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Eight months ago, I asked a question here that had almost immediately received a negative scoring with little to no constructive criticism on how I could improve the question. I, however, got a useful answer, so I was satisfied.

That would've been good enough for me, but now that very same question has over a thousand views, and I would like to refactor the question in such a way that it may be more useful to future visitors.

Ordinarily I'd consider deleting a question with negative value, but it appears that people are still gaining use from it.

How can my question be improved? Move it to Chemistry/Biology Stack Exchange? Add more details?

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    $\begingroup$ It's one downvote... That isn't worth a meta post. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    May 7, 2019 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ @Rishi I couldn't actually see the ratio, I was expecting more up versus more down. I can delete this if you think I should. $\endgroup$
    – Erin B
    May 7, 2019 at 13:42
  • $\begingroup$ Though due to posting it here on Meta, you're going to gain more upvotes & downvotes. $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Kanos
    May 7, 2019 at 14:17
  • $\begingroup$ Note: questions can't migrated if they are more than six months old. $\endgroup$
    – rob Mod
    May 7, 2019 at 14:19
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    $\begingroup$ @Rishi I think it's always good to encourage new users to think about how to make high-quality contributions --- even if the answer to their question is "it's fine, don't worry so much." Meta questions aren't a scarce resource. $\endgroup$
    – rob Mod
    May 7, 2019 at 14:21
  • $\begingroup$ @ErinB My point was that you can't really confidently say that the question was bad based on one vote, since there are so many votes being cast. It looks like an interesting and clear question to me, but based on rob's comment, I guess it's fine to leave this here and see if anyone says that they see something wrong with the question. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    May 7, 2019 at 14:28
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    $\begingroup$ However, there's now a homework close vote on the question, so... whatever. $\endgroup$
    – user191954
    May 7, 2019 at 14:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Rishi Yeah I'd be inclined to agree, but as far as I can tell, new contributors aren't able to view total votes up or down. I was thinking it was closer to +10; -11 or something like that. $\endgroup$
    – Erin B
    May 7, 2019 at 14:42

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At the time you asked this meta question, your physics question had a negative score, but only a single vote. A single vote (up or down) without feedback isn't really enough information to base big changes on; it's better to look for voting patterns.

If I had to guess, I would guess that the downvoter thought the question was "homework-like," but didn't cast a close vote.

Questions with lots of views but not lots of votes are probably attracting attention from web searches and views from non-SE users more than views from users from within the network. I interpret that to mean that you've asked a question that is interesting and useful, even if it's not a good fit for our community compared to the kinds of questions that are more commonly successful here.

I wouldn't worry about changing it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Will do! Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Erin B
    May 7, 2019 at 14:44
  • $\begingroup$ I have read your answer very carefully. But I don't see any major changes: I see a very heavy climate. As soon as I ask a question or comment, the criticism is raining down. $\endgroup$
    – Sebastiano
    Jul 16, 2019 at 21:37

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