Meh. It might not be high quality enough

It is essentially seeding

Uh, you know that you can actually just check the little box that says "answer my own question right away" if that was your intention all along.

I think in 50 minutes when I get votes, I am going to upvote all the burn notice content

@NapoleonWilson really, I didn't know that?

...

It wasn't my intention at the exact second I clicked "post this question" or whatever the button says

@Flyk Really or "really"? In the former case, there is a little check box, so it will post both things the same time. That is the proposed way for BlogOverflow questions.

my intention at that point in time was (a) coffee (b) chat (c) the next question

@Flyk uhuh.

I achieved all of those things and then went "oh, you know what, I might as well just answer the first question while I think up the third question"

Why all this big motivation to ask suddenly anyway (not that it would be a bad thing)? Seeing that you seem to actively try to come up with questions.

it's just the next thing, isn't it?

what, you want me to go inactive once I finish cleaning up? :P

I don't want to use the words but basically, I think most of the content on this site in comparison to the rest of the network is a little... basic

"not that it would be a bad thing"

I find it hard to ask here, because I would normally just google it

@Flyk Uh, I don't!

@Flyk Your fault!

and I struggle to judge what would be useful content in the context of movies and TV, because most movies and TV are relatively simple in comparison to the things I'd normally do

@Flyk The next thing after/before what?

so sure, I'll just ask a bunch of Stargate questions until I feel we have a sufficient amount of Stargate content, and then I'll probably do the same with Burn Notice, and then NCIS, and then I'll be stuck

@NapoleonWilson comments, edits, votes, closures, deletes, metas, ask, answer

@Flyk I don't think so, but well, that's you. To each his own.

@Flyk Well, as long as they're reasonable and good questions, sure.

hence deletions -.-

@Flyk This isn't a strictly linear process, though.

on here, I don't know if it's a good question

on gaming, it's pretty obvious

since you're asking about an actual thing, rather than the interpretation of some story

@Flyk uhuh.

on stackoverflow, it's pretty obvious, you're asking about a specific problem that definitely has an answer

@Flyk And that is less "basic"? Duh, nevermind.

@NapoleonWilson In the context of providing authoritative answers (ie: SE's goal), content about tangible stuff like game mechanics or writing code rank higher in my head than interpretations of story

and I do love a good story question (as evidenced by my Mass Effect answers on Arqade)

@Flyk Well, still that doesn't seem to equate to any definition of "basic" or "not basic" for me, though. But ok, might just be a misunderstanding or whatever.

but that was primarily because other people were asking about something that I had fully absorbed (since I played Mass Effect through so many times, every story arc, every character combination, etc)

@NapoleonWilson it probably came across as an insult and that wasn't my intention

@Flyk Well, of course. Answering is always easier than asking. That's common fact on SE.

put it this way, I would never ask this question:

I only asked that because you said "oh that's plot explanation"

and the reason I wouldn't ask that question is "well, the answer is surely somewhere later in the story? Just watch it..."

but that's like... most of the questions on this site

let's go with many, instead of most

@Flyk Well, not so much an insult (or did it?). Anyway, I react sensitive to significant users supposedly talking down the site or their abilities to contribute. That might simply be overreaction on my part.

I would neither say that I am a significant user nor talking down the site

my abilities to contribute, sure, I can contribute in a generally invisible manner (from everybody else's point of view, anyway)

@Flyk Well, nobody says there isn't a proper chance you didn't get that later explanation. And maybe someone can properly explain it to you.

but if I ask a question for every time I've wanted to know a plot point a few seasons too early, that's hundreds of questions

oh, I know the answer

I just can't be bothered with that much typing right this very second

plus I'd have to research some quotes

@Flyk Well, ok, "many" I can live with far better than "most", I guess.

which I'm sure are in season 7

but 20 episodes per season and the chance it could be in any of the first 8 seasons

that's a lot of rewatching

@Flyk That's why I talked aobut "supposedly" and "overreaction".

one day I will run out of things to flag

on that day, I'll also have run out of things to vote for and things to edit

@Flyk Nobody says you shoudl ask them all. Of course there are obvious stupid plot-explanation questions and very good and interesting ones. And ones somewhere in between.

like, 120 days away even

who are they obvious for?

I answered a question about how surveys happen earlier

and the other day I googled for "captain america picks up thors hammer"

And that were reasonable and good answers, so what?

the metric for usefulness is "not stupid or obvious"

yet I just provided two "good" examples of which one was stupid and the other was obvious

@Flyk Sure, that's why I said there are bad and stupid plot-explanation questions and ones that aren't too obvious and pretty interesting. You know, uh, good questions and bad questions?

sure, and I get to delete my bad ones, right?

because there's no point having bad content around

@Flyk Not if the community doesn't agree with you that they're bad, I think.

Of course we don't run around and delete every kind of bad question answer, that's what friggin' votes are for, to asses what is actually good or bad.

I imagine the actual "usefulness" metric would be unique page views over time

@Flyk Uh, no.

sure it would, doesn't matter if a question has 100 upvotes if it only has 100 views

especially against a question with -5 votes and 1 million views

Oh sorry, the last flag dismiss was a misclick.

with the except of if the second question was an identification question

@Flyk No, that's an awful way to see it. Especially on a site with millions of questions that pertain to a very small audience anyway.

in which case it can die

@Flyk Still a shit question. Views are a stupid metric. Doesn't say people think that question good, only that they magically landed there, maybe because the overall topid is relevant.

@NapoleonWilson on a site with millions of questions, a question that has a million views is still super valuable

@NapoleonWilson erm, ultimately, views = SE gets paid

no point having a super perfect site suitable for a tiny audience if the company running it all goes bankrupt

@Flyk We don't friggin' care who's paid for what, though.

@Flyk It won't.

oh I'm not saying that they're in any trouble of it

I'm merely saying that having a bunch of flawless questions that nobody ever looks at is not as useful to the rest of the internet as one question that everybody looks at

@Flyk I don't know how you can employ such an exaggeratedly pragmatic upto cynic viewpoint, really. That's not how quality works.

@Flyk No, it's also about site quality. Otherwise we can just rename ourselves into idthismovie.SE.

upvotes are hardly a more reliable method of judging quality

@Flyk Of course they are.

also, interesting thing to note, most of our ID questions are low views

@NapoleonWilson nope, upvotes are cast by people just like views are, people are corruptible. People vote for friends, people only vote on a portion of content, people vote inconsistently

@Flyk Well, afterall they're of no use for anyone, so.

that's why I have so many questions with -2 downvotes on Arqade, even though they're otherwise highly voted posts

because I have 2 "friends" on Arqade who used to downvote all of my posts on a daily basis

Nice and reliable method of voting

@Flyk Better than people not actually reading that thing and still counting as view because of some wrong google search or because the topic but not the question appealed.

sure, but now we're arguing that both proposed methods are insufficient

there's also the "helpful content" counter, let's include that in the discussion

@Flyk Well, no system's perfect. But view as a measurement for quality is plain crap.

that's the entire internet being able to vote, not that people get any points for it

@NapoleonWilson not just views, but views are certainly useful

for example, you'd have a hard time convincing me that some content is "useful" if after 2 years it's still got less than 50 views

not that I'm suggesting we delete any of it

It's just that one question with 50 views over 2 years has the potential to have 50 upvotes

but those 50 upvotes would be completely meaningless, because the content didn't really add any value to the site

@Flyk You're using that word "useful", I'd subsitute it for "interesting".

I'm using "useful" not to judge the content, but to judge that content's effects on the site

for example, if... some movie was to come out

and we were the first site on the internet to answer key questions on that movie

people would google, and end up here - all of that content is useful

@Flyk Of course it did, it's a great question. And when it's about Felidae, nobody's gone read it. But those few who did found it aboslutely great.

some of those people would sign up, and post more content about the same movies

@Flyk Sure.

your little post with 50 views and 50 upvotes could be the most interesting post in the world

But that doesn't mean the question that don't have this effect are bad. They're also great questions because they're interesting and good for those who read them, no matter how few they were.

right but there is no site if you only have those super-interesting-but-nobody-is-really-interested-in-them questions

But well, if all you're caring for is dragging in new users then yeah, I'd yet again propose a rename to idthismovie.se

a site just for identifications would be horrible

there is/was one

it's called software recommendations

just avoid that plague, you might catch something

@Flyk Nobody talked aobut only having those. But you know what, the good and upvoted question on the famous movies with many views are also there.

we don't get enough of that though]

@Flyk It wouldn't if it was just about attracting users and providing content that actually of "use" to someone. But it's just plain uninteresting low-quality crap.

there are obviously a few new people here since I was last properly active and that's good

but I feel that we've lost just as many in the same period of time

@NapoleonWilson ID questions, except those super rare instances that do happen from time to time, are completely useless to everybody except the person who asked the question

@Flyk I don't think so, you're pessimistic and the actual extent to which this pessimism goes combined with those unusual attitudes towards quality and "usefulness" admittedly surprise and scare me.

scare you?

@Flyk That may be. It's a constant fight towards improving ourselves and maybe we don't make the biggest leaps or it's even stale. But I wouldn't call the situation a bad one.

@Flyk Sure, but they tremendously help those single users and as we all know everybody loves to ask them and they bring new users by the minute.

well, I didn't say it was bad, I just said it wasn't good

@NapoleonWilson do they actually bring new users by the minute? I know they've bought a few users but wasn't under the impression it was all that many

@Flyk And I wouldn't even go as far as saying it isn't good, because I'm optimistic about the site. Maybe I won't outright say it is good either, but well.

well I'm not pessimistic about the site, it graduated which means everything must be on at least a slight upwards curve

@Flyk Well, not users that stay, of course. ;-)

@Flyk uhuh.

I'm pessimistic about the quality of what questions I could ask here

@Flyk uhuh.

not helped especially by having recently gone through many of our older questions

some of which are really good and others... not so much

@Flyk Well, so like on every site.

so the point then, do I post a bunch of stuff I think meets or exceeds the average quality and then delete everything that everybody disagrees with or do I only post things I know are high quality and not post much at all

@Flyk Well, this depends on your quality standards yourself. But if they're high, then the latter, I guess. But just throwing stuff at the wall you're not sure is that good and then deleting all the stuff that might not be up to par for your own high quality standards in retrospect is crap when the community did not downvote your stuff and gave valid and reasonable answers.

well you can't delete stuff that has been answered

There is afterall a reason you can't delete answered questions.

so I'm not sure the issue is actually an issue

@Flyk I guess so (that it isn't one).

But I also am not sure what overly proactive deletion policy to expect from you, judging based on your previous actions. So it's better to be cautious before having you magically delete a bunch of your +1 questions all of a sudden, just because you think people didn't vote enough so they're bad.

if I have a question that has one upvote on it and it hasn't been answered and I still think it's crap, I'm still going to delete it

or two upvotes for that matter

but not three

since three starts messing around with site mechanics

saying that, I'd probably get away with three as well - there's even a badge for it