How to make good answers to bad questions more visible?

Question

When looking at a list of questions, for example on page https://cs.stackexchange.com/, we tend to assess the interest of the whole compound question+answers+comments from the vote rating given to the question itself. But that rating is usually supposed to be more a rating of the question alone and the way it was asked.

Furthermore, a question may be uninteresting as asked, but have interesting answers, possibly only one, that may be worth looking at.

This answer may be ignored because the question has a poor vote rating. Low viewing will result, and there may be no reason for another answer.

This happens quite often, and seems unfair to people who try to give interesting answer even when the question is questionable. It is also a loss for users who might have been interested by the answer.

The following question was asked today: Finding context free grammar for this language?

Right now, it is downvoted to -1, actually +1-2. This may be a fair rating, for a rather trivial question.

However, I found that the answer given by Rick Decker had an interesting remark (it was for me), and I upvoted it, which I do not usually do for answer to very trivial questions.

I may of course be wrong in my assessment (I am far from knowing or remembering all the available information). But if I am right, then Rick Decker's interesting remark is wasted.

On the question page, the question shows as: votes: -1, answers: 2, views 29 after 11 hours.

A possibly undesirable side-effect may also be that people may upvote a question they answer so as to attract attention on their answer, even though the question may not deserve it.

So, the above is the problem, as I see it.

Regarding the solution:

One possibiliy would be to rate by a separate vote the question, and the whole set of question+answers+comments. But that is too complicated and heavy on users.

Another solution, much simpler, whould be to rate questions in lists with the highest vote received by the question or any of its answers.

Then the question would appear on page https://cs.stackexchange.com/ with the vote rating +1 due to to the upvote on the first answer, instead of the -1 vote on the question itself (which would of course remain at -1 on the page of the question).

This is not the first time I encounter such a situation, and that is why I am bringing it to your attention.

Maybe that is easy to do. Are there reasons not to do it?

Answer 1

EDIT THE QUESTION

Most visitors find threads on Stack Exchange after searching on Google. Google gets us about 85% to 90% of our traffic. Other search engines, and searches inside Stack Exchange, only account for a small minority of the traffic.

So if you want a question to be found, make sure that Google finds it. I don't know how much attention Google pays to votes, but I'm pretty sure it's not much, if it uses them at all. Do make sure that keywords that people might use to search the question are present.

Pay attention to the title: not only does Google give it a high weight, but it's also the primary way in which people decide whether to follow a search result. Make the title as specific as warranted (“Finding context free grammar for this language?” is awfully generic).

Editing posts to improve them, make them more readable, make them easier to find, etc. is strongly encouraged. Editing is the most open action on Stack Exchange: not only does it have no reputation requirement, but it can even be done without bothering to create an account (unlike asking and answering). There are new badges to encourage editing questions that you answer.

Searches on Stack Exchange show the score of the post, and higher-scoring posts are likely to get more views. But it's enough to have a high-scoring answer, no matter what the question's score is. The score of the question only matters for a few hours while it's near the top of the front page.

Answer 2

This is not a new issue. However, let's check your premises.

1. we tend to assess the interest of [a page] from the vote rating given to the question itself

   Is that so? There's also the number of views. Given that good SE content is mostly accessed via search engines (not via the question list) -- and that's by definition -- this number may be a better indicator. Note furthermore that the hot questions list does list several questions with negative score in prominent positions.

2. This answer may be ignored because the question has a poor vote rating. Low viewing will result, and there may be no reason for another answer.

   Citation needed. The data explorer may be able to help you.

And now we come to the core issue:

Furthermore, a question may be uninteresting as asked, but have interesting answers

If you have a good answer to an otherwise useless question (and there is no better question for your answer, e.g. a reference question) then edit the question to be useful (or post a new one).

I did this myself at least once; this one started out as a bad dump and I made it a reference question.

I don't think that's often possible for homework dumps, but then answers to such would likely be very localized, too (if they don't fit to a more general question).