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Are we Going down hill?

In my last post a few people pointed out the that decline in average score and question count was not a good metric for showing the decline of this site.. So here is some additional evidence.

I Basically classified every question as Good, Bad or Ok
Good= A score >1 and Open

Ok= A score =1 and Open

Bad= A score <0 or Closed

Here is The Graph (Including a Line for total) enter image description here

Here is the SQL:

Select
    week.week
    ,good.cnt as Good
    ,ok.cnt as ok
    ,bad.cnt as bad
from 
    (select distinct 
        CAST(year(p.CreationDate) as char(4))+'-'+CAST(DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) as char(2)) as week 
        from Posts p
        where p.CreationDate>dateadd(yy,-1,getdate())) week
join 
    (select  
        CAST(year(p.CreationDate) as char(4))+'-'+CAST(DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) as char(2)) as week 
         ,count(1) as Cnt
        from Posts p
        where score>1 and Closeddate is Null
        group by   year(p.CreationDate),DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) 
    ) good on good.week=week.week
join 
    (select  
        CAST(year(p.CreationDate) as char(4))+'-'+CAST(DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) as char(2)) as week 
         ,count(1) as Cnt
        from Posts p
        where score=0 and Closeddate is Null
        group by   year(p.CreationDate),DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) 
    ) ok on ok.week=week.week
join 
    (select  
        CAST(year(p.CreationDate) as char(4))+'-'+CAST(DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) as char(2)) as week 
         ,count(1) as Cnt
        from Posts p
        where score<0 or Closeddate is not Null
        group by   year(p.CreationDate),DATEPART(wk,p.CreationDate) 
    ) bad on bad.week=week.week
order by week.week
19
  • 3
    Clearly the site is dead. Wait, does that make this a ghost account?
    – Michael K
    Feb 17, 2012 at 15:56
  • 3
    @Michael, I post these things because I want help make this place better. And the first step in doing that is smacking people out of denial.
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:00
  • 5
    @Morons The graph actually proves we are getting better, moving away from the troublesome early days when every crappy post was ridiculously upvoted... Help us clean up those early posts and the numbers will be quite different.
    – yannis
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:03
  • 4
    @Yannis is it also good that out total question count is Down 30% from One year ago? Please tell me, what metric will be good enough evidence for you?
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:08
  • 6
    @Morons In general, quality > quantity.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:09
  • 1
    @Anna, What metric (If not Question Score) can i use to measure quality?
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:11
  • 3
    I don't mind a drop of even that much or more if the "questions" lost are the ones we are constantly closing. What are we losing? Nothing.
    – Michael K
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:12
  • 4
    @Morons There are quite a few reasons why we would be getting less questions: 1) New SE sites, that are better homes for quite a few questions we used to accommodate, 2) Less crap finds it's way here from Stack Overflow, 3) We are doing a far better job cleaning up our own crap... Why are more questions automatically a good thing?
    – yannis
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:16
  • 2
    Ok, I understand.. For you, there is no evidence (or metric) that will is valid.
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:27
  • 3
    >>Why are more questions automatically a good thing : Simply because participation is the life blood of any social site.
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:28
  • 3
    blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand
    – Michael K
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:29
  • 1
    @Michael both Quality AND Quantity are going down. These two should not be at odds with each other. The goal should be to increase both.
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:31
  • 2
    @Morons Thankfully Programmers is a Q&A site, not a social site...
    – yannis
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:31
  • @Yannis But it is and was always meant to be. codinghorror.com/blog/2011/12/…
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:34
  • 1
    @All I'm not looking to argue with anyone, I simply think there is allot of room for improvement here.. And we should consider what those improvements should be. There is an absolutely culture of complacency here.. Any kind of negative talk if highly discouraged. I personally think it one of the biggest problems we have.
    – Morons
    Feb 17, 2012 at 16:40

1 Answer 1

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12

I think the top answers on your previous post already explain the trends in this graph. More people (myself included) are beginning to understand the direction that the Programmers community wants the site to go in, and we're voting and flagging accordingly. The actual proportion of Good/Bad questions asked may have stayed the same (or even gotten a little better), but your data only shows how we're reacting to it with downvoting and close votes. I've been spending a little bit of time each day voting on new questions that are good or bad. I don't go back and vote on old ones nearly as much.

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