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My question today has essentially already been asked. The reason I've decided to ask it again in a different question is because the question mentioned was asked 6 months ago, and also that what I'm asking today is not exactly the same but very similar.

This stack's beta has been extremely successful so far. Participation is very good, question quality (in my opinion) is fairly high (albeit certain questions aren't perfect), and overall content has remained fresh and useful. All of our stats on Area 51 are 'excellent' except for questions per day(QPD), which are 'okay'. My question is, why would we not try to boost QPD slightly in order to make all of our stats read 'excellent'? I understand that we don't want quality to fall but I feel like we have the user-count to support 1.2 more QPD so why wouldn't we try to get there? Can we (as a community) support that growth without sacrificing quality? Also, If not, what is stopping us? And finally, What 'cons' are there in achieving 10 QPD?

Also, if this is too redundant because of the similar question let me know and I'll just take it down (I really won't mind), just trying to bring this up because it bugs me!

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    $\begingroup$ I think the fortnightly challenge has helped me try and come up with more questions. I don't always ask them, but I'm sure it helps overall. $\endgroup$
    – DaaaahWhoosh
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 16:05
  • $\begingroup$ @DaaaahWhoosh definitely. It also helps to boost tags that lack volume and I think that's really important too! $\endgroup$
    – wposeyjr
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 16:06
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    $\begingroup$ We actually spent a while with Area 51 being all green. It's not bad now. Some ebb and flow is to be expected. If we can raise the question count without sacrificing quality then that's great, but I'm not too concerned about where we are either. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 16:16
  • $\begingroup$ @MonicaCellio agreed. We aren't even close to a dangerous amount. I just think like why would we not strive for excellent ya know? $\endgroup$
    – wposeyjr
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 16:23
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    $\begingroup$ Agreed -- let's keep trying to do even better than we already are. This is an awesome site; keep up the good work, everybody! $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio Mod
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 16:31

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What we should never do is sacrifice question quality in search of quantity. We've spent considerably time with the question stat in the green, sometimes it drops below. Sometimes it rises above. In fact whenever a particularly successful question challenge happens that tends to push us over the edge.

There is no reason to worry about the future of this site, sites with far worse performance have been kept running. Yes all stats green will no doubt help us rise up the rankings towards graduation - but all graduation does is give us a fancy user experience overhaul. Everything that you can do on a graduated site you can already do on this beta one.

There is also a long queue for graduation, so people should be focusing on making the site as good as they can and not on worrying about a graduation that may well still be years away.

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I more or less agree with Tim, but I'd like to add an extra dimension to why we should be content with lower number of questions.

Questions in world building are fundamentally different from questions in most other SE sites. In most sites you simply want to know something you don't already know and make a clear question of it. All that is required is ignorance of something and literacy.

World building on the other hand starts with creating a hypothetical situation and being able to communicate it well enough for others to understand. And then you ask a question about some aspect of that hypothetical.

Most sites allow asking some kinds of hypothetical questions, some require some degree of creativity, and some require more of the question than others. But surely world building has one of the highest levels of effort required per question asked around.

As such I submit that the number of questions asked is not directly comparable with that of other sites as a measure of user commitment. Simply because in reality more commitment per question is required here than on most other sites.

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  • $\begingroup$ Wow super interesting. Hadn't even considered this thanks! $\endgroup$
    – wposeyjr
    Commented May 14, 2015 at 22:30

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