How to make questions noticeable without bounty?

Question

I have asked 2 questions in askubuntu. I beleive both are genuine enough and are binding to the 'rules' of askubuntu. But the questions are barely getting noticed. I even got the tumbleweed badge for one of the questions. Here is the link to that question. As you would have seen the question was asked 3 weeks ago and has got just 57 views(when I am typing this description). Another question got a vote up and got 33 views but still has no comment or answers(when I am typing this description). Here is the link to that question. What do you suggest I do to get these questions noticed and answered? Note that I don't have enough reputation to place a bounty on my questions. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Jorge's answer is great, but it's only half the deal. Good question should show research effort, be useful and clear (and if so it will have upvotes). After you initially write a question, try to read it as it was made by another person. Try to answer the questions:

• Does it clearly describe the problem?
• Will I learn something new trying to answer it?
• (and the most important) Will it be helpful for future readers?

Also try to ask somebody to review the question. Probably it should be your friend who has interest in technology or some experience with the subject of your research. At the worst, your mom will fit, just try to explain her what are you going to reach. Or knock on the bum – explain your problem to someone who has nothing to do with it.

But sometimes good questions just fall in the Active Questions queue. For those reasons the bounty exists. As I already said, the general rule is to achieve some reputation then sacrifice it. To achieve it, you should answer some questions. The more answers you write the more (potentionally) rep will you have. And when you achieve 200, you will get +100 association bonus.

So, how do I write good answer? This article is essential. And, for me, answering is really easier than asking. More, it is encouraged more to answer than to ask. Just check profiles of top users and you will see that they have many answers and few questions in comparison. Also check http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/1209/how-do-i-quickly-gain-reputation

And you can gain attention talking in chat. To enter chatroom, you need to have 2 upvotes on answers or 4 upvotes on questions (and no downvotes) or make 10 approved edits. That is not so difficult and your example shows that.

Answer 2

Your title is half the battle!

"Workaround for installing the AMD propritary driver" doesn't really explain anything to me, it's not even a question! I would not want to click through.

I changed it to: "How can I get 1366x768 as a resolution with an AMD Radeon 5570?"

It is immediately obvious to me what that question is about. If I knew anything about that subject I would immediately want to click through.

Same with "Login screen resolution issue in Ubuntu 13.10 and 14.04 beta". That doesn't tell me anything. There is also some information that you put in the comments. You can edit your question (remember editing bumps), to put things like:

• I am already using the Xorg edgers PPA, the issue persists
• I can replicate the issue on 13.10 and 14.04

That way it's in your question and not in the comments.

Now you have the benefit of hindsight since you found the answer somewhere else, so what you need to do is retitle the question so that the next person who has your issue can find your question and answer. Perhaps something along the lines of "How do I configure the login screen resolution with the AMD Catalyst Driver?" or something.

Writing good titles is hard by the way!