Let's get critical: Apr 2015 Site Self-Evaluation

Question

We all love History 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!

Answer 1

Just went through and did mine (how did I miss this post for half a month?)

I ended up giving about 50/50 Excellent and Satisfactory. Most of the satisfactories were docked for some combination of low Google rank and/or lack of good alternate answers. That's a huge improvement over my previous evals. My last one had 3 "Needs Improvement"s on it, and that was my best one yet.

Perhaps we lucked out on the questions, perhaps we had a really good quarter, or perhaps I'm just giddy today.

Looking over the responses so far, I'm a bit more optimistic that most, but not out of the park. There was one user who rated nearly everything NI, but for the most part I'm not seeing a ton of those.

Answer 2

The set I got was also about 50/50 Excellent/Satisfactory, with one NI.

In half of the Satisfactory answers the problem was that the question was too shallow, and already more than adequately answered by a wikipedia page, so only a brief restatement was given. In the other half, the answer was ok but lacked references.

Answer 3

Final Results

• Can anyone identify this warship?

Net Score: 19 (Excellent: 20, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

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• Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?

Net Score: 15 (Excellent: 16, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

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• What was the mortality rate of Gladiators?

Net Score: 14 (Excellent: 15, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 1)

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• The monumental/architectural sculptures of Petra - has there been any research on the likely craftsmen who executed them?

Net Score: 12 (Excellent: 14, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 2)

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• Why did Abraham Lincoln choose Andrew Johnson as a vice presidential running mate?

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 4)

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• Did the Yuan Dynasty ever occupy Hainan?

Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 13, Needs Improvement: 3)

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• When was the "New Kingdom" of Egypt first called that?

Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 10, Needs Improvement: 3)

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• What killed Takeda Shingen?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 15, Needs Improvement: 3)

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• Was Islam really responsible for the Italian Renaissance?

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 11, Needs Improvement: 4)

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• How big a factor was the failing economy to the downfall of the Roman Empire?

Net Score: -10 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 11)

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