Is the 15 questions per day metric a fair evaluation of beta sites?

Question

Browsing through the longest beta period sites, like Personal Finance, I noticed not a single one actually had 15 questions per day. Even for our Launched Sites 15 questions per day is fairly uncommon.

Is the 15 questions per day really a fair metric to judge sites on? Of the top betas none of them (that I saw) meet 15 questions per day but many of them are ranked as Excellent in all other factors.

Are sites being held up because they don't meet 15 questions per day?

Answer 1

Sites aren't being held back because of question rates alone. See:

When Will My Site Graduate?

Does this site have a chance of succeeding?

Most sites graduate when they reach full network effects and are growing in their traffic consistently.

Even after a site graduates, there's nothing wrong with a site who evaluates as "good site, but could use more questions." Lowering that number doesn't make the site better; it just lowers the bar of what feels like a robust, active site.