Hey, someone asked me a question a couple weeks ago, and I couldn't answer at that time. When I came back on, the question disappeared from my inbox, so I'm not exactly sure what happened. Is there any way I can still answer that question? No idea where it went!
The odds are the person asked it to more than one person, or aked it both publicly, and also wanted your personal input.
After a question has been abandoned for 7 days it will be combined with any other copies, into one question with all answers attached.
This is almost certainly what happened. If that isn't it, the person probably thought you weren't going to answer, so they deleted it.
Either way, I understand. Nobody can get to everything all the time. In the future, if you know that you aren't going to be able to answer something for a couple weeks, please use the tool to pass the question to others. This way the user gets an answer, even if it isn't your own.
Before I wrote the de-duper script, and the ability to pass on questions to others, a staggering number of questions were never answered, sitting in inboxes for eternity, or, sadly, being deleted without a second thought. :-(
Things are much better now. We have tools to help when you are busy. :-)
Again, please don't feel bad about it, it most likely got answered by another user.
Do you think a tighter timeline would make things better or worse? I mean if you knew that you had 24 hours to answer a question before it was passed on to someone who might have the time, would that be a good motivator? I did 7 days originally because I didn't want to rush people, but, knowing that unregistered users hardly ever check back after 48 hours from the time they ask you a question... should 24 or 48 hours be the limit?
Please feel free to let me know what you think in feedback.
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