2

I am just wondering for answer for my question.

Is there any waiting time average for a question to be answered in this forum?

It would be helpful because we can make a decision to ask to another person in the office (for example lecturer in university, etc.)?

Thank you

3 Answers 3

2

http://data.stackexchange.com/ubuntu/query/160298/average-answer-time

I found this on data for stackoverflow and just copied and removed tag grouping... gives 42min. average with a VERY high std. dev... doesn't really says much.

Of course, this may not be very precise, since many answered questions never get best answer selected.

And my observations says that the higher your reputation, the quicker an answer comes. hahahaha

EDIT: I should probably point out that I really don't believe these statistics! I looked for it just for fun. There are many things to consider if you're not getting answers here, that this simple query couldn't possibly consider: is your question well-written? Is it about a widely used tool/feature or something that nobody else even know it exists? Does it intrigues the reader (if your questions demonstrates you've tried everything the reader would have considered, he might be compelled to do some research too)? etc.

6
  • 1
    That wasn't correct... it was limiting to questions answered in less than 5 hours. Average is 10 days if you remove that, with 40 days stdev.
    – GabrielF
    Jan 16, 2014 at 18:26
  • Corrected query: data.stackexchange.com/ubuntu/query/160304/average-answer-time
    – GabrielF
    Jan 16, 2014 at 18:34
  • And I'm wrong about higher rep => quicker answer: data.stackexchange.com/ubuntu/query/160306/average-answer-time. I used round(log(reputation)) on RepGroup... you can do the math: rep = 1 => group 0; 2 <= rep <= 4 => group = 2; 5 <= rep <= 12 => group 3; etc. (I'm assuming log in mysql is natural log, which I'm not sure... maybe it's base 10, in which case the groups I've explicitly written here are wrong)
    – GabrielF
    Jan 16, 2014 at 18:52
  • 1
    Not a very good grouping, though, since it uses current user reputation and not the one he had when he asked the question. I should go do something else and stop talking to myself here! lol
    – GabrielF
    Jan 16, 2014 at 18:58
  • But... BUT! is funny to see you talking to yourself :P
    – Braiam
    Jan 22, 2014 at 1:55
  • Just noticed that there's a reputation history for the user... so it should be possible to do a query that uses the user's reputation when he asked. Damn, I shouldn't have seen this.
    – GabrielF
    Jan 24, 2014 at 23:04
4

If you mean that if there's data about how much time people have to wait for an answer, yes, you can get it. Now if you ask for an estimation of how much time you have to spend to get an answer, you are playing the crystal ball and we all know that is not accurate.

So, someone could be answering the question you ask right now if they know the answer, see the question and have time to answer it, after that everything could happen.

2

Some good questions get answered in minutes, while other good questions remain unanswered for years.

Therefore, if it's important you get an answer quickly and there are other resources (outside the Stack Exchange network) you'd consider using, you might want to do that in parallel.

If you get the answer elsewhere--such as from a colleague you know in person--you can post it yourself.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .