Flawed question-ban system

Question

I recently got banned from SoftwareEngineering.StackExchange.com. The point of this post is not to get the ban lifted, or to argue with the negative scores of my posts. It is to discuss the ban system and whether or not it could be improved.

The thing is, that even though I recently got the ban, the two posts that (most likely) caused the ban are more than three years old (see the screenshot). According to the guidelines the ban can be lifted by improving the score of negative received posts or simply by waiting six months. Since the posts are so old that no one will ever see them, the only real option is to wait for six months.

So here are my two points:

1. Could the system be improved so that the ban occurs sooner after the negative received posts. Improving the feedback loop, would (probably) lead to faster reactions improving poor questions, leading to higher quality content. I am aware that this might be a technically difficult thing to implement though.
2. Make the ban period start from the date, where the users latest poor post was submitted, rather than the users latest post (even if that was well received). This would seem like a more "fair" way of doing things, but it would possibly prevent a more poor questions, as the "time-to-think" period would occur immediately after the problematic post(s) and not years later, where the quality of the posts already increased (at least in my case).

And again, I have no hopes or expectations for my own account with this post. It is meant to discuss the system, not me personally.

What do you think?

Answer 1

It's because you have two more questions that have been deleted that also have scores of less than zero.

Deleted questions contribute to the automatic question ban. If they didn't then users could ask bad questions, delete them and carry on asking bad questions without stopping.

However, it does seem harsh in this case as your other questions are generally not bad and the questions that were deleted were deleted by the system back in 2017 as they were considered abandoned (i.e. no recent edits).

You can see recent deleted questions (i.e. questions that you have asked recently) by ticking the box on your profile page, but it wouldn't have helped you in this case as the questions were asked and deleted so long ago.

Answer 2

The only major flaw in ban system is that you cannot see all your deleted questions.

That creates several problems

• Users don't see their low scored deleted questions and their perception of the ban justification may be flawed because of that

• Users cannot fix their deleted questions without asking for help in finding them

• Users don't know they have deleted questions, because they cannot see them, so they don't even know they should ask for help in the first place

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Besides the above, ban system works as intended. You get your chance every once in awhile to ask good question. It is up to you to make that question count in positive way.

Answer 3

I recommend to add an automated rule similar to the statute of limitations on disciplinary actions applied to old questions and answers. This suggestion is in addition to (and not to replace) the suggestions from the OP and others, for example @ChrisF.

The Stack Exchange statute of limitations should be much shorter than the one commonly used in law. Apply a single time period to all types of rule violations, for simplicity. alternatively, apply different time periods, depending on the level of violation. In any case, the rules should be consistent with the primary goal, which is to provide within reasonable time feedback to the users about improving their questions and answers, not to punish for old offenses. The best feedback is the one given sooner, rather than later.

SEE ALSO:

Statute of limitations - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations

A statute of limitations is a law passed by a legislative body in a common law system to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. When the time specified in a statute of limitations passes, a claim might no longer be filed, or, if filed, may be liable to be struck out [...]

Most [civil statutes in the United States] fall in the range of one to ten years, with two to three years being most common.