I'm puzzled.

Since I introduced the star-rating system, it's basically confirmed my own opinion of the articles I post. You folks tend tend to rate highly those article I think are solid. Those that I feel are weak get low ratings. It's edifying to know that we're usually on the same page.

Sometimes, though, I'm way off base. This question is an example. I thought this was an interesting personal finance question, but the ratings you've given it are very low. Why is this? Is it because it's not an interesting personal finance question? Is it because you think the woman asking the question is being too picky? Something else?

Knowing the answer to this question will help me provide better content in the future.

I only just started rating posts. Usually I don’t think about it, but I make more of an effort now that I know it gets used.

I gave this one three stars (for being “okay”) because I think looking to move for financial reasons is extremely drastic and usually less beneficial then it appears. And, I couldn’t help but feel like there was more to the situation.

I just went and looked at it, and it's not actually that good of a question. Moving to a place you don't have to drive as a money saving technique doesn't necessarily make sense. Move to the dead center of North Dakota and keep driving your car if you want to push down your cost of living.

I thought it was a pretty good question, but perhaps it was a bit too open-ended for some, in spite of the restrictions provided. The responses are very haphazard and a conversation doesn't really develop, so perhaps some folks had a problem with that.

I didn't rate the post, but I also found unsatisfying. My reasons were:

We don't know what city Money Minx is in now.
There's an assumption that walkable == cheaper, but it never comes out says it.
People have very different interpretations of walkable.
It took to long to ask a pretty simple question.

I think all that muddiness made the comments kind of confusing, too.

It is interesting to me though that walkable cities tend to be either cold or expensive and often both.

BTW, Cambridge is extremely walkable, pretty cold, and very expensive.

Something else just occurred to me while I read post #63. The poster mentioned that respondents had not replied to the original post, in which "no guaranteed snow" was stated as a factor for a desirable, walkable city....

But when I read the original post, I focused more on your (J.D.'s) statements and questions, asking us to comment on where we live, what cities we recommend, etc....

So it struck me-- the original post is really two posts. For some, it's about someone's desire to find a snow-free, walkable city; for others, it's about where each of us lives, how walkable it is, and whether we'd recommend it to other people in general.

This explains why I thought the replies were kind of haphazard. They're replying to two different sets of questions.