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I recently asked this question on the main site; after one day it didn't receive much attention and I decided to completely restyle it to make it more appealing, it got to the top of the "Recently Active Questions" list and received a few upvotes, but still no answer or useful comments. Now, after one day, the question has fallen on page 6 of list and it's not likely to receive attention anymore.

Now I was thinking to edit it again, but not having particular ideas on how to substantially improve it, I thought to change only a few details to have it first listed. Would it be appropriate?

I would appreciate any comments from you.

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    $\begingroup$ If you have something meaningful to add (or edit) to your question, it is always appropriate to edit it. I'm not opposed to small edits to bump the question if it is done rarely enough. I see no problem if you do that, say, once a week for four weeks. The limits for what would be a reasonable amount of such advertising are open to debate. But remember to give up if you have no significant edits to make and no one responds despite several bumps; keeping a question artificially alive is not an appropriate long term solution. $\endgroup$
    – Joonas Ilmavirta
    Commented Jan 30, 2015 at 10:20
  • $\begingroup$ My 2 cents: limit yourself to once a month bumps. $\endgroup$
    – Gerald Edgar
    Commented Jan 30, 2015 at 13:27
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    $\begingroup$ Why not offer a bounty instead if it is of enough interest? $\endgroup$
    – joro
    Commented Jan 31, 2015 at 9:18

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To answer the question in the title, no it is not appropriate.

To answer the intent of the question, consider the following strategy: take a single somewhat general question and break it up into individual questions, each with its own singular perspective and each giving a different part of the big question. Provide links between the various questions. If one gets answered that may lead to answers to the other questions.

We usually have big broad questions to ask. MathOverflow is for narrow, focused questions. If done well, a big question can produce many focused questions, each one suitable for this forum.

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