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Since you guys recently asked in the lounge about improving QA, I just had an idea:
Questions that received an answer that is not sufficient kind of down when they are neither "very active" nor "recent". That's a any similar sites (if they'd exist at all  ) would have - how to distinguish an abandoned from an unanswered question?
Suggestion: The user asking can signal (e.g. link or checkbox) s/he is "still waiting for input", which would include the question in the "unanswered" list (or a separate category) - anythign that signals helpers "input wanted". This state expires automatically after a given time - maybe 24 hours. Something that is short enough so abandoned questions don't clog the system, but long enough not to annoy askers.
Also, definitely "friendlier" than a "reject answer" I thought of first.
I'm not sure if this has been tried before and if it would work as intended, some mechanism against scripters might be required (captcha?), possibly some other tweaking, too. Like, clicking the link could be replaced by ending in some beer and hamster food.
What do you think?
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Perhaps allow them to "bump" the question (i.e., move it to the top of the questions list) without actually modifying the question? Could be done on an exponential scale, to prevent abuse. So, the first bump could be done after 24 hours, the second after 2 days, the third after 4 days, and so on. Maybe combine that with your 24 hour window. So, when it gets bumped, it gets temporarily placed in the unanswered questions list, for 24 hours.
Or...
Currently, the answer count shows the number of total answers to a question. Allow the user to accept/reject answers. When an answer is added, it counts +1 toward the number of answers. When it gets rejected, it counts -1 toward the number of answers. So, if the author rejects all the answers, the question gets added back to the unanswered questions list. So, answers could have 3 possible states: unattended, accepted, and rejected. Unattended and accepted answers would count 1 toward the answer count, and rejected answers would count 0 toward the answer count. Would probably want a good way to visualize rejected answers, so those answering questions don't think the question was already satisfactorily answered.
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You are right, that's identical with "bumping". 
I prefert my wording, though, it's less childish-compulsive, more professional  Also, the way I suggested it, makes it more "ON/OFF". However, for a list "no answers or still looking for answer", you DO need a sort condition, I'm not sure that "Date posted/bumped" is the best solution.
Reject Answer: I wouldn't do that. It builds tension, it's a personal attack: "I reject your answer". "I still need more information" is not directed at the user trying to help. Should I really reject an answer that is actually ok but doesn't apply to me because of a constraint I forgot to mention? Do you know what happens when someone can't tell a GIT from a ROT, but rejects a JSOP answer?
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Interesting.
What about really, really poorly worded questions? What if we only allowed a question to be bumped if it had a score over 3.0 (or no score)?cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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The nasty details are left as an exercise for the implementer, of course.
A "poorly worded" question (nice way to put it ) probably will be voted down especially if bumped repeatedly. So yeah, allow bumping unvoted questions, but not badly voted ones might work fine.
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I've been thinking about this more and I worry that this feature will only be used by a very small set of members.
Those who ask good questions typically take care in asking, and those questions will typically get an answer if an answer is possible.
Those who ask, ahem, poorly worded questions often do not take the care necessary. They are then also unlikely to take the care to bump their question. More likely they will just repost.
The remaining questions that will get bumped? Reasonably posed and very tricky.
Hmmm. Actually...
Maybe this would be a good idea...
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I'm using Chrome, I like the fact that your profile page no longer has plenty of space in between each of your profile links. However, the job title and the rest are still too far below.
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On my most recently posted article, I can't seem to get a count for the 3 and 4 votes. If I hover the mouse cursor over the sliver of bar that represents these values, all it says is "Voting Distribution. Recent Data Only". When the bars are very short like that, I've never been able to get the site to give me the actual values.
The article in question is here:
Multithreading, Delegates, and Custom Events[^]
Is there any way to improve that? Hovering over the graph shows all number of the votes at once maybe, like so?
5 - 21 votes
4 - 1 votes
3 - 2 votes
2 - 0 votes
1 - 0 votes
On a side note...
It still annoys me that people vote low on an article without leaving a reason as to why. Granted, the cited article doesn't have any 1's or 2's, but I think that's only because the voter is identified, and they're forced to leave a comment (which can then be disputed). I can only improve/defend the article if someone leaves a comment, but since the user(s) aren't leaving a comment, I can only deduce that they're being as malicious as they can be without being identified and for reasons that aren't related to the article itself.
I know there's really nothing anyone can do about it, and a 3 is certainly better than a 1 or 2, but it sure would be nice if these people acted just a little more mature when voting articles..45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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You have two 4s and one 3 (with a little effort you can get the tooltip to show). You can also use IE's built-in zoom to make the graph larger and thus easier to hover over. And yeah 3 is the new 1
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Well, I'm using FireFox. I wonder if FireFox has a zoom feature....45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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| It does. Ctrl +/-/0 3x12=36
2x12=24
1x12=12
0x12=18
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as well as Control/MouseWheel (if you have one) or Control/Trackpad_drag when your trackpad emulates a mouse wheel.
FYI: FireFox also has a View/Zoom menu staring at you in disbelief.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly formatted, adding PRE tags is the easiest way to obtain that. All Toronto weekends should be extremely wet until we get it automated in regular forums, not just QA.
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The awesomeness of your 5 column is overshadowing the other, less important data.
I guess I could put the tooltip over the entire column, not just the bar image.cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: The awesomeness of your 5 column is overshadowing the other, less important data.
I hadn't looked at it like that, ut yeah - you're right.
Chris Maunder wrote: I guess I could put the tooltip over the entire column, not just the bar image.
That would be nice. I found that if I zoom in half a dozen steps with FireFox, it gives me the correct info, but having to zoom in is kind of annoying..45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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there are many ways to solve that; maybe you should switch to a logarithmic scale? (not really, zero would become a problem then). Making the graph twice as high would improve but not solve things.
I suggest you merge all six tooltips into one:
Voting distribution, recent data only.
21 people ( 96.2%) voted 5
2 people ( 0.4%) voted 4
etc
It will look best when using a non-proportional font!
As to the 3- and 4-votes without comment, my suggestion (for articles only) is to not have vote buttons on the article page at all (just a "vote now" button which acts like the "add message" button), only have them on the message edit page, i.e. always require a message; if people took the time to really look at the article and want to vote, they will be willing to express their thoughts, even for a 5.
Imagine John's article with hundreds of positive comments over time...
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly formatted, adding PRE tags is the easiest way to obtain that. All Toronto weekends should be extremely wet until we get it automated in regular forums, not just QA.
modified on Thursday, February 11, 2010 2:36 PM
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Luc Pattyn wrote: Imagine John's article with hundreds of positive comments over time...
The mind boggles...
Of course, an alternative is to only allow 5's to be voted on my articles. That would solve the issue completely.
My original (serious) suggestion was to allow provide just one button - "Mark as Useful". This way, people could either mark it useful, or not mark it at all, and an article's worth would be determined by how many people thought it was useful. This would then completely nullify the effect of the univoting retards and would keep me from complaining about them.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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I would not favor an asymmetric voting system. Getting many "useful" marks might indicate either an excellent article on a rather specialized topic, or a mediocre article on a very popular subject.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly formatted, adding PRE tags is the easiest way to obtain that. All Toronto weekends should be extremely wet until we get it automated in regular forums, not just QA.
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The only danger would be that articles aren't voted because nobody has used the code or technique..45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001
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Nope. Having a symmetric voting scheme results in an average value giving the aggregate opinion of all who decided to vote, whether high or low, and independent of the popularity of the subject. One article having an average score of 4.5 tells me it is liked more than another article averaging at 3.3; even when the former is voted 1000 times and the latter 10 times, or the other way around. An asymmetric scheme can't provide the same kind of information.
That is one of the reasons I continue to defend the 1-to-5 voting scale for everything on CP, while bashing the good/bad question and good/bad answer stuff (which is still in place although Chris admitted was not working as hoped).
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly formatted, adding PRE tags is the easiest way to obtain that. All Toronto weekends should be extremely wet until we get it automated in regular forums, not just QA.
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Yesterday I accidentally unchecked the "Use HTML in this post" check box in the posting form. Now every new post I make has this unchecked. Anyway to reset that so it's checked by default?
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For message forums, your "settings/forum" tab should hold the defaults for the 4 checkboxes.
Not sure whether the "Interpret HTML..." one that exists for QA and TT is merged with the forum one.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles]
I only read code that is properly formatted, adding PRE tags is the easiest way to obtain that. All Toronto weekends should be extremely wet until we get it automated in regular forums, not just QA.
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... But not in Chinese this time around 
Clicking various links around the site (for instance the "New post" button in this 'ere forum) result in a "401 - Unauthorized: Access denied due to invalid credentials. Please go take a long walk off a short pier/get bent/all your base..." or something similar.
Evidence[^]
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Just reconfiguring a server and it's kicking up a storm.
One of the guys just headed out back to get the large, electrified prods so that should fix things.cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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| Web Dev forum isn't rendering the way it should. Here[^] is an image that shows how it looks in FF 3.6. "No matter how many fish in the sea; it will be so empty without me." - From song "Without me" by Eminem
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| Fixed cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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