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The idea of Quick Answers was to have a focus on the question, not the discussion. My hope was that questions and answers, possibly in parallel, would be edited and refined in order to best convey what was being asked and what the answer is.
So.
0) Answers should be answers. A page hosting a question should have the question at the top and a list of answers ranked by usefulness. Discussions on the question, or discussions on each answer, should be done via the comments system, and it's this comment system that I would like to have threaded, but not the answers themselves.
1) Users can still edit stuff so if they can't delete they will just edit with extreme prejudice.
2) In theory every answer is potentially "the" answer. What we've been thinking about doing is removing the entire "Accept Answer" functionality and just make it so that anything with a vote of 5 is an acceptable answer.
3,4) There is more than one way to skin a cat and so restricting to a single answer would cripple the system
5-6) See 1
7) What's the motivation here? We have a system that allows top members to edit/delete/merge tags and so I encourage the community to add take, and encourage top members to organise those tags.
The things I like about QA:
- There's a single view model (equivalent to ThreadView in forums) which means when you click on a link from Google you get just the question and answer. It's great for those outside the site searching for answers. Forums do not do this as well by the nature of the default view (you get lots of other discussions on the same page)
- There is a focus on getting answers and it's visually simple to see the best answer to go with the question. Forums definitely do not allow this, apart from seeing "red" threads". This can be improved in forums.
- There's a single firehose of questions yet it's simple to dive into a single topic. This too can be added to forums.
Things I like about Forums:
- Way faster to go through lots of messages (though QA has the Next/Prev buttons which help a lot)
- You get to have rambling discussions. I like rambling discussions. Those stressed out looking for an answers, NOW, don't always  We can add threading to comments to provide this.
- simpler UI for answering / editing than forums
- Each forum is it's own "room" so to speak. Experts will hang out in their room of choice, instead of hanging out setting their filters of choice (preset filters are something we can add to QA, though)
My ultimate desire is to combine the systems in a way that provides the best of both without taking away anything that either requires on their own. I would never remove the forums, not now that I've been able to see both in action.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: My ultimate desire is to combine the sy
There you go. Truncated there! That's just what I was posting below about 
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Yep - that's weird. I'll see what's happening.
Found the issue. Updating soon. All content is still there - it's just not it wasn't being displayed properly.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
modified on Monday, December 20, 2010 1:49 AM
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I understand what the intent was, but everyone here can see that what you intended and what's been happening ain't exactly similar. The problem is that no matter how much you try to point someone in the proper direction on a multinational site like this, the users - for the most part - do NOT pay attention, or they simply don't see the world like we do.
.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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I agree. So what are your thoughts on my responses?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: 0) Answers should be answers. A page hosting a question should have the question at the top and a list of answers ranked by usefulness. Discussions on the question, or discussions on each answer, should be done via the comments system, and it's this comment system that I would like to have threaded, but not the answers themselves.
I agree - answers are answers. But the comments should also allow code blocks ,pre blocks, and other editing features we have in the answers. The comments should also allow for threaded discussion of the answer in question. That's what I meant by making the questions threaded.
Chris Maunder wrote: 1) Users can still edit stuff so if they can't delete they will just edit with extreme prejudice.
But I don't think people should be able edit other people's answers, and only certain people (with the appropriate rep level) should be allowed to edit questions. The same goes for deletion. If an answer or comment get the right kind of votes, it gets deleted.
Chris Maunder wrote: 2) In theory every answer is potentially "the" answer. What we've been thinking about doing is removing the entire "Accept Answer" functionality and just make it so that anything with a vote of 5 is an acceptable answer.
I don't agree with that. I think the "propose as answer" is more fair to the guy that asked the question. That way, the guy can get messages saying someone proposed an answer as "the" answer and take action (or not). The blue coloration would allow an indication at the question list page that an answer has been proposed as "the" answer.
I have to post the reply in several parts due to CPs current propensity for truncating long messages (and I have to go to work).
.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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Chris Maunder wrote: There is more than one way to skin a cat and so restricting to a single answer would cripple the system
I'm not saying restrict the system to a single answer. I'm saying restrict it to a single "the" answer, but allow one or more "proposed as" answers. The problem I see right now is that multiple answers are being marked as "the" answer, and many times, this is regardless of the actual content of the answer. Another thing that should be allowed is for the question poster to be able to reject proposed answers (mark them as "not the answer", and this would only apply to answers that are "proposed").
Chris Maunder wrote: 7) What's the motivation here? We have a system that allows top members to edit/delete/merge tags and so I encourage the community to add take, and encourage top members to organise those tags.
This goes hand-in-hand with separating "offical" tags (added by CP management) from unofficial (user-added) tags, like "GimmeCode", "Homework", or "ImaRetard".
My entire point here is that if the Question/Answer section is reengineered (merging the best of both Q/A and forums), we can do away with the programming forums altogether. The reason I'm suggesting it is because the site isn't being used as you envisioned, and no amount of site revamping outside of the Q/A ecosystem is going to resolve the issue (that I can see, at least).
.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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This question has some strange formatting. Rather than the question extending to the right of the page (which I think was resolve recently), the widgets on this page seemed to have moved left to cover the question up.
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Looks like fixed.
Some recent change, based on which lots of <span> tags are getting arbitly introduced in questions and answers! Chris needs to look at it.
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You can click "Vote to Remove Message" on the bottom right of the offending message. If it gets enough of those votes, it will be removed automatically.
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Thank you for the reply but I do not see "Vote to remove" link. There is only Rate this message.
Thank you for sparing your valuable time to read my views. Please feel free to suggest and comment on my articles. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
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If you do not see "Vote to Remove Message", then you may have found a bug. The "Vote to Remove Message" link should be right below the numeric voting values (1 through 5). Can you check again to make sure you didn't overlook it?
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I swear there is no "Vote to Remove Message". I even searched this text in the website but didnt find.
Thank you for sparing your valuable time to read my views. Please feel free to suggest and comment on my articles. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
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Strange, I see that link on the message in question. In that case, just vote the message a 1-vote. I think that has the same effect. I'm sure the site admins will get back to you to let you know what else might be going on (e.g., a permission issue or a bug).
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Allright, thank you. Is there a way to directly report the Administrator of the website to remove that message or report that member for using foul language?
Thank you for sparing your valuable time to read my views. Please feel free to suggest and comment on my articles. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
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This forum is your best chance to do that. Though the message was not that severe. Personally, I'd just vote the message a 1 and move on. Though, if you are the person who voted that person's message a 1, you might want to reply to them to tell them why you voted them a 1... people sometimes get offended when they are 1-voted without a reason.
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It seems "Vote to Remove Message" is reputation based and you have not accumulated enough reputation points yet in order to be able to see it.
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"Vote to Remove Message" is rep based. It's not visible to all. I think it's silver authority and above.
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Thanks. I have forwarded that info on to the OP.
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If you re-read the comment you will note that Xmen W.K actually wrote "OoO somebody voted me 1 for telling the truth...good work moron, thats all you could do." in response to someone 1-voting his original comment on your article. His 'moron' comment was not directed at you; and to be fair the term 'moron' is not considered foul language by most English speakers.
Just say 'NO' to evaluated arguments for diadic functions! Ash
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: His 'moron' comment was not directed at you
It was if he was the univoter.
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In which case it was justified.
Just say 'NO' to evaluated arguments for diadic functions! Ash
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: and to be fair the term 'moron' is not considered foul language by most English speakers.
Yeah, now had he called him a mormon, well then that'd have been different. 
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Are you saying:
1) All Univoters are Mormons?
2) All Mormons are Univoters?
3) All Mormons are morons?
4) All morons are Mormons?
or
5) Some combination of the above.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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