science Q&A post?

Science@beehaw.org – 16 points – 1 years ago

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 ~~yesterday~~ the 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!

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.

I'm for this. I would endeavor to participate regularly, but i imagine I would miss it often.

I would contribute answers in the life sciences. Hope this can take off. :)