algorithm, but there's nothing else I can see that would be causing it.) In particular, do not post questions in the answers section. Those will be deleted every time. Once you get 50 reputation you'll be able to leave comments, which is where follow-up questions and clarifying statements belong. Until then, improve your other answers and try to ask good questions that will get upvotes so that the answer ban will be lifted.

But in the future, please only post in the "Your Answer" section when you have an actual answer to the question being asked.

Answer 3

So here is my question. Is it normal that it is so "difficult" at the beginning?

Yes. As simple as that. But don't let that discourage you. Just keep an open mind. Have a look at the other answers on the same question. Did they get upvotes? How do they differ? Are they better answers? Are they well formulated? Figure out what you could have done to improve your answer. And if you do figure it out, then improve your answer.

Receive the occasional downvote? No problem. That's something to learn from. Try to figure out why you got it. They are not personal. They are not there to put you down. They are simply an indication that there might be something you have missed or could improve upon.

Over time you'll pick up the occasional upvote. Both asking questions and answering them are learning experiences. And the more you learn, the better you get at it.

All I can say is, stick to it. You'll get there. And don't forget that you can help out in many other ways as well. Suggest edits. Flag content that should not be there. Help to keep this place clean.

Don't focus on reputation. Focus on learning. You'll enjoy your time here far more if you do and you'll pick up some points as a side-effect in the end.