How can I improve my posts to make Stack Overflow more useful to me?

Question

I want to ask about Stack Overflow and asking questions. I have written several questions on Stack Overflow and in most cases I have received downvotes or the question just wasn't answered. Many of these questions also have very few views (5-10).

These questions generally come from issues I have had no luck finding an answer for through google, forums, or from my friends (who are also programmers). So I have written several questions with no answers.

Is there anyway to advertise a question?

Note: I do not have enough reputation to place a bounty so that is not an option.

Answer 1

Taking a quick glance at your questions, I see many questions, that are not bad, but not great either. I see two issues:

First, your grammar and writing style is not great. You are probably not a native speaker and that's not a problem, but it does mean that it's slightly harder to understand what you're asking. Adding even a slight hurdle to answering the questions can reduce the chance of getting help.

Second, and more importantly, some of the titles are bad! The title of the question is the thing that should catch someones attention. If the title doesn't get someones interest, then they probably don't even click through. And you want the attention of people who ask questions.

Let's review a few titles:

• "Android SSL client certificate authentication": that sounds like someone isn't even able to read a basic SSL tutorial. When in reality you have the somewhat interesting goal of Generating a client certificate on an Android device. If you had used that bold part as a title, it would probably have gotten a lot more views (and an answer or two).
• "Visual Studio Asp.net error": well, d'uh! There are thousands of those out there. Those who look for interesting problems to solve won't even glance at this one. (And adding the necessary information right from the start would be good too!)

Answer 2

It is useful for thousands of people. It is useful for me. It may not be for you.

You can make it more useful by looking at why you get downvotes, reading the about, help and ask pages, and writing good questions.

It is also worthwhile looking at the wide range of Stack Exchange sites and making sure you post on the most appropriate one.

Answer 3

From my experience the stackoverflow community doesn't randomly down vote questions. It's usually because questions are not written correctly and don't follow the guidelines. Read the about page to find out how you can improve your questions!

Answer 4

Stack Overflow certainly is useful. There is a wide variety of users with different areas and levels of expertise. If you have a good question, I'd say you're almost guaranteed a decent answer and perhaps some additional comments.

It's a tricky beast however. Asking questions is difficult. Asking good quality questions (the type we like to see) is even harder. So if you're not entirely clear on what you want to ask, or even if you have difficulties formulating your questions, Stack Overflow might seem harsh from time to time. But it's not personal. All we're trying to do is protect the quality of the site. That's what brings in the users and letting it slip would cause harm.

So what can you do to improve your questions? You could read some of the excellent advice that is available at various locations. On our own site the Help Center contains a wealth of information. Take some time to read through the various topics on how to ask a good question. And then there's Jon Skeet's blog post on asking the perfect question.

And language counts as well. Is English not your first language? Then practice. Read some of the good questions and great answers. Read literature. Talk to people whose language skills are better than yours. Look at the edits of your posts that have been made by others. Try to understand why they did what they did. It will help you formulate your questions, which will in turn attract answers.

Is reading all that necessary? If you have a hard time getting positive responses to your questions, the answer is yes. Should you have a particularly difficult time understanding why a certain questions is downvoted, feel free to come to Meta. Give us a link to the question, tell us what you exactly don't understand about the voting by the community, and we'll gladly explain to you what the problem is. If you're genuinely willing to learn and understand, you'll find plenty of people here who will try to help you out.

Good luck.

Answer 5

It's extremely useful, as evidenced by it's popularity, but it pays to know how to use it. A well written question will not usually get downvoted (except perhaps on meta because voting on meta is different), and knowing what tags to use and how to phrase / format your question is vital to getting good answers.

You're welcome to post a link to your question on twitter, facebook, reddit, etc. In fact, it's done all the time, but no, Stack Overflow does not offer any way for you to adertise your question.

That being said, I have noticed that easier questions usually get a lot more attention (and sometimes votes) than more difficult questions, regardless of the relative merits of the questions themselves, but that's really just because there are more people in the community capable of answering them. The bounty system exists in part to attract attention to more difficult questions that may get lost in the noise.

Answer 6

Depending on what tag you are posting in, yes, you will get fewer views.

How can you advertise your question outside of a bounty? Well, not really. I guess you could put it on your blog or something, but you won't be able to advertise it here without >125 rep.

It could be that you simply need to improve your grammar, read the FAQ, the how-to-ask page, or the help center for more info about the site.

It's useful for me. If it's not useful for you, no one is keeping you here. We'd like for you to stay, though :)