On the Chemistry SE site, I sometimes answer inactive questions to help the poor asker out. However, my efforts are mostly in vain, since neither the OP nor the community would realize that I had answered such a question. As a result, such answers remain unaccepted and at 0 rep, just like the question.
In my view this really discourages people from giving thought out answers to people in distress. Are there any incentives to promote answering the Tumbleweed questions?
Edit: I do like helping people whenever I can. But there are so many questions beyond my expertise and no one else looks toward answering them. How can SE encourage those questions to receive attention, and possibly get an answer? I not am saying these questions are great or anything, they may be bad questions as well, but there should be a way we can acknowledge every post, and close if off-topic, or upvote/downvote and give an answer if on-topic.
you help people
I do like helping people whenever I can. But there are so many questions beyond my expertise and no one else looks toward answering them. How can SE encourage those questions to recieve attention, and possibly get an answer?SE doesn't need to ensure a 'fair' distribution of attention, whatever that might be.
Why is this so? Even if a post was bad, doesn't it deserve the attention of the community to point out that it's bad? Nothing can be more hurtful to a new user in need than a completely ignored question (imo).