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We love our site, but there is a whole world of people out there who might not even know it exists. When they do find it, their first impression will either scare them away or keep them around. Given this, let's take a hard look at the questions and answers here and make sure newcomers see the site at its best!

Below you'll find ten questions randomly selected from this site. What do you think about each of them and their answers? Are they the best they can be or can they be improved? Would they look interesting and inviting to an outsider or are they a little embarrassing?

Upvote the corresponding post here on meta when we're awesome. Downvote when our content just isn't quite up to par.

Oh, and do comment to let everyone know your thoughts and take part in this conversation.

Stack Exchange has stopped doing these site evaluations for every site, so we're going to do one ourselves. These are some randomly selected questions from 30-40 days ago. Try and take on the view of a first-time user and ask yourself "Are this post and it's answers useful? Is it better than other stuff out there?"

Leave a comment explaining your reasoning if at all possible.

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  • 1
    I totally stole the format from Cognitive Sciences' evaluation. Got the questions from a Stack Exchange employee using the same algorithm they get the "real" eval questions from.
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 12, 2012 at 19:53
  • 1
    I'm a real eval! /runs away
    – Aarthi Staff
    Commented Jul 12, 2012 at 20:08
  • 1
    Evaluation time has expired (not that it means much in this case) so I have ceremonially closed this post. Considering the amount of voters taking part, the evaluation seems quite positive.
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 4:30

10 Answers 10

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5

What is the purpose of a recruitment agency?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

1
  • The edits that were done to it really helped focus the question to a good one. The answers are fine as well.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 22:45
5

What's the correlation between guys with longer hair and professionalism?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

1
  • 2
    Although the question could have been phrased better, and at the end of the day it's about a young person not understanding the employee handbook, there's merit to the spirit of the question. The top two answers are good, and patient with the OP; the remaining answers are rather noisy.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 22:51
5

Am I damaging my reputation by arriving and leaving on-time?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

7
  • 1
    I can't vote one way or another -- I would upvote this for the core question being a fair one here; however, the text itself could be cleaned up especially in light of additional changes and more information given along the way. It's good that the info came out, but it does render some of the answers less specific than they could be (given they were written before edits, etc). But I would downvote on the quality of the answers (beyond what I mentioned above) because many of them stray from the question at hand.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 22:08
  • @jcmeloni quality of answers in this case could probably correlate to relatively high number of question views (>1K); this likely attracted some slippery answers; I favorited the question to return to it later and find out if some answers indeed deserve downvote
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 0:21
  • @gnat most of those answers are from insiders so I can't blame the Hackernews/reddit effect. Most posts that have hit reddit/HN will have some lovely non-answers at the bottom of the thread that I've deleted/converted to comments. This one doesn't
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 1:42
  • 1
    @Rarity right. This question doesn't have answers that look obviously bad to me - that's why I noted it will take time to figure ones (if any) deserving downvote. Pretty interesting case
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 1:51
  • 1
    @gnat what additional information/changes do you think should be addressed in the question? I edited in the info he gave in the comments
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 13:15
  • @Rarity well current Q wording tends to attract answers that swing a little too much so to speak, while managing to remain within the bounds of relevance. I'd consider Atwood's transform - y'know, into something like, "I work 5-9 while most my colleagues overtime. What do I need to learn to tell if this difference could impose a risk of damaging my reputation?" Transform Q to attract converging answers instead of diverging ones so to speak...
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 13:41
  • ...Transform Q to attract converging answers instead of diverging ones so to speak. Answers like You need to learn 1) legal specifics <for the following reasons> 2) company culture <for the following reasons> 3) your manager expectations <for the following reasons> - answers such that one could not post another answer suggesting opposite and feel right about it.
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 13:41
5

What to highlight as a new developer in an interview?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

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  • 1
    The core question is a good one; in a perfect world it would've been structured in such a way as to be less specific to the individual and more general, but the answer was a fine one that didn't go too deeply into localized answers (and where it did, it was clear it was an example that could be used as a template for others to fill in on their own).
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 21:38
4

Recruiting Recent College Graduates

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

1
  • 2
    A good question; the accepted answer is a good answer. The others are more comments than answers (a few were already converted) and one answer that was long and generated a lot of discussion on its own wasn't a particularly good answer (half OT, half repeating an existing answer) although it was clearly an honest attempt.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:28
2

How do I negotiate a higher parking allowance as an intern?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

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  • 3
    I actually like this question in theory -- I wish it were more of "how do I negotiate as an intern" and not specific to one thing like "parking allowance". I do believe we want to be a place that lets people at any level of their professional career ask for guidance, but something so specific and, well, trivial, doesn't help our perception. I answered this question pretty quickly after it was asked, specifically so I could give a pretty thorough answer and avoid what I thought would be a bunch of one-liner or discussion-y answers. Seemed to work...
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:35
  • @jcmeloni I usually delete one liner/discussiony answers anyway...
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 2:09
  • I convert them to comments, but it sure is nice to avoid having to either of those things. :)
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 2:47
1

Recovering from bad career decisions

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

1
  • 1
    I don't like this one as it stands; the question in the title is one that would be on-topic and useful to others, but the question actually is wrapped in personal examples so much as to be pretty localized. Both answers, while thoughtful and helpful for the user, speak directly to that localization. While I'm sure that some people will read this Q & its As and be helped by it, I think it's an example of something that we could've guided better, earlier (a few deleted answers speaks to that).
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:23
-1

Dealing with a bipolar boss

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

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  • 3
    Not a fan of this question purely because it's of the "non-professional health diagnosis" variety; if it were something like "my boss has told us he has X disorder and I want to know how best to work with him besides what HR might tell us" then that would get more toward the types of questions we want to foster. The answer is certainly thoughtful and helpful, though.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:31
-3

Should I consider how long I've been at a new job before trying to start a family?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • 1
    I don't like this question, because only the OP can say for sure. Points 1 and 3 in the OP's question completely depend on the company (which depends on the locale, and its laws), and point 2 would be best answered (if rephrased) at Parenting SE or something similar.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:38
  • 1
    for this one, it would be interesting to try "Atwood's transform" of recommendation type questions. How do I tell whether it's OK to start family soon after starting the job? What factors to consider to decide (what do I need to learn to tell) whether it's OK etc...? That's just a draft, "it's OK" part is to be clarified from the question context. The accepted answer actually fits the "transformed" question better, by listing things to consider. It is also probably worth tagging united-states, given the accepted FMLA-context
    – gnat
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 19:00
-4

Agreeing to mandatory arbitration as condition of employment -- what rights are given up?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

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  • 1
    What's wrong with this question? I don't disagree with the score at all, I'd just like more explicit feedback here. Due to the surprisingly high score on the question there appears to be some reason beyond "it sucks"
    – Zelda Mod
    Commented Jul 13, 2012 at 19:24
  • 1
    I think it is a very typical situation. It is clear what you are giving up, but the unstated question is how to put it in real terms. How likely are you to need arbitration, and how likely are you to win?
    – mhoran_psprep
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 2:13
  • 4
    I do not like questions that can only really be answered by a lawyer; in this case, the only person who could really answer "How much of her rights would she be giving up if she chose to sign this agreement?" would be someone reading the agreement and understanding it, e.g. a lawyer giving legal advice, which is not the same as a bunch of random people on the internet.
    – jcmeloni Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 1:42

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