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As I've written I find very little actual information in the following tip.
In my honest opinion just stating that something is good and providing a link to somewhere doesn't yet qualify as a tip but I'd love a second opinion on this: How to do SQL Performance Tuning with Filtered Indexes[^]
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We've gone back and forth on Quick Answers and the Forums many, many times in relation to what to do about poor posts and abusive or useless answers. Technology isn't going to help, automated systems aren't going to help.
Only we can fix it, and we fix it by defining clearly what's acceptable, what's not, and how we treat users who post inappropriate content.
Our Discussion Forums[^] are for open discussions. The "what do you think" type discussions that allow people to talk about technology and reach consensus (or just have an all-out brawl!).
Quick Answers[^] is specifically for asking a specific question and getting a direct answer to that question. You post a question and you get a quick answer. Quick Answers was inspired directly by George Shepherd's Windows Forms FAQ: I wanted to build a set of questions and answers curated from a dedicated Q&A board into a living, comprehensive FAQ. For this the questions need to be clear and specific and the answers direct, minimal, yet complete. Answers such as" read section X in the docs", or links to other pages are not helpful unless they are provided as further references as part of an answer.
While we were working on Quick Answers Joel and Jeff went ahead and built their own awesome dedicated Q&A site. They nailed it, almost, and they sum up very well what's acceptable and what's not:
Quote: Do not post:
- Questions you haven't tried to find an answer for (show your work!)
- Product or service recommendations or comparisons
- Requests for lists of things, polls, opinions, discussions, etc.
- Anything not directly related to writing computer programs
I say "almost" nailed it because the strictness of the enforcement has lead to a feeling of snarkiness and elitism. We try and avoid that at CodeProject, yet we've erred to far on the site of enabling people to post crap. We have to balance.
My thinking is:
- Abuse will not be tolerated, ever, anywhere. Abuse of the system, abuse of the community, abuse of an individual. It will not be tolerated.
- I'm not wiling to help someone who doesn't make even a paltry attempt to explain their problem. Community help is a voluntary service and should be respected.
- Not everyone has English as a first language, and so part of helping someone answer a question is to help them get their message across. If someone is honestly trying to make an effort but simply doesn't have the English written skills then it's often a minor effort to help them across the line.
- Truly poor questions - and we see a lot of them - are not motivating, and further, they set the stage for more poor questions. Keep the questions of a certain level of quality and that will be the level of quality users will understand they need to reach in order for their question to be answered.
- Insulting someone down publicly or privately is totally counter-productive. Poor questions should be closed and it should be clear why they were closed. Personal attacks are equivalent to abuse.
- Supercilious answers and comments are just as unwelcome. Answer to help; don't answer to prove you're smarter. Your volume of answers, ratings, and reputation will clearly demonstrate how smart you are.
With this in mind the approach we need to take seems fairly simple:
- Any question that clearly has had no thought or effort put into it needs to be closed immediately. Whether we simply leave the question available for viewing (but not listed) with a notice that it was closed, or whether we email the posted with a notice and permanently remove the question is open to debate.
- Any answer that is abusive, derogatory, not an answer or not related gets closed.
- Any question or answer that tries, that has a gem inside it that just needs polish should be polished. Helping clarify a question or answer is as valuable as answering a post directly. Call it an assist (and maybe that's how we should reward it?)
The Devil's always in the details and so some things need to be discussed here:
- What happens if a person answers a question with a great answer but in an over-bearing or supercilious manner? They provide value to the poster, but they also leave a bad taste. What should be done?
- Who decides whether a question is answerable or whether the poster has made an effort? Some experts on QA have an eerie ability to understand even the worst questions, but I don't feel that truly helps everyone else: someone searching for the answer to their problem will probably not find a poorly worded question if it's missing key words or concepts in the question itself. I truly think we should err on the side of clarity
- What do we do when a question is poor and is closed? Close it an move on? Close it and send an email? Have someone mark it as pending and throw it into a moderation queue so the community can judge its value?
- What rewards make sense for those who answer, and more importantly, edit and moderate questions and answers?
- How do we police the boards? Purely rep-based privileges or dedicated moderators who agree to follow consistent guidelines?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: What happens if a person answers a question with a great answer but in an over-bearing or supercilious manner? They provide value to the poster, but they also leave a bad taste. What should be done?
I'd say the supercilious parts can (and should) be edited out by another member -- telling in the edit summary (and perhaps a separate comment, if necessary) why.
Chris Maunder wrote: Who decides whether a question is answerable or whether the poster has made an effort? Some experts on QA have an eerie ability to understand even the worst questions, but I don't feel that truly helps everyone else: someone searching for the answer to their problem will probably not find a poorly worded question if it's missing key words or concepts in the question itself. I truly think we should err on the side of clarity
The current system closes questions based on a specific amount of people voting, and I think that can be kept, but in that case there should also be a way to re-open questions using more or less the same system: people can vote to re-open like they can vote to close. This is especially useful if the author updates his question, and from Bugs & Suggestions I know that only admins can re-open questions at the moment.
In case some people understand the question and others don't then the people who understand it can help the others by editing the question to make it a bit clearer, without changing the intent of the original poster -- the question should stay the same and an edit should not invalidate the answers if there are any, only the wording can be changed.
Chris Maunder wrote: What do we do when a question is poor and is closed? Close it an move on? Close it and send an email? Have someone mark it as pending and throw it into a moderation queue so the community can judge its value?
Sending an email looks the most user-friendly, because the user is aware that his question is closed so he can edit it to fix it. There could also be a list of questions closed the last 12 hours so people can look at them if they want and give a re-open vote if they feel the question is okay.
Questions which are edited after closure could go to a separate queue because they need more attention for potential re-opening.
Chris Maunder wrote: What rewards make sense for those who answer, and more importantly, edit and moderate questions and answers?
Currently rep is used, that can probably be kept.
Chris Maunder wrote: How do we police the boards? Purely rep-based privileges or dedicated moderators who agree to follow consistent guidelines?
Same as what happens now, a mix of Protectors and high-rep users.
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the Lazy<Dog>.
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This question[^] from this user[^] contained a botched attempt to inject "netseer" ads into the site. I've removed the script block, but you can still see it in the version history.
This is the second time this user has posted the same script block - previously reported here[^].
The fact that it's not in every post from the user would seem to suggest that this is a deliberate attempt to inject ads into the site, and not the result of malware.
Or am I just being paranoid? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Have you told him about?
If hijacked, he might format, clean up system or whatever he does and won't repeat more.
If warned after 2 tries and a 3rd comes, then I would show him where the exit is
Richard Deeming wrote: Or am I just being paranoid?
Being paranoid doesn't mean that you are not being followed  
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I posted a comment on both questions, but he hasn't responded yet.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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What's going on with the voting on that? Two people have voted 1 but no comments except yours - I thought comments were mandatory for votes below 3?
I don't think it should be removed simply because the tech is outmoded - it's not harming anything and he found it interesting, someone else might from a playing about point of view. Also, we'd need to remove a swathe of actually old articles to stay consistent, potentially losing some good stuff.
My fourpennyworth worth anyway.
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One of the hints to the moderators says "Could the article help someone in their day-to-day work?" - in case of this article I doubt it very much. But you are right, it can be potentially interesting to someone so it's better to let the community judge that.
Re the voting, you are right the comment should be mandatory AFAIR. But when I voted the box didn't show up. So I added the comment manually. As you can see my comment doesn't even have the "My vote X" title.
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Gone
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Is there a specific reason this forum is kind of "hidden" and not part of the navigation list of the other forums?
There are several "reports" of articles rather being tip/tricks here (or other issues) that don't get discussed or being acted upon by enough members to change anything. Which would probably be different if this forum wasn't hidden like it is.
I'm aware that this forum requires a certain reputation to be accessible but that should also be possible to implement in the navigation list. Has this been discussed already or would it be a sensible suggestion in Bugs&Sugs?
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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I agree that it's pretty hidden and should be more visible. I think having a "Moderators' Forum" icon left to your name in the top bar (if you have enough rep) would work to send more traffic here. (And it probably should be hide-able so people can hide it if they don't like to have it there)
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the Lazy<Dog>.
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I'm certain it's because the automated blog-pulling fails to filter it out (or maybe doesn't even attempt to). I'm constantly clicking the "Format/Layout issues" option when moderating but apparently others don't see it or don't bother, so the author doesn't get prompted to remove it. But as it's not a working link/script any more I don't think it's critical. Maybe you could make a suggestion in Bugs&Sugs to improve the blog-pulling to handle this.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Looks like he has friends too....
Programmer : A machine that converts coffee into code !
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It's a Tip now.
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the Lazy<Dog>.
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Type Safety in .NET[^] is listed in the March "Everything Else" article contest.
I think it is at best a tip.
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