Edit: Alright, it’s been more than 48 hours! We got lots more feedback this time, and most of it has been in support of the idea! I’m going to give this a try, and see if it gets any traction. If not many people end up using it I can always just unpin and let the post fall down the sorting list.
@wjs018@beehaw.org made an interesting point about pinned comments being less visible to folks browsing from feed other than /c/science itself, but I’m hoping that having the pinned post might let some folks realize that asking questions is even allowed on this community in the first place! I’ll make it clear that asking questions as a separate post is also allowed (at least for now, may change if the feed ends up being flooded by them but that’s the opposite of the current situation so I’m not too worried).
Original text of this post below:
So it turns out if you set a language on your post, anyone who hasn’t explicitly picked any languages in their profile can’t see it. So I’m gonna repost this with no language selected and see if we get a little more feedback this time.
There were a couple of Q&A posts here
yesterdaythe other day that got some pretty good engagement, and I was wondering if folks would be interested in a weekly/biweekly pinned Q&A post?
I don’t think it makes sense at this point to do anything like reddit’s /r/AskScience does in terms of organizing themed panels or vetting people’s credentials, nor is that something that’s really supported by lemmy as a platform at the moment. It seems, though, that we do have a fair number of users around who are working scientists and engineers in a pretty wide variety of fields.
So: if a pinned Q&A post existed, would you ask questions? Likewise, would you contribute answers? If you wouldn’t use it, I’d love to know that too! Do you think it would be better to leave things as they are and just ask questions in post form? Let me know here in the comments, and also of course feel free to raise any additional thoughts or concerns you might have. If it seems like enough folks are interested I can set up a thread to try the idea out.
I would certainly try to contribute answers if the questions are in my field (engineering). That said, the reddit q&a posts didn’t often have any questions I felt qualified to answer, so I suspect I’ll be a lurker most of the time.
Same, but I’m just starting my second year in biology. I might be able to answer some easier questions, but past that… well.
That counts in my eyes!
I’m for this. I would endeavor to participate regularly, but i imagine I would miss it often.
So: if a pinned Q&A post existed, would you ask questions?
Probably no.
Likewise, would you contribute answers?
Probably yes.
Do you think it would be better to leave things as they are and just ask questions in post form?
Why not try it? The mod team could simply create a Q&A post, pin it, and see if users use it.
I feel like at least some people would, as they’d be uncomfortable creating a new thread “just for this tiny question”. But I may be wrong.
Hello. I am a particle astrophysicist with a strong computational background. Can answer questions relevant to my areas of expertise if I see them.
I would contribute answers in the life sciences. Hope this can take off. :)
Happy to answer questions in my field (Physics/Material Science PhD, currently work in pharma R&D). I don’t tend to see the pinned posts beyond the first day or so since I usually just browse subscribed/hot rather than checking out individual communities (also currently on vacation). So, for visibility’s sake, I think it preferable to keep questions as separate posts. If the volume of question posts grows too large, that could facilitate the creation of /c/askscience perhaps.
With that said, if a pinned post is the decision, I don’t mind somebody pinging my username to answer a question I might not see. Perhaps building a list of volunteers in different fields that are willing to answer?
This is good feedback! The intent would be to prompt people to ask (and answer) questions by pinning a post where people can see it and maybe realize that’s something the can do, but yeah if most folks aren’t going to the individual communities it might have the opposite effect 🤔
I’m not a scientist, would read it though.
My wife tells me, “I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt!” Sure I will answer questions! ;) Sometimes I will ask too - even if I think I already know!