I have had a great experience on Mi Yodeya in general, but I have noticed that certain aspects of the site/community can be discouraging to contributors with a lack of Jewish knowledge. For example:
-The mix of English and Hebrew/Yiddish terms, and particularly the use of Hebrew script in answers. (I'm not suggesting any particular means to avoid or change this, as I don't know if doing so would be practical at all, or even desirable. Just mentioning that it's an obstacle for some.)
-Criticism of halachically ignorant questions for being, well, halachically ignorant. A base level of halachic knowledge shouldn't be a prerequisite for asking questions here, IMO. People stumble upon this site from all over the Web. I think they should be forgiven for thinking it's simply the Jewish category of Stackexchange, not a yeshiva or a frum discussion forum. For example, if I ask, "Is x allowed?," and someone says either, "Why wouldn't it be?," or, "This is a ridiculous question. Of course idolatry is not allowed," what am I supposed to say? Imagine how many downvotes a question like "Are Jews allowed to worship Jesus?" would receive here, even though it's a perfectly valid question, and one to which many people genuinely do not know the answer.
I realize the moderators have little control over how the community reacts to questions such as these, but I do think these tendencies are something to be aware of, and to discourage when possible. Ignorant people should not be consigned to learning about Judaism through Yahoo Answers just because Stackexchange doesn't like their questions.
Or am I wrong? Should we maintain a higher/different standard here? Please comment.