What are average response and answer rates and why are they important to the Collective?

This article is for Recognized Members of a Collective.

On the Actions for You dashboard, you'll find a section that helps you understand the responsiveness of the Collective.

There are three charts:

1. Average response rate within 24 hours

What this means:

This chart shares the percentage of questions in the Collective that receive an answer within 24 hours, averaged over a period of 30 days.

Why this is important:

Users are coming to Stack Overflow when they're stuck on a problem. As a Community, we want to help them find the best solution to their problem.

Actions you can take:

If you see the average response rate for the Collective is below the recommended benchmark, go to the "Questions that need an answer" section of the Actions for You dashboard. Here you'll find a list of questions with the highest number of views and no answer. Start contributing by answering questions related to your area of expertise.

2. Average answer rate within 24 hours

What this means:

This chart shares the percentage of questions in a Collective that receive an answer that has been accepted or upvoted within 24 hours, averaged over 30 days.

Why this is important:

Users may find that their question has already been asked and answered on Stack Overflow. An answer that has been accepted by the question asker or upvoted by other users gives them a signal that this is the best solution to their question and helps them save time by not having to test every answer.

Actions you can take:

If you see the average answer rate for the Collective is below the recommended benchmark, go to the "Top viewed questions without a Recommended Answer" section of the Actions for You dashboard. Here you'll find a list of questions with the highest number of views and no Recommended Answer. Start contributing by upvoting the best solution to a question, but also recommending the answer.

3. Response trends within 24 hours

What this means:

See how the number of new questions, response rate and answer rate trend over time. Hover over the bar chart and trend line for more detail.

Why this is important:

As the Collective grows and more new questions are asked, it's important that response and answer rates increase as well.

Actions you can take:

If you see response or answer rates dropping, follow the steps in #1 and #2 above to keep them on track as new questions are being asked by the Community.