4

I would like to contribute to the general rise in average questions per day by asking a bunch of questions. I am certain I could repurpose a large number of questions that have been asked at writing groups I have helped to run.

My trouble is two-fold.

First, I feel like a cheat when I ask questions I actually know the answer to. That's assuming that I do not dismiss the idea from my mind as "too obvious" as soon as I think of it.

Second, the general quality of questions is very high and I do not wish to dilute that just to raise the gross number of questions.

So that leaves me with the question, are there any topics with too few questions? Are there any tags that are crying out for interesting questions?

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

Don't!

I answer questions in part because the research and writing practice is useful to me but the main reason I answer is to help the people who ask. If you already have an answer but want more possible answers, by all means post then answer your own question. There are even badges for that. But if you don't actually care about the answer and just want more traffic, don't. Just don't.

I was on a low volume mailing list once that I enjoyed. Then the listowner kept posting weird provocative questions and I spent a long time answering them. I finally realized I was being baited. He confirmed it. He asked questions specifically to upset me in a way that got me to post, all to increase traffic.

It completely backfired. I just left.

While you're not targeting a specific person, you're talking about posting for the sake of posting. It's one thing to seed a group with a few choice questions to get it going. But that's not necessary here. We get a bunch of questions every day. You'd be doing this for the numbers.

So please, post questions you honestly want answers to. Don't turn this group into a game where people never know if the question is real.

1
  • 2
    Matthew, I want to emphasize one part of this answer -- if you have an interesting, well-developed question and an answer, do post both! Make sure your question stands on its own such that it could be answered by other people too; maybe somebody here has an even better answer than yours. It's not about stats but about increasing the body of useful questions and good answers.
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 19:15
4

I think that raising the question count by asking questions solely for the purpose of raising the question count is not a good idea because

once you tire of asking questions solely for the pupose of raising the question count, the question count will fall back to its previous level.

What we need is a natural growth from members who actually want to know things, not a temporary artificial rise. What we need is an increase that will remain stable beyond the contributions of one or two single members.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .