Disclaimer: I think StackExchange is a brilliant Q&A network per se, but they have a serious flaw:
A friend of mine is a user on StackExchange Q&A networks.
They have secret algorithms that determine when asking or answering functionality of an account gets deactivated for the next six months.
This can happen when a question happens to be downvoted too much.
When the mysterious algorithm determines that a user is “not eligible” , the user sees the error message:
You have reached your question limit. Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account. See the Help Center to learn more.
More information.(meta.stackexchange.com)
The help page(stackoverflow.com) states:
Stack Exchange cannot lift question bans by request.
Of course they could, technically. They just passively refuse.
If you're unable to improve your existing questions, you'll get the chance to ask a new one 6 months after your last question. If that question is positively received, you may be able to continue asking questions; if not, then the ban will be reinstated.
This is downright hostile.
A better alternative would be to put questions by limited accounts on a review queue. Moderators and reputable users could then review those posts.
Much better than silencing a user altogether. Also, six months is terribly long.
(post is archived)