Let's get critical: Sep 2013 Site Self-Evaluation

Question

We all love Homebrewing Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.

The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.

Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Answer 1

I am coming late to this conversation. As an active user for about 40 days, here are my thoughts:

(1) I keep hearing about these FAQs, but where are they? I can't find them. Maybe we need to pin the FAQs, newbie Wikis, and most helpful answers to the right of the landing page like www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing does.

(2) There are too many questions asked by users with low reputation that never get an accepted answer or closed. Perhaps new users do not know they are supposed to accept an answer, or they post a question and never return. Is there a way to clean those up?

(3) It seems like so many of the questions that even intermediate brewers have are answered. There are not a lot of new questions to ask compared to earlier in the forum's life (when I was not around). Active users are fairly aggressive about pointing out questions that have been asked before. Maybe we need to have a culture that says that re-asking a question that is more than a year old, especiialy when the accepted answer has a score of less than X, is acceptable. For example, I would like to ask a question about how long I can keep milled grain, but the question was asked, and it got only one answer that is fairly good but not great by someone without really high reputation. I am a little afraid to ask it again, in hopes of getting a more detailed answer.

(4) The biggest problem seems to be a very low level of activity. I don't have any clever solutions.

Answer 2

Final Results

• How to oxidize my beer during transfer

  Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

• using a 6 gallon carboy as a secondary when brewing 5 gallons of beer

  Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

• Could I have accidentally made 19% cider by adding too much sugar?

  Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

• How often should a keg be disassembled and cleaned?

  Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

• Advice for filling a carboy

  Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

• Where can I find information about the yeast Saccharomyces Bayanus?

  Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

• Threaded portion of corny keg - removable?

  Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

• How can I save my beer after long delay before bottling?

  Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

• What is the best way to measure temperature in a swamp cooler?

  Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

• Should you adjust residual sweetness to account for carbonation level in a beer?

  Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)