Recently I've been getting a lot of physics questions, and I'm at the point where I'm asking a couple a day. Should I restrain myself, or can I go willy-nilly as long as they meet the standards of the site?
2 Answers
There is no rule against asking too many questions. More questions make the site better. If you have three questions today, ask them!
There are, however, rules about asking too many low-quality questions. And, because writing and being creative is hard, users who ask a lot of questions frequently start having trouble asking consistently high-quality questions.
I use this data.SE query for identifying people who write lots of questions and answers (beware that the column names don’t change when you switch to questions). For the week ending 2021-10-31, which is the most recent available, you were in fact the top asker on the site, with seven questions. For the month, with nine questions, you’re in the top ten or so. But we had 2653 total questions in October, so your nine make up about 0.3% of the month’s questions for the site.
From having used that query for several years, our most active askers tend to cap out around one question per day, and our most active answerers tend to cap out around three. Some people will do more for a burst, but people’s activity level on the site tends to ebb and flow.
As long as your questions are attracting upvotes and answers from other users, feel free to ask more. If you start to get negative feedback on your questions, such as downvotes, close votes, or comments suggesting improvements, take that feedback seriously.
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1$\begingroup$ Of interest: The Complete Rate-Limiting Guide, on the mother meta. There are multiple independent rate limits at play. OP likely won't trigger them, I think, but the link is important for future visitors. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 2, 2021 at 11:58
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$\begingroup$ Linked from there, but more relevant to the scenario in this question: rate limiting for “help vampires”. $\endgroup$– rob ModCommented Nov 2, 2021 at 12:24
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3$\begingroup$ +1 to “users who ask a lot of questions frequently start having trouble asking consistently high-quality questions” $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 2, 2021 at 22:57
Note that some SE communities do punish asking to many poor questions (i.e., questions that do not get any upvotes) by limiting the user to asking no more than one question in a specified period, e.g., half a year. Although they give one the possibility of editing one's old questions (potentially completely rewriting them).
I don't know, if PSE follows this practice.
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$\begingroup$ While not explicitly untrue, this answer is so vague that it causes more damage than it provides help. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 15, 2021 at 13:13
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2$\begingroup$ Moreover, it's important to differentiate between SE communities and the SE software, whose behaviour may vary from site to site, but with those variations sometimes being set by SE devs and community managers in response to various site traffic parameters without much consultation to the site's community. Saying that an SE community "punishes" people is quite a strong claim. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 15, 2021 at 13:15
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$\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty You are welcome to add more detailed information. $\endgroup$– Roger V.Commented Nov 15, 2021 at 14:16