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As a relatively new user here, on my "home" site of Judaism.se there are about 8000+ questions that preceded my arrival there. Sometimes I see questions that pique my interests in the related question sidebar, and sometimes I sift through a tag. But I like seeing the random questions that get "poked" to the top of the list.

However, those questions are limited to no accepted answer questions, with the presumed goal of bringing them to the attention of someone who might answer. Sometimes, I find questions with accepted answers that I feel I have something to add to, or am just interested in looking into now that I see it.

Is it possible to make a queue of randomly poked accepted answer questions? Maybe it could go into its own queue, as an option on the top bar next to featured and active etc., so that new users can get some random exposure to older questions without systematically sorting through the entire volume of asked questions.

(This would be, in my mind, more convenient than a wikipedia-like random-question button, as it would provide a list to peruse and all users would have the same list at any given time.)

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  • Maybe a "random" sort option on the search page? – Ilmari Karonen May 22 '14 at 17:59
  • Is it valuable for everybody to have the same list? If you see something interesting and answer that'll bump the question, so maybe it's better for people to see different questions (that they wouldn't otherwise see at all)? – Monica Cellio May 22 '14 at 21:38
  • @MonicaCellio actually the main "downside" I see with this is the old questions that old users don't want to see again from 5 years ago (despite how dazzled they will be with my superior contribution), and giving the same list would mitigate the amount of potential answers getting bumped. But I hear both sides. – Y     e     z May 22 '14 at 22:34
  • I suspect you're over-estimating many users' longevity and the rest's memories, but I can see your point too. – Monica Cellio May 22 '14 at 23:45
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    You said that you prefer a "random queue" to a "random question", but just in case: a "random post" bookmarklet for Judaism.SE: javascript:(function(){javascript:window.location.replace('http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/'+Math.ceil(35000*Math.random()))})() The number 35000 can be adjusted so that the bookmarklet picks exactly the posts that precede your activity on the site. – user259867 May 23 '14 at 4:51
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I wrote you a query so you can explore.

It will look at questions:

  1. Created before a specified date
  2. That have (or had) an accepted answer

It creates a random list of 100 items based on a random number and the log of the score. So you will get more samples from more highly rated questions than lower rated ones.

I am awful at SQL, so if you can think of improvements, have at it.

(For instance, taking the current user's join date as the default for the creation date, or taking the score of the answer in to account rather than just the score of the question, or a better algorithm for finding interesting stuff).

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    Thanks! The convenience of a queue is it comes with all the things on the page - the first few words of the question, vote count, number of answers, all laid out for me. And I know the SE team is only here to fulfill my every whim, so I'm gonna hold out for a new feature. Especially with the whopping 4 votes this question got. – Y     e     z May 23 '14 at 3:05
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    Hey @Yez, I updated the query with those pieces of info. Still isn't a queue, but should work for now. You can also create a custom site using the api if you are more technically apt than I am. Or if you really just like the question summaries on the site, you can use advanced search. Hope this helps. – jmac May 23 '14 at 3:43

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