At one point I decided it was time for me to contribute by answering questions.
I sorted by new in PHP and found a brand new, really confusing & poorly written question. After about 5 times reading it through I finally understood what they needed, and wrote a full answer along with corrected code that I had tested.
Got an error when I submitted my answer that the question was locked. Just before I submitted my answer, a mod had locked it because it was a low quality question. I wasn’t allowed to submit my answer to their problem.
I haven’t tried writing an answer since. Just felt like a massive slap in the face for trying to finally contribute.
I had the exact same experience. First, I tried to ask a question and couldn’t for some reason (it was ~10 years ago). Then in an attempt to gain points that would allow me to ask questions (I think that was my issue) I kept getting rejected.
At the time I was active on Experts Exchange but, they were moving to a paid model. I thought I could find community on SO. You’re right it does feel like a slap in the face. I hate all of Stack because of SO.
Having a bunch of answers to very poor questions is not the goal.
If you managed to parse out a good question in there of general interest that has not been answered yet, you can submit it yourself and provide your own answer. That way you are actually adding something valuable to the site.
I agree that it is really hard to contribute in a meaningful way though.
