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Q&A What's more important for codidact - quality or helping questions get answered?

site culture seems to be more like the "quality content" group. This is counter-productive to growing the site. Absolutely not! We strive to be a site where people can come to get good, reliable,...

posted 9mo ago by Olin Lathrop‭ · edited 9mo ago by Olin Lathrop‭

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#2: Post edited by

Olin Lathrop‭ · 2024-03-25T12:24:16Z (9 months ago)

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<blockquote>site culture seems to be more like the "quality content" group. This is counter-productive to growing the site.</blockquote>
Absolutely not!
We strive to be a site where people can come to get good, reliable, peer-reviewed answers. Everything follows from that.
As good questions result in good answers, we slowly build a useful repository of information. That causes more people to find the site when they do internet searches. It also answers some questions immediately since they were previously asked and answered.
Over time, domain experts will find the place, see that there is intelligent interaction and that good answers are appreciated. The experts will then stick around, create more content, which draws more people in, which creates more content, etc.
All of the above only works if the site quality is high and the drivel level low. The internet is full of information. It's not so full of quality information, at least compared to the total volume. The only way we can compete and be noticed at all is by maintaining a reputation of quality.
After realizing that quality is essential to what we are doing, the question then becomes how to achieve and maintain that quality. One important way is to prune low quality content quickly and with as little noise as possible. At first glance it may seem counter-productive to remove that bad apple from the barrel because we need every apple, but the reverse is far worse.
Like a bad apple in a barrel, bad content begets more bad content. The drivel level rises, experts get disillusioned and leave, and you can't trust answers you get anymore. Even if you could, you have to wade thru lots of crap to find them. Nobody is going to stick around an environment like that as it become no better than the internet as a whole.
So while you are right that "This is a place where you can get your question answered.", it must also be a place where content quality is paramount. The second requires the first, no matter how unintuitive it may appear in the moment.
If we don't prune bad content today, we won't have a site tomorrow.

<blockquote>site culture seems to be more like the "quality content" group. This is counter-productive to growing the site.</blockquote>
Absolutely not!
We strive to be a site where people can come to get good, reliable, peer-reviewed answers. Everything follows from that.
As good questions result in good answers, we slowly build a useful repository of information. That causes more people to find the site when they do internet searches. It also answers some questions immediately since they were previously asked and answered.
Over time, domain experts will find the place, see that there is intelligent interaction and that good answers are appreciated. The experts will then stick around, create more content, which draws more people in, which creates more content, etc.
All of the above only works if the site quality is high and the drivel level low. The internet is full of information. It's not so full of quality information, at least compared to the total volume. The only way we can compete and be noticed at all is by maintaining a reputation of quality.
After realizing that quality is essential to what we are doing, the question then becomes how to achieve and maintain that quality. One important way is to prune low quality content quickly and with as little noise as possible. At first glance it may seem counter-productive to remove that bad apple from the barrel because we need every apple, but the reverse is far worse.
Like a bad apple in a barrel, bad content begets more bad content. The drivel level rises, experts get disillusioned and leave, and you can't trust answers you get anymore. Even if you could, you have to wade thru lots of crap to find them. Nobody is going to stick around an environment like that as it becomes no better than the internet as a whole.
So while you are right that "This is a place where you can get your question answered.", it must also be a place where content quality is paramount. The first requires the second, no matter how unintuitive it may appear in the moment.
If we don't prune bad content today, we won't have a site tomorrow.

#1: Initial revision by

Olin Lathrop‭ · 2024-03-24T13:32:42Z (9 months ago)

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<blockquote>site culture seems to be more like the "quality content" group. This is counter-productive to growing the site.</blockquote>

Absolutely not!

We strive to be a site where people can come to get good, reliable, peer-reviewed answers. Everything follows from that.

As good questions result in good answers, we slowly build a useful repository of information. That causes more people to find the site when they do internet searches. It also answers some questions immediately since they were previously asked and answered.

Over time, domain experts will find the place, see that there is intelligent interaction and that good answers are appreciated. The experts will then stick around, create more content, which draws more people in, which creates more content, etc.

All of the above only works if the site quality is high and the drivel level low. The internet is full of information. It's not so full of quality information, at least compared to the total volume. The only way we can compete and be noticed at all is by maintaining a reputation of quality.

After realizing that quality is essential to what we are doing, the question then becomes how to achieve and maintain that quality. One important way is to prune low quality content quickly and with as little noise as possible. At first glance it may seem counter-productive to remove that bad apple from the barrel because we need every apple, but the reverse is far worse.

Like a bad apple in a barrel, bad content begets more bad content. The drivel level rises, experts get disillusioned and leave, and you can't trust answers you get anymore. Even if you could, you have to wade thru lots of crap to find them. Nobody is going to stick around an environment like that as it become no better than the internet as a whole.

So while you are right that "This is a place where you can get your question answered.", it must also be a place where content quality is paramount. The second requires the first, no matter how unintuitive it may appear in the moment.

If we don't prune bad content today, we won't have a site tomorrow.

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