Proxies for AskMe

January 20, 2006 2:43 PM

What's the general policy on getting someone else to post an askmefi question for you? I used up my question this week but need to ask another one and may not be able to wait the requisite week... why are we still limited to 1q/week? Can we introduce different "tiers" or highlighted questions or something? If the issue is hw/bandwidth/etc, where can we make a donation?
posted by arimathea to Etiquette/Policy at 2:43 PM (24 comments total)

why are we still limited to 1q/week?

Good quesiton for a FAQ, since it comes up often.

There are A LOT of questions on Ask MeFi every day now, which reduces the time people see it on the front page and the chance that they will be answered. More questions = less answers.

So while the membership continues to grow, one way to keep the reins on the daily question load at Ask MeFi is to limit everyone to once a week. Before the limit was in place, sometimes people were asking more than once a day, then they were asking every single day, and the quality of questions was quite poor, with most of these questions answered with a simple google search.

The one per week limit is there for a reason: to help put an upper limit on the number of questions per day, to encourage only the best questions that are asked when all other avenues are exhausted for the asker, and to keep any single user from dominating this community resource.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:48 PM on January 20, 2006

I think the limitations on questions is just top stop people posting their every thought and concern...to discourage people from posting unimportant questions by making them realize that they'll have to wait a week for the next one.

However, if you get someone else to post it (and don't mention the fact on Metatalk) I'm sure you'll get away with it.

Another option is Metachat.
posted by Jimbob at 2:48 PM on January 20, 2006

There's a limit so that people don't register, start yammering in askme, where posts already scroll off the main page faster than they should, and flood out other users who never have a chance to get their questions answered.
posted by boo_radley at 2:49 PM on January 20, 2006

Well, you weren't there on preview, I'll tell you that much.
posted by boo_radley at 2:49 PM on January 20, 2006

Regarding the different tiers, or organization changes to allow a greater number of questions, many things have been suggested but none that seem obvious. If you have an idea, please feel free to suggest it.

To answer your last question, donations are always welcome. See the bottom of this page.
posted by vacapinta at 2:52 PM on January 20, 2006

We definately don't need more questions per week. I think it would actually be a better resource with fewer questions overall but I don't know the best way to do that. One thought might be a way to delete crappy questions by voting, where a certain number of votes would delete a question. But that might get abused with people voting out questions about unpopular topics (like guns or something), regardless of the merit of the actual question.
posted by 6550 at 3:21 PM on January 20, 2006

The donation is $5. Just sign up for another account.
posted by smackfu at 3:40 PM on January 20, 2006

I certainly don't think the solution is to allow people the opportunity to ask more questions; I'd be in favour of reducing the question limit to, say, once every 10 days. We're getting about 70 questions per day at the moment which is a lot to keep up with.

Related - and perhaps causally - I've been noticing an awful lot of "has posted 20 questions and 0 answers to Ask MetaFilter" users recently. I love the community aspect of AskMe and hate it when people just use it as a free resource to be milked.

This isn't meant as an criticism of any user in particular, just a change I've perceived over a period of time.
posted by blag at 5:01 PM on January 20, 2006

I'd like to have the first question free, then after that? 1 question per week per 10 answers. Get a best answer? That counts double.
posted by boo_radley at 5:20 PM on January 20, 2006

1 question per week per 10 answers.

There lie dragons. How long before people start submitting stupid answers in order to make up their quota?
posted by Jimbob at 6:14 PM on January 20, 2006

The donation is $5. Just sign up for another account.

Doesn't that violate the spirit of the rule? It seems like bad citizenship to me.
posted by LarryC at 6:40 PM on January 20, 2006

boo_radley's idea has merit, though I think his/her numbers might be a little off. As for users posting fake answers to reach their quota, I think it would be pretty obvious if people were doing that - it's far easier to detect "noise" answers in AskMe than MeFi. Plus, stupid answers get deleted and therefore wouldn't count towards the user's ratio.

With respect, arimathea, you don't even have a 1:1 question:answer ratio.
posted by blag at 6:45 PM on January 20, 2006

arimathea posted "..may not be able to wait the requisite week.."

Um...you're kidding right? I was nearly going to say that most members who actually put their email address in their profile would be happy to help out if they can. But blag has pointed out an interesting statistic. Combined with your earnestness...wellllll there are a whole bunch of other sites out there that take questions and your favoured search engine would be your friend. Fast solution for a busy young professional.
posted by peacay at 6:58 PM on January 20, 2006

I agree with what's written above, and I'd add that many people turn to AskMe when they should instead be going to a doctor, a hospital, a lawyer, etc. If you're in a situation where you can't wait a week to ask, I wonder whether the internet is the appropriate resource.
posted by cribcage at 7:57 PM on January 20, 2006

what the fuck is WRONG with someone who HAS to ask a web site a question. call the library. discover google. ask the real people all around you. holy crap - would you TAKE the advice of someone so "answer-challenged"?
posted by quonsar at 3:31 AM on January 21, 2006

arimathea posted "I used up my question this week but need to ask another one and may not be able to wait the requisite week... "

See your doctor or call your lawyer.

boo_radley writes "1 question per week per 10 answers. Get a best answer? That counts double."

Nah, that just encourges noise, gets people spouting off on things they have no idea (or worse wrong ideas) about or results in a bunch of seconding of advice. Especially considering AskMe threads are now open for so long it'd be easy to comment in half a dozen 5 month old threads to get your reply numbers up.
posted by Mitheral at 4:42 AM on January 21, 2006

There lie dragons.
Because we certainly couldn't punish people for noise posts. Additionally, half of metafilter are junior members of the Internet Detective Squad, so I'm sure they'd get picked out and brought up for discussion fast enough.
posted by boo_radley at 7:14 AM on January 21, 2006

How about for every 10 best answers you get another question? Encourages quality.

If you can't wait another week and the question is that important, pay $5 for another account. Bam, you get to ask twice as many questions before eventually getting banned. Everyone is happy.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:47 AM on January 21, 2006

The problem with getting another account is you still have to wait a week before a new account can post.
posted by 6550 at 11:11 AM on January 21, 2006

Not everyone utilizes the "best answer" option. Not every question has a best answer. My point is that it's hard to get 10 best answers in order to earn a right to ask a question.

From personal experience, I don't have time to read over questions to find ones I can answer. And from lack of personal experience, there are a significant number of questions I can't answer.
posted by state fxn at 2:44 PM on January 21, 2006

What about a system where new questions go into a queue, and one question is showed to a registered user (in a sidebar or something) that that user can 'approve'. After a certain number of approvals, it goes onto the site.

AskMe, to me, is getting too busy. I can't scan the day's questions anymore, easily, or check back in on that thread that caught my eye. This might at least weed out the questions that should be 10, 15 second googles.
posted by devilsbrigade at 3:21 PM on January 21, 2006

The problem with getting another account is you still have to wait a week before a new account can post.

Isn't that just for the blue?
posted by mendel at 3:56 PM on January 21, 2006

No, you can't ask a question with a new account until you've registered for a week. My point above was that if arimathea truly has a dire need to ask a question within this next week, registering a new account won't help.
posted by 6550 at 4:23 PM on January 21, 2006

"been registered" sorry.
posted by 6550 at 4:24 PM on January 21, 2006