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i'm 2 points away from becoming whatever you become at 3500. i think there are other tools that open up for me then. i dunno if i care about that or not.

but what i am getting tired of seeing are unanswered questions that will never get answered and they get dredged up repeatedly by the Matrix here. can we stop that? must we delete the question to keep it from happening?

some questions are either too poorly posed or too off-topic or maybe just no one knows the answer or the original poster is not hanging around anymore to put the ol' checkmark by the answer.

but let's try to figure out how to keep these zombie questions buried.

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Here's how you can stop a question from bumping along:

  1. If you asked it and it has an answer, you can accept one of them.
  2. Alternatively, anyone with upvoting privileges can mark the question as answered by upvoting an answer.
  3. If there isn't a good answer, consider writing one for others to upvote.
  4. If the question can't be answered, vote to close since closed questions aren't bumped.
  5. Alternatively, questions can be deleted. Remember, there are circumstances when a question is deleted automatically.

Finally, you have a secret weapon to helping a question get answered: editing. The primary goal of bumping questions is to remind people that they might need some fixes to be an asset to the site. So if seeing the same question over and over is annoying you, think about what you can do to make the question easier to answer or any answers easier to accept/upvote.

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  • $\begingroup$ Jon, respectfully, i don't think i should have to do anything to stop it from repeatedly "bumping along". if there is no answer provided, or if a good answer was provided but the OP did not bother to come back to SE to check mark the answer, maybe let the question get reposted twice or three times and, if no one nibbles on it, just let the question slide into obscurity. we shouldn't have to do anything about it. $\endgroup$
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Jul 22 '15 at 18:01
  • $\begingroup$ @robertbristow-johnson: I do like the model of letting useless questions fade into obscurity. Unfortunately, that's not the model that the Stack Exchange engine provides. Instead, we ask communities to actively curate questions and answers toward either being useful or deletion. $\endgroup$
    – Jon Ericson
    Jul 22 '15 at 18:33
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Yes, I've been noticing the % answered number drop significantly over time. I'd suggest flagging for closure all such questions. DSP.SE need 5 non-moderators to close a question which will, eventually, lead to its deletion if there is no response from the questioner.

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  • $\begingroup$ hey, i've earned the Protect Questions privilege!!! on my way to be a big boy here hat SE. $\endgroup$
    – robert bristow-johnson
    Jul 22 '15 at 15:01

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