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Lately, this Electrical Engineering question was bumped by the Community user. The question is of December 4, but the asker didn't log in after December 9.

I wonder if it's useful to bump questions of inactive users (is there an idea behind it?) because these questions most of the time don't get an accepted answer either due to inactivity of the OP, or due to incompleteness of the question.

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    If the bump causes extra attention for the question, that can only be a good thing, can't it? Whether new answers are going to be accepted or not.
    – Bart
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:17
  • @Bart sometimes these questions already have a good answer but not accepted because the OP is lazy. When they don't have a good answer, that's sometimes due to incompleteness. I would consider these posts as low quality and not that useful, so perhaps it's not a good idea to draw attention for them. I do not intend to discuss bumping in general, but when the OP hasn't signed in for a very long time, I don't know how useful it will be to bump a question.
    – Keelan
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:19
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    Meh, as long as the Community user does not bump so much that it floods the front page (which I guess is not happening) I don't really see the problem. If the question is not good enough, bringing it to the community's attention might see it closed if it should be.
    – Bart
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:21
  • Maybe other people are interested in the question besides the OP. So it is still a good thing if those posts get some attention once in a while.
    – Toon Krijthe
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:23
  • @Bart no, that does not happen. To make this clear, I'm just wondering if there is some idea for this. I didn't think of drawing attention in order to get it closed, that's a good point.
    – Keelan
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:23
  • This by the way is a duplicate of meta.stackexchange.com/q/99672/205264. Sorry!
    – Keelan
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:24
  • No need to be sorry, that's far from being trivial information. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:29

2 Answers 2

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SE is not for getting answers to the lone asker. The answers written on SE are expected to be of use to a wider audience.

If the asker isn't around to accept the question, so what? The answers will still be voted on and read by visitors.

If the question needs improvements from the asker and cannot be understood in its current form, it should be closed. That's what closing is for.

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The status of the person asking the original question is largely irrelevant - the purpose of SE is to provide answers for anyone not just the OP.

The community user bumps unanswered questions to get them some more attention. Unanswered in SE terms means that the question has no upvoted(/accepted) answers.

The bump will hopefully get someone to provide an answer or upvote an existing one.

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  • "The status of the person asking the original question is largely irrelevant" - I disagree for the cases wherein more information is needed.
    – Keelan
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:26
  • @CamilStaps: That is one of the reasons why I said largely rather than totally or leave out largely altogether.
    – user147520
    Apr 4, 2013 at 7:30

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