How can we nudge askers to actually maintain their questions, to provide requested information? (Maybe something like a "Remember to work on your question" when they are pressing Post your question ?)
I have an increasing amount of comments requesting more information from an OP - and no reaction at all over weeks - although they seem to be around (according to "seen..." in their profile).
If you're looking for a technical fix, the biggest open question to me is whether such an asker can even tell that there are comments to which they should reply when they return. While I'm not a long term user by any means, I like to think I've got the hang of SE, yet I still sometimes fail to notice the tiny red notification dot in the upper left corner next to "Stack Exchange" (a phrase which probably means nothing to many new users).
I think it would be much more helpful if the unread part of the Responses section of the profile showed up front and center on the main page, bumping the question list downwards. This may not solve the entire issue, but I think it would boost the response rate by at least a few percentage points.
If this isn't the problem, and askers are actually ignoring requests for clarification, then I'm as pessimistic as @RolandiXor; isn't the biggest incentive already built in? No replies = no solution to their problem. If they can't boot their system / run their favorite app / unpack their favorite tar.gz from the internet into /bin, and they aren't interested in answering a question or two from people who are trying to help, then no amount of reputation point incentives or extra text on the screen is going to make a difference.
There is a message that comes up when new users are posting questions that gives them guidelines and tips, but most people just ignore it. Same with the FAQ.
I don't think there is much we could do, because measures such as Captchas will simply infuriate people and turn them off.
Is there a "close" for this? Like, "Your question is on hold because there are no answers and comments indicate you haven't provided enough information. Update your question with more details to get answers!"
What I have seen is that several askers are having or experiencing the same symptoms but they won't dare to open a new question because it can be quickly closed as someone else have already asked. The problem occurs when the first asker didn't receive an answer, or comments, so 2 or more people will remain waiting for an answer and they won't be able to ask if the previous hasn't been closed yet.
There are also new questions which are pointed to older questions and these older questions does not have an answer!
I think -if possible- that somebody else can co-own the question, or make-it-own by following certain process to claim for the question as own, in order to continue the support as a new recently made question, perhaps improving the question thus making it more interesting to get the proper attention and support.
In my humble opinion, something should change, either the way the questions are monitored to remove those which won't receive enough attention or allowing other people to claim for the question as own in order to go further with the support.
Thank you.
In danger of stating the obvious, why not send an e-mail notification to the OP that there are new comments on his/her question?
This could even be added to the "Ask Question" form as an opt-in (or opt-out) check box to control the functionality per question, or even implemented per user as an option in the user profile as a "global" preference.
