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You love your site and we love your site, but there is a whole world of people out there who might not even know it exists. When they do find it, their first impression will either scare them away or keep them around. Given this, let's take a hard look at the questions and answers here and make sure newcomers see the site at its best!

Below you'll find ten questions randomly selected from this site. What do you think about each of them and their answers? Are they the best they can be or can they be improved? Would they look interesting and inviting to an outsider or are they a little embarrassing?

Upvote the corresponding post here on meta when we're awesome. Downvote when our content just isn't quite up to par.

Oh, and do comment to let everyone know your thoughts and take part in this conversation. :)

10 Answers 10

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9

What is an "unspent output"?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • 2
    This is the way an honest question should look. There's a lot of ethical gray area surrounding self-answering, but in this one case at least ripper did it right. He asked a question, found the answer ~10 minutes later and posted it,. then almost 8 hours later Chris posts his truly excellent and thorough answer, it gets upvoted and even accepted over the self-answer. This makes me quite happy to see.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:48
  • @DavidPerry - I actually knew the answer when I posted the question. It is sometimes a good idea on StackExchange to do this. It's like writing a wiki entry, but it gives other people the chance to give better answers.
    – ripper234
    Commented Oct 2, 2012 at 23:39
7

Does merged mining require clients to download both blockchains?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • Good question, good answer, it's only got the one answer but it's correct, upvoted and accepted. I'm not sure why there's a close vote for "off topic" as the question clearly belongs here. It's borderline with only 1 answer but I'll give it a +1 for the excellent clarifications in comments.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 1:01
  • Simple question with a simple answer, clearly explained, with a bit of further details in the comments. Can't ask for much more.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:08
7

Can a miner remain anonymous?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • The question is good, for a new user, and it's got a couple of decent answers. The new user even accepted an answer, which seems uncommon now that I'm looking at these questions critically, so good for Joshua. My only criticism is that the question's title doesn't really match the questions content very well.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:58
  • I think the answers we have do a reasonably good job of answering the question. The answers all seem to assume a solo miner though, so an answer covering pooled mining would be nice.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:04
2

Can I spend a coin sent to myself before it confirms?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • Maybe it's not just new users who don't accept. This one is from a user with almost 7k rep and he didn't accept an answer, nor did he comment as to why. Other than that, the question is quality, as is the answer - even going so far as to cite the bit of code that governs the answer along with a good explanation. If we could get Stephen to either accept an answer or tell us why he didn't I would consider this a model question.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:46
  • The tags are not very helpful. Someone with great knowledge of bitcoin-qt might not realize this question is for them.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:07
2

Is Proof of Stake a hard-fork?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

3
  • 1
    It's honestly hard to vote this one up or down. I don't really like the way the question was asked - it relies too much on links to give context. On the other hand, there's more than one answer, they're all good answers and the best answer has a few upvotes and has been accepted. I'm going to give it a +1 for the answers but the question itself could use some work, IMO.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:37
  • 1
    This just isn't a very good question.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:09
  • This is an awkward question as it's not really relevant to the Bitcoin concept.
    – Shamoon
    Commented Sep 11, 2012 at 13:26
2

Bitcoin Block Download frozen

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • I think we did... OK... on this one. Just OK. I think it's great that Kumala stuck with the question until he got it resolved and I applaud the instinct to take the conversation elsewhere after 9 comments but I really wish he'd used SE chat instead of jumping to email so that we'd have a record of it. I also wish Alyssa had accepted his answer and that more folks had voted on it, but all of that sort of washes out and leaves us with a Q&A that's just... OK.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:34
  • This is (or at least was) a pretty common problem. It's kind of a shame that there's no answer that clearly walks through how to solve it.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:05
1

Is there an easy way to purchase Bitcoins?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • I'm beginning to notice a pattern with new users not accepting answers and I'm kind of wondering what we can do about it... Other than that, I'd like to see more voting going on but otherwise the question was good and the top-voted answer is both correct, thorough and polite. I'm pretty happy with this one
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:43
  • It is tough to give this question a good answer because it's a localized question. It's unfortunate that we don't have a "generic" answer that talks about the categories of ways to buy bitcoin and how you would find things in that category.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:11
1

Can more than 1 block be solved per 10 mins on average (LONG TERM)?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

3
  • This one gets a -1 from me because of the answers only. There are 5 answers here and this isn't the kind of controversial question that can actually get 5 completely different answers. Some of the answers are copies of the currently top-voted answer and a couple others are one step short of calling the asker an idiot, which there's plenty of on the forums and we certainly don't need here. If there's any question that this is detrimental, note that this was the asker's first, last and only action on this site.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:41
  • I'm not as unhappy with these answers as David Perry is. We do have at least one answer that explains the mechanism pretty clearly and we have several that explain why this isn't really sustainable.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:14
  • Yeah, I agree that it's not that bad. Lots of answers is not really a problem as long as good answers are at the top.
    – D.H. Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 18:52
-1

Psychological price

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

2
  • This question might be a hair on the subjective side and if econ.SE had survived I might have suggested it would be a better fit there, but it's just close enough that I'll allow it. The asker has phrased their question well, it solicited a few good answers and one was upvoted/accepted. That's enough to merit a +1 IMO, even if the question is verging on off-topic.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:52
  • Even though the question is phrased well and could be a pretty interesting discussion I don't think that it fits very well here. It's more about psychology than Bitcoin and it will "solicit debate, arguments or extended discussion". So I'll downvote it here even though I'd be happy to have the discussion at a forum.
    – D.H. Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 10:00
-4

Is performing a 51% attack / double spend on Bitcoin illegal?

What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.

3
  • 2
    I almost want to close this question, actually. "Is x illegal in the U.S./Europe" is soliciting way too many responses. Europe includes 47 member nations, each with their own laws, and the U.S. has an over-arching federal law system and 50 states with their own laws. That's 98 different jurisdictions he's asking about, each with a potentially different answer. Add to that the fact that there's no precedent and lots of fuzzy gray area and this question seems unanswerable to me.
    – David Perry Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2012 at 0:56
  • It's a vague question that invites speculation. But I'm pretty happy with my own answer.
    – David Schwartz Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 6:15
  • 1
    I'm with Perry here. The combination of it being a legal question and that it's not specific to a jurisdiction makes it pretty bad.
    – D.H. Mod
    Commented Sep 9, 2012 at 18:54

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