Posts roll off AskMe's front page too quickly.

July 31, 2006 2:53 PM

Mathowie hates late people! ;-)

Is it possible to have the AskMe front page show the last 12 hours of questions instead of whatever it currently does (a number? a lesser time?)? As of now, questions asked in the morning appear to get many more replies than ones asked at night, which scroll off the bottom as the morning-risers repeatedly ask where they can get a tattoo or a decent meal in New York. ;-)
posted by Kickstart70 to feature requests at 2:53 PM (19 comments total)

40 questions now on the page...round number coincidence?
posted by Kickstart70 at 2:59 PM on July 31, 2006

40 per page is a good number between too little and too many. Too many and people don't answer anything, too few and people don't answer enough.

The next/back links are pretty easy to find for those searching a day's worth of posts.
posted by mathowie at 3:02 PM on July 31, 2006

Ahem: "Mathowie doesn't care about late people."

Next time you milk a meme, do it right.
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:04 PM on July 31, 2006

Kickstart70 doesn't care about memes.
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:05 PM on July 31, 2006

Dangit, all my memes are belong to Smart Dalek and TwelveTwo.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:10 PM on July 31, 2006

Matt, I don't know how the backend works (I assume it involves voodoo, magic pixie dust, and deals with the devil), but would it be possible to set the number as one of your preferences?

How many AskMe questions would you like to see on a page?
(A) 40
(B) 60
(C) 80
(D) 100
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 3:31 PM on July 31, 2006

Matt, I don't know how the backend works

Well, I feel sorry for you, because you're missing out.
posted by scrump at 3:36 PM on July 31, 2006 [1 favorite]

How many AskMe questions would you like to see on a page? (followed by numbers)

That would be good, but better if it was a choice of 3/6/12/24 hours, IMO.

Maybe with 6 being default or something.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:45 PM on July 31, 2006

Changing the number of hours visible on the front page probably won't have a big effect on browsing and responding—folks tend (I presume) to read from the top of the page until Whenever They Stop. Most folks will stop at the end of the page, sure, but then most folks will probably stop before the end of the page, perhaps after just one or two questions.

(Incidentally, I tend to hit two or three pages at a go, if I'm really on a read-and-answer binge. So the page length doesn't affect my reading, for example.)

So I don't think there's a simple way to engineer a fix for you being off the popular schedule. You may want to consider just finding a way to post your question during the heavy-traffic period.
posted by cortex at 4:00 PM on July 31, 2006

40 per page is a good number between too little and too many. Too many and people don't answer anything, too few and people don't answer enough.

The next/back links are pretty easy to find for those searching a day's worth of posts.
posted by mathowie at 6:02 PM EST on July 31 [+] [!]

Is it just me or does this not really address kickstart70's concern?
posted by shmegegge at 4:18 PM on July 31, 2006

This may come with great resistance... but what about 2 limits on the # of askme posts:

1) Max 1 per week per user.

2) Max n per hour at all.

I suppose this might induce some sort of irritating re-submitting-sniping-type-thing, but I dunno... AskMe has changed a real lot in the past year, and seems to be less and less valuable for the askers as volume gets bigger.
posted by twiggy at 4:37 PM on July 31, 2006

I suppose this might induce some sort of irritating re-submitting-sniping-type-thing

Yeah, I gotta naysay that right there. Ick.
posted by cortex at 4:45 PM on July 31, 2006

Well, maybe if it were not "on the hour".. more like .. your submission is either queued up for later display, or you are given a message to try back another time because volume is too high... and by "another time", that means "if you try again repeatedly you won't be submitting your question at all"..

I dunno... it just feels like AskMe goes way too fast now.
posted by twiggy at 5:00 PM on July 31, 2006

AskMe isn't there for the reader, it's there for the questioner. Creating a cap on the number of posts per X places a limit on the wrong group of people.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:05 PM on July 31, 2006

Anybody actually ask a question every single week? If there are more than one or two, I think it would be good to make the limit 1/week with a maximum of 26/year, or something..
posted by Chuckles at 7:02 PM on July 31, 2006

maximum of 26/year

But man, I go through goldfish like crazy. And they don't just name themselves.
posted by yeti at 8:09 PM on July 31, 2006

And they don't just name themselves.

Just number the stupid things. They don't care, and "Gilbert VIII" just sounds so regal.

(NB Gilbert VIII was a real goldfish...)
posted by pompomtom at 9:21 PM on July 31, 2006

Mathowie hates late people! ;-) and people who live in non-US time zones.
posted by dg at 3:00 AM on August 1, 2006

Re: twiggy's limits idea.

Don't want it. Bad idea. It's arbitrary and counterproductive, especially the per-hour limit. I skip over a large percentage of question-posts already, and I think the suggested limits would actually reduce the quantity of questions that interest me.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:32 AM on August 1, 2006