Why aren't Great Questions valued as much or more than Great Answers on Fluther?

I really have no business even answering any questions after my Cow Q, forget about posing them. I was laughing hysterically and thought if it was that funny in my own head I might as well put it out there. Turns out…not such a great question. So…my answer is, some questions sound better before they’re posted…and the post-post just doesn’t match up. Overall, people try…but you’re right, the success rate for quality question delivery is underwhelming.

if you ask a bad question, you only hurt yourself. if you answer badly, then you hurt yourself, the question asker, and everyone else who reads your lousy answer.

therefore, i support the philosophy of incentivizing good answers more than good questions.

fluther is all about the great answers people post

There seems to be more effort involved in answering a question than asking, so therfore a carefully thought out answer is more valuable in my opinion.

on the same lines as scamp…I believe that the idea of the site is getting answers. I rarely deem a question as “great” unless it really makes me think or it cannot be answered with a Google Search. If someone gives a great answer, i’m more likely to award that person because it helps their credibility. If you see a person with a higher score, would you not generally assume that they know what they are talking about? Sure, everyone has to start out with a low score, so you can’t discount those answers, but I’m just speaking generally.

So, if a person were to receive all of their points through “great questions”, would you trust their answers as much? You won’t know where they got their points, but just imagine that you could.

Yes… all of your responses make sense to me. But being new to Fluther and witnessing the turmoil over all the new users in the community, it seems to me that having a quality question more easily sparks a quality discussion. I could be wrong. So why not reward quality questions more than we do now?

Here’s a wild idea – what if there were two scores, one for answering and one for asking?

How about making a click on “Great Answer/Question” be of more value when it has been done before? The more “Great Answer/Question“s, the more you are awarded :)

Andrew,

Please stop enjoying your portable dishwasher and finish your thought. :) I think I speak for all of us when I say: I would really like to hear what you have to say about this subject.

+1 :)

Ah, so you were just demonstrating the feature xD

@Trustinglife I don’t understand your idea. There are two separate scores in place now. I think you get 3 points for a great question and 5 for a great answer do you not?

@scamp, my wild idea in response to ccatron, was that we’d have a separate score for questions and answers. So our current score would be split to reflect the source of our score: great questions or great answers.

Oh! (slaps forehead)You mean the way others can see your score under your user id when you post? I thought you didn’t know that we already score differently when we earn points. Now I see what you mean. Thanks for clearing that up for me.