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We're still struggling to reach traction with our # of questions/day. And I'm really concerned that this is going to end up closed, like the Astronomy/Economics SEs..

I have an idea: how about importing some of the best Earth Science questions from Reddit AskScience?

They have a lot of good questions there that could turn into good SE questions. I'm not advocating importing all of them. Just looking at the list and using our best judgment to select which ones to use.

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  • $\begingroup$ If you are truly concerned the site is headed for closing, the best thing you can do is recruit other people to the site. More people will naturally result in more questions. I also have noticed you are a pretty active asker, but one that sometimes appears to prioritize quantity over quality. Its great that you ask so much, but quality is what is going to attract more people to the site who will decide to stick around and help it grow. $\endgroup$
    – casey
    May 23, 2014 at 20:57
  • $\begingroup$ I agree that the best thing is to recruit other people. I've tried to do it (even with my supervisor), but no one joined (based on my experiences, this is a difficult problem, especially in geoscience). I have a lot of other things to do, so I try to help the site given the limited time I have, and asking lots of questions seems to be the best thing I can do for now. I think recruiting undergrads might be the way to encourage more people to ask questions, as they tend to ask more of them and have more free time. $\endgroup$
    – InquilineKea
    May 23, 2014 at 22:16

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Give it time. We've only been in beta for a little over a month. Some sites are in beta for years.

We should not stare us blind on a single statistic. It is important that we get good questions, but it is also very important to get a larger solid user base. Importing questions from another site (besides issues of copyright) does not automatically increase the number of users.

Moreover, we want to be better than the alternatives. Copying the alternatives is not going to help in achieving that.

I think actively copying questions from other sources is not a great idea.

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  • $\begingroup$ Okay... I just really really don't want to see this end up like the old Astronomy/Economics SEs... Do these sites ever get a warning if they're in danger of being closed? $\endgroup$
    – InquilineKea
    May 23, 2014 at 18:03
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    $\begingroup$ @InquilineKea I don't want to see that either, but I don't think your proposed solution helps to prevent that. It reminds me of some small-language Wikipedias who have created hundreds of thousands of articles automatically, with many articles almost completely unmaintained. We need to grow over the whole breadth of questions, answers, users, and, most importantly but most difficult to achieve or measure, quality. $\endgroup$
    – gerrit Mod
    May 23, 2014 at 19:40
  • $\begingroup$ @InquilineKea You'll start seeing ominous messages on meta from the community managers if the site is in danger of closure. $\endgroup$
    – senshin
    May 23, 2014 at 22:59
  • $\begingroup$ Okay thanks for letting me know. $\endgroup$
    – InquilineKea
    May 24, 2014 at 2:32
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    $\begingroup$ If anything, I feel that a lot of not-great questions would actually drive users away - at least, the type of users that we really want. $\endgroup$
    – Semidiurnal Simon
    May 26, 2014 at 11:18

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