Let's get critical: Jan 2014 Site Self-Evaluation

Question

We all love Gardening & Landscaping 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

Final Results

• Where'd the worms go?

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

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• What are the best components for producing compost which supply maximum nutrients?

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

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• What should I do to rescue grass from a petrol spill?

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

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• What could be causing my blueberries to have a funny taste?

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

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• Identify this Insect or Fungus. Possible Scale

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

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• What exactly happens to potting soil if it is stored for a long period of time?

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

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• Winter Watering time of day? At what temperature do I cover any of the plants with plastic tarp?

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

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• Identify this long leaved plant having big orange flowers

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

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• Can you grow plant roots in fish tank?

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

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• What is this large houseplant with long oval leaves?

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

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Answer 2

As research on stack exchange answers has shown the best way to get a good answer is to ask a good question.

Some of the questions whose answers I was asked to review were poor quality. The people who answered the questions did their best but it is hard to evaluate an answer when the question is of poor quality. Also, if the person asking the question does not understand the answer this is even more of a challenge.

1) What about evaluating the quality of the question based on the number of upvotes? You could limit the difficulty in evaluating by only choosing questions that have so many upvotes

2) Again I point out that asking users to evaluate their own questions is a procedure fraught with difficulty. Surely it can't be that hard to filter questions so you are only asked to evaluate answers you have not supplied?

3) in regards to "Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not?" I would rather evaluate the questions that have been closed to see if we are missing anything.