Hard problem here. There are two things that need to happen:

 1. We need to improve quality.
 1. We need to improve _the perception of_ quality.

For point 1 we've done just about everything we can to do that and still stay within the StackExchange spirit of openness. Clearly, this isn't working. Fixing this improves the site overall, which we're having problems with.

For point 2 the SE spirit of openness doesn't really allow us to put perception-filters into place because all questions are equal (except if they're negative enough or on an ignored tag). Fixing this improves our experienced user retention rate, which we're having problems with.

*ServerFault as we'd like it to be is not a good fit for StackExchange as it exists now*. This is why we're having the call, it's time to exercise our special-snowflake status.

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> **Question 5:** Can we please, finally, have some perception-filters already? Here are some ideas...

The big, big problem with perception filters is that they *hurt* absolute quality. Questions (and answers, if filters can apply to "answerers with under N points") posted by people below the common perception threshold will only be seen by others who are just as new and get no or crappy answers. This hurts our perceived quality by people who find us on Google and check us out.

Maybe that's what we actually want. Maybe we tell new users, "Hey, if you set these filters, the site isn't nearly as bad." It's still a bad site, but at least it looks nice.

If we go this route, we really should implement Question 6. Best first impressions, and all.

> **New Question:** Can we relax the open-access rules since it has manifestly failed? This would be something like:

> - A quiz that takes time to answer going over key points in the "what belongs here" part of the documentation (not something that can be NextNextNextNextFinished).
> - Require the [Analytical][1] badge for posting questions.
> - Others?

One of our biggest problem classes are LazyNet users who see a group of smart people on the right topic and post like it's just like any other forum full of smart people. By requiring *effort* to post questions, we prune out the laziest. It may even help cut down more-active-on-SO-posters, though not the well intentioned but sadly misguided ones. 


  [1]: http://serverfault.com/help/badges/158/analytical