Is the automatic banning algorithm working correctly? [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

The Complete Rate-Limiting Guide (1 answer)

Closed last year.

I just got the message "you've earned the popular question badge"

simultaneously

It looks like you might need a break - take a breather and come back soon!

You've asked 8 questions recently, some of which have not been received very well by the community. Everyone learns at their own pace, and it’s okay to make some mistakes. However, the reception your questions have received thus far might ultimately block your account from asking questions entirely.

It's been 1 days since you asked your last question. We ask that you wait 6 days before asking again. Use this time to revisit your previous questions, editing to address any issues that folks have pointed out in comments.

I am wondering if there is an explanation for this not based on sophistry.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that the question has net plus 6 upvotes.

Does Southernness tilt Southern metropolises and college towns to the right compared to similar areas in Blue America?

• Nij: "Popular Question" is awarded for a question getting 1000 views. The fact that it was off-topic, low quality, or otherwise not appropriate does not affect and is not affected by that badge.
• Meta Andrew T.: Dupe of The Complete Rate-Limiting Guide. Particularly "Users limited from asking questions for 1 – 7 days based on the performance of their previous questions "
• Luke L: I agree with @Nij, the popular badge have nothing to do with it. It's awarded at 1000 views, and it will be rewarded regardless of whether the question is good or not. It can be off-topic, low quality, even offensive, but you'll still get the popular badge. My personal experience is that, ironically, the popular bronze badge and even the notable silver badge are very easy to obtain if a question is extremely bad but didn't get closed and/or protected immediately. It'll get you a lot of rep loos due to downvotes, though, so don't do it. The question of yours you linked isn't all that bad, ...
• Luke L: ... but since I don't know the voting sequence I cannot determine for sure. There are two possibilities: Either a): you got a lot of downvotes (or flags) on that question at first, which results in a ban, and after the ban had been initiated you got a lot of upvotes to a total net of +6. Or b): your other questions on that site are complete garbage, to the extent that even if one question is good you'll still get a ban. Any way or the other this has nothing to do with the badge. Still, upvoted this because I don't think you deserve -15 on this question; I have the same question too.

Answer 1

Views are likely not a factor in the quality ban/rate-limit algorithm, since they don't indicate quality. You could get lots of hits based on the title but leave everyone wanting with the body. One factor that's been brought up a lot that likely plays a big role in the algorithm is downvotes, or having questions with a net negative score. Closed or deleted questions likely also have an impact too.

Alternatively, you can get out of a ban like this with enough other good contributions to the site, namely good answers.

See What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?

For the sake of completeness, note that any message that ends in "Regards, [site] Stack Exchange Moderation Team" is a moderator message and is therefore not automated. These can be accompanied by a suspension, or it could just be a warning message. Follow the instructions given as best you can, since you may not get a response if you reply to the message.

• Robotnik: @SK Your question makes no mention of wanting a moderator response. You should edit it to clarify :)
• Laurel: @SK But I am a moderator (and so is F1Krazy, we're mods on the same site). The fact is, nobody aside from some select staff members know the exact algorithm, and they're certainly not going to reveal it.
• Robotnik: @SK I have no idea what you're on about there mate, just trying to help. I dug this up as I figured it might help: How is a "positive question record" calculated?: Formula is: (total questions - negative questions - closed - deleted)/total questions ≥ 0.5 So if you have 10 questions, 8 with negative score, 3 closed, 1 deleted, then it's (10 - 8 - 3 - 1)/10 or -2/10 = -0.2. -0.2 is less than 0.5, so it's a negative question record. While this might not be the exact formula used for the rate limiting (banning) algorithm, it's probably similar.
• S K: Thats ALL I needed @robotnik - . people seem to think I'll steal the banning algorithm and sell it to a competitor. I have had situations in the past when I was in the penalty box and some "good" actions got me out of it. Just wanted to know why that didn't happen this time. I thought asking a heavily upvoted hot network Q would wash away earlier wrist-slaps, but apparently it doesn't. To me, the weirdness of SE is infinite.
• Nij: Getting lucky in the lottery once doesn't mean you're financially responsible or trustworthy with money. Getting one post upvoted doesn't mean you're producing worthwhile content or trustworthy with posting privileges.
• F1Krazy: @SK "people seem to think I'll steal the banning algorithm and sell it to a competitor" - no, we don't think that at all. As I explained in my answer, the reason the algorithm is private is so that people (not you specifically, but anyone) cannot find any potential loopholes that might allow them to avoid it. We don't want trolls being able to avoid tripping the algorithm because they know its inner workings.
• Luke L: @Nij Posting is not a "privilege" in SE, though. It's awarded at 1 rep, which is the least rep number you can get (the rep of a user when they first joined any SE site). Banning, of course takes away posting ability, but generally I don't think posting is a "privilege". But I agree that people who didn't manage to post good content shouldn't get other privileges, eg downvoting, editing (without review), or even flagging (they may cast false flags to "get back" at someone).
• Luke L: @F1Krazy Completely agree. If it's public nobody will ever be banned for posting bad content, since everyone'll just avoid tripping the algorithm. The algorithm won't sell for any money, BTW. Just curious, do mods know anything about the algorithm?
• Laurel: @LukeL There are a lot of reasons the quality bans suck (e.g., it takes into account bad content posted at the dawn of time), but the community can lose a lot of their time to someone who won't stop posting bad content, so it makes sense on that level. You can still earn other privileges even with a quality ban (since you are encouraged to participate in other ways even if you can't fix your questions), otherwise it would be significantly more similar to a moderator-imposed ban.
• Robotnik: @LukeL mods aren't privy to the ban algorithm no. I don't even think most CMs would know. We (mods) can see IF a user account is banned from asking or answering, but not how they got there.
• Luke L: @Robotnik OK, thanks for sharing that information. So only staff knows the algorithm, then.

Answer 2

I think the chain of events went something like this:

• You posted two questions yesterday, before the rate limit was applied
• The first question was eventually downvoted to -5 and self-deleted, and that was enough to tip you over the edge into being rate-limited
• The second question hit Hot Network Questions and received a lot of views and upvotes, but after seven poorly-received questions, the algorithm decided that one well-received question wasn't quite enough to justify removing the rate limit again.

The exact workings of the rate-limit algorithm aren't known, to prevent people from gaming the system and finding ways around it, so nobody short of a staff member can say for certain whether the algorithm is working correctly in your case. However, it's generally accepted that downvoted, closed, and deleted questions all factor heavily into the algorithm, that it takes a consistent pattern of such questions to trigger a rate limit or question ban, and that it takes a consistent pattern of well-received questions to get out of them again.

So again, while I can't say for certain, your being rate-limited is consistent with what's known about the algorithm, and I'm confident that it is indeed working correctly.

• Starship: @SK the company isnt about to release their algorithm so this is a good as you'll get...
• JK.: A lot of experienced users follow Meta very closely and are extremely knowledgable about the workings of these sites. For example they know that there is no such thing as asking the mods only. If you ask a question it is for everyone. So don't be so rude.
• Ramhound: @SK - Moderators do not know the algorithm that determines if a user is question ban. Only SE staff is aware of the precise details of the ban algorithm, and they won't share it, because if it was shared, there would be users would game the system. There are only two ways out of a question ban. Improve your existing questions and have users who downvoted those questions reverse their vote and potentially upvote them. The other is to use the single question, once every 6 months, to raise the overall quality of all your questions above the rate limit threshold
• Ramhound: @SK - (continue) I should add that a bunch of questions with 0 votes is not consider positve. It means your questions are not to be found to be helpful by the community.