Outdoors questions on Travel Answers get more attention than here — what can we do?

Question

On Travel Answers, a question on snow conditions in Yosemite late May got three answers in 2 hours. I flagged the question from migration, but a moderator decided not to migrate it, because of the good answers. An excerpt from the question:

I'm planning to climb a high mountain during end of May, beginning of June, in the Yosemite National Park. The mountain is around 3900 meters above sea level. In Switzerland. (...) Do I have to expect snow there?

On The Great Outdoors, a question on snow conditions in eastern California mid May got 0 answers in 4 days, and only got a (pretty good) answer when I actively e-mailed someone based on their extensive question about the region.

This shows I'd been better off asking my question on Travel Answers, even if the question clearly fits better here. I consider this problematic, because if outdoors questions get better answers on Travel Answers than here, how can we ever convince people to ask their questions here so that we can grow?

See also this related discussion on Meta Travel Answers.

Answer 1

I consider this problematic, because if outdoors questions get better answers on Travel Answers than here, how can we ever convince people to ask their questions here so that we can grow?

I don't think this will consistently be the case, otherwise there would be no need for this site, it would come under a clear subset of travel. So we only really have this problem when there's some overlap.

However, when this does occur, beyond speaking to those at travel and trying to catch and migrate the question early, there's not a lot we can really do about it - it's bound to happen with a graduated site that's older and more popular than this one, purely in view count if nothing else. Hopefully the gap will close as this site gains popularity.

Answer 2

I'm from New Zealand. I happened to be "top" answerer on the above mentioned Yosemite question ONLY because I happened to have travelled through the area at the time of year in question some years ago, and had been interested in the snow conditions at the time of year on a very hot summer. (I'm interested in almost everything :-) ). I'd have drawn a complete blank on the Eastern California question.

BUT I would think that starting in "travel" is a fine enough idea for such questions as people there are focused on going or having been places and 'places' is what such a question is about. You could answer the question based on altitude and expert weather knowledge but "what I saw when I was there" seems to be hard to beat.

Answer 3

I tend to avoid questions that I don't have specific expertise on. So regional questions are something I am very limited on as I have basically only hiked in the Southeast.