How are we doing?

Question

It has been 2 months since we launched. I was wondering how people (community, SE stuff is also more than welcome) are feeling about our current progress. What do you not like? What are we doing good?

Here is my answer;

I like our community and how we interact with each other. On the other hand, we don't have enough experts we need just yet. But it is ok I think, because it is really early in beta.

I don't like how we handle quality standards. I see beginner questions getting upvoted. Also, greetings in questions getting pass by even though we decided not to allow them.

I am currently worried about views per day, because it stuck around 700 for a while now. I thought it would have a steady increase. I am not sure if this is alarming or not, but it bothers me.

Overall, I am optimistic. I think we are doing good. We can easily graduate if don't turn into just another Islam forum.

Answer 1

what i don't like:

low quality questions, are passed off much too often. there are cut and paste questions, and some with no research at all. I think if its a new user, we should be easy on them, but downvoting is essential to anyone else.

I agree that the greetings are kinda out of hand. people fail to realize that this is a professional, expert website, open to people of all religions, or no religion at all.

The first tip that any teacher would give you if you are writing a letter to any professional business or contacting a college, is never start with a greeting, or introduce yourself.

This is business, and an expert website, not a social event, or a support group, that's what a forum is, and this is not a forum.

the suggestion to close a question isn't followed through fast enough, that gives too much time for people to see that question, and drive them away, or encourage them to post low quality questions. i advise people to visit the review page more often to help out the community.

what i like:

A lot of good questions are coming through, new users are beginning to participate more often. Low quality answers, are recognized quickly and downvoted on the spot.

there is good moderating going on, and edits happen often.

New users are treated nicely, and are encouraged to return, we tend to take it easy and calmly explain things they did wrong.

Answer 2

I really do like the quality of answers that come into here. I like how strict the policy is on references. My issue with most Islamic Q&A sites is that it's too easy to treat for someone to just take a really weak hadith or something from a 'scholar'/fatwa and have it treated as fact even when there's no facts backing it up. That doesn't happen here, and even when people do that they get challenged.

I like the level of tolerance here. You can't really find many sites that actually welcome both Sunni and Shia' opinions.

I don't like how people are voting. Votes are supposed to mean, "This is a well-researched high-quality answer." But people are using votes to mean "like" or "agree". An answer you disagree with, if properly argued, should probably be upvoted. As it is, you can have a good, well-supported answer but it gets downvoted.. or you can have a weak but popular 'personal opinion' answer that gets upvoted.

I don't like how our policy on references end up with answers getting so long that nobody reads them. I think quotes are good if they answer a question, but otherwise should be referred to as a conclusion. You can have an answer that's short, with personal opinions, as long as each opinion is sourced.

Views per day shouldn't really be a focus. The site ranks very high on Google. If you have good questions, the visitors will come.

Answer 3

What do you not like?

Self proclaimed scholars who claim they know more than the combined knowledge and research of the majority of properly educated scholars of islam.

What are we doing good?

Constantly trying to set standards and open to improvements.

we don't have enough experts we need just yet

Agreed.

I don't like how we handle quality standards. I see beginner questions getting upvoted. Also, greetings in questions getting pass by even though we decided not to allow them.

Why was this decided? Mods are making their own lifes hard by setting such rules...

I am currently worried about views per day, because it stuck around 700 for a while now. I thought it would have a steady increase. I am not sure if this is alarming or not, but it bothers me.

I can't really comment on this.

Overall, it seems to be a decent effort, although a confusing one at times.