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We all love Software Quality Assurance & Testing 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!

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Reset to default
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One thing I have noticed, which isn't directly related to the meta-topic, is that the majority of questions are answered (and with correct answers, too!) but are never accepted by the originator. Is there something that can be done about this?

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Final Results

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 2)

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

Net Score: -3 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 4)

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

Net Score: -4 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 4)

Net Score: -6 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 0, Needs Improvement: 6)

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Let's get critical. What a great call to action for QA.

No question has more than 7 votes and the selection criteria for these questions is unknown. Looking at the net score and then looking at the questions I see no pattern; I find the net score to be a meaningless metric.

Like most of us I'm participating here to give something back to our field. In particular I value helping newbies.

However I feel that there's a lot of editorializing and proselytizing in the answers. Examples that come to mind are questions merely containing xpath receiving answers/comments gratuitously upselling css.

For what it's worth I think the site would be better if:

  • the point reward for accepting answers was balanced such that it became the norm
  • flexing one's expertise in the face of obviously low quality code was downvoted more
  • decent answers didn't languish with zero votes
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  • While we can't do anything about a low accept rate (only the original asker can (or should) be able to do that) we can do something about good answers that need upvotes. You can find those with the Unanswered tab. Questions that need answers are in there, but a question whose answers are non-voted are considered unanswered.
    – corsiKa Mod
    Apr 16, 2015 at 21:24

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