catch-22-like mods procedure left me with crippled question

Question

Mods closed my first question as being too broad and when I asked different question (not merely rephrased the first one) they closed the second question too as being duplicate of the first one. They told me to modify the first question instead, which I did. They unblocked it then but left me with a question of -3 score with little chance of getting any attention of quality answer.

I find this procedure bit catch-22-like. What should I do? For clarity, I didn't come here to play games with mods, I came here for help.

Answer 1

The mods (i.e. me) only put your first question on-hold as it was too broad. There was no mod intervention with the different question you asked - no mod has acted on that one. OK, it got a close vote against it but that wasn't from a mod but from a regular community member. It was also a community member who left a comment suggesting you edit your original question.

Your original question was then reopened by a mod (me) because you'd brought it inline with site requirements. That's a good thing (most people don't make an effort to improve on-hold questions).

So the main issue here is with the second question that you posted. To be honest, I wouldn't have had a problem with you asking that one as it's sufficiently different to the On Hold post that it could've existed in its own right. But I didn't notice it existed until you had deleted it yourself, and now we can't really reopen that one because that'd make two questions the same, both with different comments and questions.

So... I've undeleted your duplicate question and deleted the other one, merging the content between the two. That should get you back to 0 rep on it.