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I apologize if this question is on a FAQ somewhere, but a cursory search turned up empty. I am trying to find out:

  1. Under what conditions will the Community bot decide to bump my question onto the front page?
  2. What actions that I do (editing, commenting, voting, posting an answer) cause a question to be bumped onto the front page?

I have never seen "bumping" in action before, but I usually look at "Questions > Newest", which may have something to do with that. Which of the pages is subject to such a bumping process, and (subjective question) what page do you usually look at if you are looking for new questions to answer?

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    $\begingroup$ You might have a look at tag-wiki for the tag bumping. It contains list of actions which cause bumping. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:23
  • $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak So any edit, regardless how minor, will bump, and commenting never does? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:25
  • $\begingroup$ That's correct. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:25
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    $\begingroup$ Voting a post won't bump it either. As noted, the bot bumps up questions that have answers without any upvotes, usually starting 30 days after the question was posted. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Ｊ.M. Does it matter if the non-upvoted answer is accepted or not? Also, can someone tell me what the "front page" is? I have no idea where this bumping takes place. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:31
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    $\begingroup$ Ah, yes; questions with accepted answers will not be bumped by the bot. If you want to see the front page for the main site, go here. The front page for the meta site is here. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 6:38
  • $\begingroup$ @Ｊ.M., isn't it the case that what OP will see on following your link depends on whether OP has the front page sorted by "Newest" or by "Active"? And doesn't bumping affect the latter, but not the former? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 9:25
  • $\begingroup$ @Gerry, I see "active", "featured" (31 bounty questions ATM), "hot" (apparently the default view for unregistered users), "week" and "month", but no "newest", which would be here. That last one's not the front page anymore, tho. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 9:48
  • $\begingroup$ @Ｊ.M., of course you're right, I was in MO mode, where (I think) the options include "newest". $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 12, 2013 at 9:56
  • $\begingroup$ for the community user, see the recently posted question: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/13934/… $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 5, 2014 at 12:54
  • $\begingroup$ BTW you can find some links pointing to the relevant information about this if you have a look at the tag-info for the tags community-user and bumping. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 20 at 3:55

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Any post with a score of 0 or above which is not closed can be bumped by the Community User/Bot (which are the same thing, btw), provided it hasn't been active for 30 days and hasn't been bumped in the past 120 days (unless there was non bumping activity on the post since then).

In addition, questions with more views and unanswered questions are more likely to be bumped. There is also a limit to how many unanswered questions can be bumped per hour (1 on most sites but different on a few sites) and some sites prohibit bumping when one of the recently active questions was a bumped question.

Bumping will only bump it the active and front page pages. It will not bump it to the newest page (this makes sense, it doesn't make the question any newer, does it?).

Editing will almost always bump a question (with a few exceptions, such as rollbacks), as will answering. Closing a question, reopening it, changing the duplicate list, among other actions, can also bump a post.

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  • $\begingroup$ "Bumping will only bump it the active and front page pages. It will not bump it to the newest page (this makes sense, it doesn't make the question any newer, does it?)." It doesn't make it more active either though... 🤔 $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 18 at 16:04
  • $\begingroup$ @MarioCarneiro well bumping is an activity on the post I guess. It certainly makes more sense then saying bumping makes the question newer $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 18 at 16:41

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