One should be allowed to ask questions more often

January 17, 2005 7:59 AM

What's with the one question per week? I am an active Ask.Mefi user and often have many questions (to the tune of 2-3 per week) that get awesome responses. Anyone know of comparable places to ask on a wide variety of subjects?
posted by omidius to Etiquette/Policy at 7:59 AM (41 comments total)

If the ultimate goal is traffic, a system by which weeks that you haven't used up the quota can carryover?

There is a great resource here and I think it would be a genuine disservice to limit...
posted by omidius at 8:19 AM on January 17, 2005

The problem is, questions get pushed off the front page fast enough as it is. The limit also allows a poster to think about it a little more thoroughly before posting... which is always a good thing, whether in the green, gray or blue.
posted by Witty at 8:27 AM on January 17, 2005

I think google can answer a lot of questions.

And I'm not sure that the ultimate goal is traffic.
posted by theFlyingSquirrel at 8:38 AM on January 17, 2005

Here is what #1 has said about this in the past:

You know, when I started ask metafilter, I thought asking for a buck per question would keep things sane, but that would have killed the magic that was created.

How about one a week and any beyond that cost you a buck?
posted by mathowie at 2:56 PM PST on December 21
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We had a day recently with like 50+ questions, and that's just too many. One way to reduce the total daily load to a manageable level (25-30 max feels about right) is to limit folks to curtail some of the questions, and help people weed out the low hanging fruit.

I think it's been a benefit since it was added, as there are less questions overall and they seem to be of slightly higher quality on the whole.
posted by mathowie at 10:57 PM PST on December 18
-----------------------------
you can post one question per 7 days. Save them up for just the good ones.
posted by mathowie at 10:37 AM PST on December 14
posted by Arch Stanton at 8:47 AM on January 17, 2005

The buck for an xtra is a great idea.
posted by xammerboy at 8:56 AM on January 17, 2005

I agree - it'll put some money in Mathowie's pocket, act as quality control, and give people a way to ask questions if it's really urgent.
posted by orange swan at 9:02 AM on January 17, 2005

There is a great resource here and I think it would be a genuine disservice to limit...

It's a great resource for everyone which becomes much less so if no one even sees your question before it rolls off the front page. I don't mean to be a total wiseass, but your library can probably answer a lot of questions for you and if they have 24/7 reference, can probably do it for you online.

The ultimate goal is not traffic, on any part of MetaFilter. Other places to ask questions inclue Wondir.com, Google Answers [not free, but damned cheap] and Answers.com.

I'm all for the $1 for an extra question, but then you have to debate whether you can get two extra questions for $2 and on and on.....
posted by jessamyn at 9:04 AM on January 17, 2005

Charging a buck sounds nice, but I can just imagine the sense of entitlement that would result. "Wait a minute, I paid a whole dollar to ask people where we go when we die. How come it's deleted?"

(The previous question was meant to be sarcastic example. Please do not ask this question. Thank you.)
posted by Galvatron at 9:04 AM on January 17, 2005

I'd just like to say that, although I've only asked 13 questions total to AskMe (less than one a month on average), I got hit last week with the once-a-week rule. And it hurt. I'd like Matt to reconsider my previous suggestion to make the limit four-a-month instead of one-a-week.
posted by jpoulos at 9:10 AM on January 17, 2005

I agree that $1 per extra question is a good idea, but I'm not sure it will solve the problem of question turnover. I recently asked this question, to which I was sure someone would have the answer, but despite the one question per week limitiation, it rolled off the AskMe front page in about 12 hours. I think we need categories and tags to really address the problem of volume. I know Matt's working on these, and I can't wait to see them.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:12 AM on January 17, 2005

Perhaps for $1 per question limit, it would eventually become financially feasible for people to have 7 or 8 metafilter accounts so that they can ask more questions in a week.
posted by Arch Stanton at 9:16 AM on January 17, 2005

I am an active Ask.Mefi user and often have many questions (to the tune of 2-3 per week) that get awesome responses.

Your member pages shows less than one question per month. So you are admitting to hanky-panky multiple accounts?
posted by rushmc at 9:23 AM on January 17, 2005

I agree with jpoulos suggestion about 4 a month rather than one a week, or some such quota system that limits posts, but less rigidly. I have only posed two questions, and both were in the same week. Both were situations where I needed help or recommendations relatively quickly. Important questions don't necessarily happen on a schedule.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:39 AM on January 17, 2005

Rush, I think omidius is referring to thinking of questions that often, not posting them.
posted by redfoxtail at 10:41 AM on January 17, 2005

Of course, we overlook the great thing about multi-unrelated-questions posts:

We can ignore a bunch of crap all in one swell foop.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:47 AM on January 17, 2005

Extra questions cost five bucks, but they come with a free new user account.
posted by timeistight at 10:51 AM on January 17, 2005

Good point. Five bucks is pretty cheap for being able to ask 2 questions a week on a regular basis.
posted by xammerboy at 11:17 AM on January 17, 2005

I'd pay $1-$2 bucks for additional questions. Sometimes I just need a damn answer ASAP.
posted by Shane at 11:32 AM on January 17, 2005

Anyone know of comparable places to ask on a wide variety of subjects?

No one place, but I've found it's often worthwhile to try to find a place regarding the particular topic you're interested in. Googling on [topic] discussion or [topic] forum often turns up such a site.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:07 PM on January 17, 2005

I'm against paying to ask additional questions. a 5-dollar fee for getting an account is one thing. paying for the privilege to ask questions is entirely another. how much money should the users who give good answers receive, then?
posted by matteo at 12:25 PM on January 17, 2005

Is this the only place you can ask questions? No.

Not that big of a deal. Yes, it's a pain we only get one question per, yes it makes me feel like I am back in elementary school, but that is how Matt has chosen to do things.

Really, people, it's a big wide world out there, this is not the only website in it. Branch out or something. And worst case scenario, there is always Life Away from the Computer.
posted by konolia at 12:30 PM on January 17, 2005

Really, people, it's a big wide world out there, this is not the only website in it. Branch out or something. And worst case scenario, there is always Life Away from the Computer.

Keep in mind, however, that this response is from someone who's been banned like, eleventy times and keeps coming back for more. :)
posted by ColdChef at 12:41 PM on January 17, 2005

Konolia has never been banned. As to any other user names that might have been in use back in 2002, no comment.
posted by konolia at 12:52 PM on January 17, 2005

I humbly stand corrected, my love.
posted by ColdChef at 12:59 PM on January 17, 2005

Like jpoulos and madamjujujive, I also feel strongly that four questions a month would work much better than one per week (and I've also asked less than one question a month, so it's not a matter of too many questions this end).
posted by taz at 1:03 PM on January 17, 2005

There are a fair number of tech-related questions in AskMe, and a lot of other places those could be asked. Seems like most hardware/software manufacturers have their own forums, and then of course there's Ask Slashdot (if you can overlook the snark). And honestly, I see a lot of questions that could be answered by a call to your local library's reference desk. Reference librarians are one of my favorite resources, anything that can be researched in a book or online they can help you with, for free. Not to mention all those book-finding questions.
posted by cali at 1:04 PM on January 17, 2005

Yes, it's a pain we only get one question per, yes it makes me feel like I am back in elementary school, but that is how Matt has chosen to do things.

Just to be clear, I didn't pull it out of thin air and this isn't me saying "it's my way or the highway." All the good reasons are stated above and I came to impose the limit after lengthy discussion. There were too many questions on a per-day basis and a small number of users intent on asking questions nearly daily. I believe the limit has helped reduced overall load and any chance of one user hogging the space.

It's unfortunate when you're first hit with the limit (I didn't code a way around it for myself and I've been stuck waiting two days to ask a semi-urgent question), so I should warn people more on the posting page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:07 PM on January 17, 2005

...so I should warn people more on the posting page.

You might want to point out that the one-a-week limit includes anonymous posts. That is, if you've made a post under your username, you won't be able to make an anonymous post that week as well, because once you've made a post you can't even get back to the posting page. Not sure if the reverse is true, but it probably is.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:31 PM on January 17, 2005

Q. I've been stuck waiting two days to ask a semi-urgent question. What do I do?

A. Do what the rest of us do: IM Sidhedevil, Mo Nickels, or Vacapinta. If they don't know, call your local radical librarian.

(PS: dollars to donuts the answer to your question is either "yes, call your doctor" or "no, you really shouldn't do that in php.")
posted by RJ Reynolds at 1:38 PM on January 17, 2005

I am all for question limits.

The reason everyone gets such great answers is because we all see the questions and think about them. If there are more questions, the collective attention will be more thinly spread, and the answers will get worse. You are right, there is a great resource here, but that resource is the finite and limited collective BrainFilter - so let's not over-exploit it. The limit is a way to prevent a tragedy of the axeme commons.

Paying for extras is a bad idea, for reasons cited above.

However, I agree that 4 per month (or hell, 52 per year) is a better way to allocate quota.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:51 PM on January 17, 2005

There have been 28 new questions and 461 comments posted since your last visit

Ask MetaFilter is a discussion area for sharing knowledge among members of MetaFilter.

My last visit was yesterday! The 20,000+ of us must realize that some one with answers will also need a lot of spare time to wade through all those limited posts.
Consider the congestion if each of us could post unlimited questions. On balance, Matt's restriction of one post per week might be considered as being in the best interest of the community, if not in the best interest of a mefite with a burning question.
posted by Cranberry at 3:32 PM on January 17, 2005

Other places to ask: Ars Technica forums (free, tech), Something Awful forums ($10, but lots of eyes), Straight Dope General Questions forum (free for 30 days).
posted by smackfu at 3:46 PM on January 17, 2005

52 a year allows someone to go on a havoc-wreaking 2-a-day month-long binge before the burn out. Too generous.
posted by cortex at 4:11 PM on January 17, 2005

I'd like to see a popup window when a user clicks the Post button:

"Do you swear on a stack of [your perferred text] that you spent at least 10 minutes on google trying to find an answer before posting it here?"

That would get rid of at least 10-15% of the questions off the bat.
posted by gwint at 4:19 PM on January 17, 2005

I second that proposal. And would add that when posting a reply, you get a window asking whether you actually have anything helpful to say or are just chitchatting.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:42 PM on January 17, 2005

52 a year allows someone to go on a havoc-wreaking 2-a-day month-long binge before the burn out. Too generous.

Exactly. Some AskMeholic will go on a manic spree, post 52 questions in 36 hours, then jump off a cliff when s/he realizes s/he can't post again for close to 12 months.
posted by Shane at 5:13 PM on January 17, 2005

Anyone know of comparable places to ask on a wide variety of subjects?

http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/

This is an Australian science chat Q+A site. It's tied in with a popular scientist (Dr Karl) and Australia's government-owned media beastie (ABC, aka Aunty, aka Our ABC).

The regulars don't fling too much faeces if you ask an off-topic question. Just add "(non sci)" at the end of your thread heading.

Free registration required. Discussion is in real time, updates every 45 seconds or so.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:53 PM on January 17, 2005

Exactly. Some AskMeholic will go on a manic spree, post 52 questions in 36 hours, then jump off a cliff when s/he realizes s/he can't post again for close to 12 months.

Or create another account....

The best solution to this is already being taken care of: categories. Once ask.mefi is organized a bit better, it'll be much easier to rummage through all of the questions.

When that's under control, then it's just a matter of how long to let threads live. A whole 'nother topic!
posted by id at 6:01 PM on January 17, 2005

Yes, categories is a great response to this problem. And perhaps the limit can apply to categories, instead of AskMetafilter as a whole?
posted by sic at 12:43 AM on January 18, 2005

Why does everything roll off the front page then? Can't we just have it go away by month or something? I'm assuming this is some sort of bandwidth issue, but I hate that I miss so many questions.

Also, if I ask a fun question and then later have an urgent one, I'm just screwed for a week? I'd like some option.
posted by agregoli at 11:00 AM on January 18, 2005

If a question is truely urgent the answer is probably to call either a doctor or a laywer.

Or you could email another MeFi member and ask them to post it.

Or you could pony up the five bucks (if you'll do business with the evil that is paypal).

Or you could ask it over on MoFi. Not quite the membership but just as smart as here. And no limits as far as I know.
posted by Mitheral at 2:55 PM on January 18, 2005