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Recently I've seen a user asking 13 questions (most of them with a negative score) in a row for a specific tag and that gives me the impression that the user is overflowing the queue leaving other users with little chance of receiving attention on their questions too.

On a heavily used Stack Exchange site that number wouldn't be a problem, but on a smaller community like this one it made me think if it helps the community to have more activity or if it increases the chances of new users passing unnoticed and, therefore, losing interest on participating on the forum for the lack of attention received.

Would it be a good idea to limit the number of questions a user could ask on a daily basis?

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    meta.stackexchange.com/questions/164899/…
    – mustaccio
    Commented May 19, 2022 at 17:04
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    There's a chance that the user may also get automatic question ban soon enough.
    – Andrew T.
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 5:42
  • @AndrewT. thanks. I wasn't aware there was already an automatic question ban. Your link says "The ban will be lifted automatically by the system when it determines that your positive contributions outweigh the cost of those questions which were poorly received.", do you happen to know if it is measured by reputation or score?
    – Ronaldo
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 11:55
  • @mustaccio, thanks for the reference. But the limits listed on the asking section of that link seems to be a way to avoid spam rather than a real user asking lots of questions.
    – Ronaldo
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 12:00
  • And what's wrong with a real user asking a lot of questions? And what's "a lot"?
    – mustaccio
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 12:29
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    @mustaccio it's difficult to ask many good questions in one day, thus the chance of asking bad questions as the number of questions grows increases. Also, as I noted, if one asks a high number of questions, the forum is likely to give more attention to that user and leave others hanging. And I used the term "a lot" meaning more than half the questions for a tag in one day, e.g., 11 out of 15 questions were from the same user.
    – Ronaldo
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 13:00
  • Some sites have the limit 50 questions per month, 6 questions per day. This is mentioned in the rate limiting guide - the link added in the first comment. See also: Is the daily question limit actually being enforced?, Apply the question limit on all sites and Is the question/day limit per site or across the network?
    – Martin
    Commented Jun 8, 2022 at 5:50
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    Just ran through the closed question queue myself and almost half were from a single user (all of which I voted to close). I would like to see a more aggressive question limit (than those identified by Paul in the answers below) imposed upon users with a high rate of closed questions associated with their account (at least for a temporary period of time). My history with feature requests at SE has been terrible, so I'll just voice my support for this and will pessimistically assume it will never happen.
    – John Eisbrener
    Commented Jun 16, 2022 at 14:56

3 Answers 3

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From The Perspective Of A Trusted User©

I find it frustrating to try to aid in the moderation of a string of incredibly low quality questions from one user. Downvotes are often reversed by the system because they're flagged as "serial downvotes", even when accompanied by flags.

It's not quite spam, but the consistent low quality of the questions is annoying. They range from treating the community like Google lackeys to ones that are easily tested and verified locally, often accompanied by no helpful details whatsoever. It's a constant goose-chase, and the comments often spiral out of control.

It would be nice if there were a way to ignore questions from a specific user, but that's a separate matter.

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Is it healthy?

Probably not. In an ideal world, we would attract high-quality questions on a range of topics from a large number of different users.

Is it a problem?

One of the principles here is to judge a post on its merits, not by whomever posted it. It may help check you're being fair to imagine the questions were asked from different accounts, then reassess.

It is fine to have lots of questions of course. Asking them separately is also better than trying to shoehorn several into a single post to avoid asking "too many". There is obviously a balance to be struck here.

A sequence of poorly-received questions can result in a limit on the ability to ask new questions. This may be system-enforced in the case of relatively new accounts, or moderator-enforced in other circumstances.

System limits include:

Moderators have a range of tools available to them. For example, one of us might choose to have a private chat, send a private communication, or even apply a timed suspension. We don't generally discuss such private interactions.

System limits are necessarily rules-based. Moderators can take account of broader concerns in deciding what action to take, if any.

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I'm OK with lots of questions from a single user. If they're interesting they'll get answered. If not, closed and removed.

When answering, should I tire of one user's requests, I know I can scroll to subsequent pages. This does not feel like an encumbrance to me.

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  • Thanks! I understand your point when you say "I can scroll to subsequent pages", but that would cause an extra effort for those that want to answer the questions. Don't you think the experience would be better if one who have experience to answer a question would have to choose one of the many good questions on a page instead of scrolling in search of a question that does not belong to certain users?
    – Ronaldo
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 12:13
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    I believe I found a way of reducing the noise on the question queue: using a filter like this [tag-you-want] and score:-1 and is:question then I have to choose to order by Newest questions.
    – Ronaldo
    Commented May 20, 2022 at 12:33

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