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I asked this question a few days ago which was recently closed:

Is there a SE site where answers can consist of facts about Internet privacy, censoring the Internet and the consequences thereof to the avg. citizen?

I have now heavily edited it, in an attempt to make it more on-topic than it was before.

But is it just a waiting game to see if I'm making the right edits?

Since the question has lost a lot of "hotness" it doesn't seem to attract any attention from people who are able (and willing) to leave evaluative and guiding advice as to whether the question is being edited in the right direction or not.

I read How do you reopen a closed question?. It has a point called "How can one draw attention to their closed questions?" but it isn't really answered. It basically just says you should look for guidance in the comments, and alternatively the close reason:

Attention on closed questions

If the comments are helpful as to why the question has been closed, you can edit the post so that it fits the site topic or remove the points of offense if so marked. The close reason, while not always accurate, should point you in the right direction of what to fix.

I double-checked the comments to see if there was any pointer as to what I should do to improve it, since it seemed obvious to several people that it should be closed. This is based on the fact that a few of them were saying that "you can have a chat in chat" and "for this [...] we have a pretty [beautiful] search engine google.co[m]".

I understand perfectly that discussions are a no-go, and that you should do research before asking a question, but I don't understand how my question was indicating these things.

So what can you do to get your question evaluated? Can you do nothing but wait or ask questions like these?

It should go without saying that I've read the FAQ (plus How to ask and Writing the perfect question) through several times, so I doubt that I will get a better understanding of how questions should be formed by reading it once more. As a defence, I would say it's nice to be as proactive (e.g. reading how to theoretically do things) as possible, but I don't think it's possible to learn completely without getting your hands burned a few times yourself.

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Congratulations, a mod just re-opened your question. –  Servy Oct 4 '12 at 22:20
@Servy Yeah, I saw that. While I'm temporarily in joy, it didn't answer this question though. –  Aske B. Oct 4 '12 at 22:21

1 Answer 1

Just as the true test of whether a question is a good one is how people vote on it, so the test of an edited question is how people vote on it after the editing. There's no special edited-question review and advice section.

One very practical note, I flagged the comments on your edited question and requested that a moderator clean them up now that they were obsolete. A long, moot discussion in comments is confusing to anyone coming to the question new, so don't hesitate to ask a moderator to clean things up if appropriate.

More broadly, beyond reading the documentation and advice about how to use the site, the best way to learn how to use the site well is to see how people are actually using it. Read the questions and answers that others post with an eye towards how they're received. Give more weight to posts by users whose reputation indicates that they've used the site a lot with positive results.

Online communities are somewhat unusual in enabling significant examination of cultural norms without having to actually participate in the community at all. Use that to your advantage.

If no one's pointed you towards it already, see also: How do I participate in Meta and not die trying?

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Although crowd-sourcing is all the rage, reputation is not a measure of objective worth. If it were, marketing would not exist. So while many people finding a question/answer worthwhile/worthless may be a useful indicator, it's not more than that. The litmus test should be whether a question/answer shows research, is factually correct and attempts to portray the information in a balanced and clear manner... Tall order, I know, but perhaps we should place more emphasis on objectively verifiable criteria. –  Anthill Dec 4 '12 at 0:00

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