Should I ask tandem questions that aren't likely to be answered?

Question

I recently asked a question about stoker/captain communication on tandems, which got only one response, that entailed @Neil Fein kindly asking on my behalf on the a mailing list where tandems are popular.

My wife and I enjoyed tandeming so much that now we have purchased a used tandem and have been out for a few rides of 10-20 miles.

Becaulse both the machine and the experience are so totally different from riding separate bikes, I have many questions that I would like to ask. However, if there is no one to answer them, then I wonder if I should not, because there isn't anyone with the expertise to answer them.

Currently there are a total of 5 questions with the tandems tag.

Maybe a better question is: How can we get more tandem enthusiasts on the site?.

Answer 1

I say go ahead and ask the questions.

The worst that can happen is nobody answers. Or you get bad answers that need to be downvoted, commented on or deleted.

Mechanical questions tend to be more answerable than culture and communication questions anyways. I think that's a considerable part of why you didn't get much response.

I think having tandem questions and answers will help attract tandem riders. Especially if we have really good answers to questions and get a lot of incoming links.

Answer 2

I think this site, Bicycle.SE, is still growing, since we tend to see recurrent users answering questions. And since tandeming is not so common, perhaps simply there wasn't (yet) anyone to answer your question. But I agree with @freiheit: go on and ask. That's what the site is intended for, and it won't hurt anybody.

By the way, I have a tandem and I will read your question!

Answer 3

I agree, getting more tandem riders here would be best. The current SE line of thought about publicizing these sites is to publicize the content. If you're trying to bring more tandem riders here (which would be awesome), I suggest publicizing these questions.

Under each question's voting buttons are icons for social networking sites; you can use those to post a link to the question.

Posting links to the site in forums is also a good idea. When explaining how the site works and what it is, you can use the text in the answers to this meta question: One short paragraph that describes this site (Feel free to edit or change that, of course.)

There are also other threads on promotion; please do join the conversations here or start new ones.