HACKER Q&A
📣 saradev2025

What's the simplest mechanism that prevents Q&A platforms from decaying?


Over time, most Q&A platforms drift toward low-signal content.

My observation: the cheapest "quality multiplier" is forcing question structure (context, expected vs actual, repro steps, minimal snippet, what you tried).

If you could add only ONE mechanism to keep Q&A quality high long-term, what would it be?

stricter question templates / guardrails reputation incentives stronger moderation / review queues rate limits / anti-spam something else?

I'm collecting opinions from experienced devs and will build the top suggestion into an experiment.

  👤 saradev2025 Accepted Answer ✓
One angle I'm unsure about: templates vs incentives vs moderation — which one dominates long-term? If you've seen a Q&A community stay high-quality, what was the "secret sauce" (and what tradeoff did it accept: more friction, slower posting, stricter rules, etc.)?