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Luc Pattyn wrote: Enforcing a strict structure on a discussion is oxymoronous
I think you mean oxymoronic[^]
I only add this in an attempt to enforce a strict structure on this discussion, you understand.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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yes, that too. 
I should have checked, sorry.
And thanks.
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OriginalGriff wrote: an attempt to enforce a strict structure on this discussion, you understand
No you did not, you improved the content, and the system has let you do that in a way you felt comfortable with, within imposing limitations.
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Your dislike for QA is well known and to reassure you we have your posts bookmarks and gnash our teeth over them regularly
However
Luc Pattyn wrote: nobody understands how it is supposed to be used
is inaccurate, and I would say the more realistic sentence is "the majority do not understand who all the parts work nor what their options and obligations are".
We get far more posts in Quick Answers than we do in the forums so the system is being used and is being used successfully by many developers to seek answers. It works.
What it doesn't do is work as smoothly and sensibly as you would like. I get it
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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More than the Q-A forum's design, it's the most active users that cause the majority of usability issues. No one, or very few people up-vote good answers. Maybe it's a fear of giving reputation score increases to others they directly compete with.
At the same time, any post that ridicules the OP in a funny way is guaranteed to get you several up-votes, including from gold and platinum members who should know better.
You really need to educate the active members there (without offending any of them, and we all know how geeks can be hyper sensitive about stuff). Once you lay down some rules, people will follow them. Right now you've basically given everyone some vague rules and you expect the regular members (a little too optimistically in my opinion) to behave in a professional way. But it doesn't seem to be working all that well.
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Hey, I read and up-vote.
Even it is not something I am particulary dealing with, if I read a question and feel the answer given has helped me understand something that I previously didn't understnd (or was even aware of), then I vote.
I feel it is a duty, it encourages people to answer, so that when I have a Q that requires an A I am likely to get one.
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I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC League Table Link
CCC Link[ ^]
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Yeah I've noticed you do that. But you are an exception there
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Gotta help out when you can, otherwise what is the point of the site?
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC League Table Link
CCC Link[ ^]
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I agree.
And I don't see any competition: if some stuff is good/bad it gets an up/down-vote no matter who's it is.
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There is no competition, we all know who the true experts are, and I am not one, but I have other things to offer.
Entertainment and Humour, Encouragement and Enlightenment, those are my gifts to the feast.
(Well, there is one thing we are all after, getting CG off the top spot, but it will take many years I feel! )
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC League Table Link
CCC Link[ ^]
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You sure are a true expert in a couple of things, and your EHEE are appreciated by the entire community I'm sure.
Dalek Dave wrote: getting CG off the top spot
is not one of my goals at all.
If he remains #1, that's fine by me. If he gets dethroned, that is fine too.
BTW: Did you notice how his authority has gone flat?
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He has been having 'Transportation Difficulties', I think that has drained him!
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC League Table Link
CCC Link[ ^]
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Chris Maunder wrote: the majority do not understand who all the parts work nor what their options and obligations are
OK, I accept that. I'm part of that majority for sure. Only today I got a comment from Walt thanking me for an answer I provided 18 months ago to someone else's question; I did not know how I could even react on his comment, except by editing what I had written in my answer then, which I didn't want to do since I did not intend to change my answer at all.
Chris Maunder wrote: We get far more posts in Quick Answers than ...
No surprise here, given how the menus are organized. I'm sure most people think they have a simple question, and are looking for a simple answer, not a discussion. Not too many people are going to ignore "Ask a question" and read all the way down the Discussion half of the menu, don't you think?
The positive thing of the day is your response to John (I did bookmark that!), where you mention good points for both systems, show an openness for suggestions, and express a desire to unite both systems. It sounded slightly less of: lets tweak Q/A a bit more and drop the forums, which is how it has looked for a long time (systematically ignoring forum bug reports didn't go unnoticed).
So I will think things over, maybe I can contribute, I do have some ideas that may cover most concerns you expressed today; however I will probably need 3 calendar weeks, there are busy times ahead.
Cheers.
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"Systematically ignoring bug reports"? That's a little unfair
I thought I'd been more clear that we have taken your comments to heart but are not willing to make any major changes until (a) we have the resources to devote to it, and (b) we're sure we're not just changing one set of issues for another.
We're tretched thin, but we're always listening, and making notes and appending bug reports and suggestions.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I think I have reported or confirmed 20 bugs and simple suggestions about forums this year; I admit they are mostly small ones, but they are often annoying ones too. Some of them got an "I'll put it on the list" reply, but that's about it. I assume you read all of them, but without you turning them down, putting them on the public "current bug list", or addressing the issue in a reasonable time period, I consider them ignored.
Here are just 2 examples:
- a newline following an HTML tag gets ignored; a space suffices as a work-around.
- a second modification to a message makes your "Modified..." sentence invade my sig (iff more than 5 minutes)
These two examples are still very alive and have caused more messages (by other members) in the S&B forum even today Sunday.
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Luc Pattyn wrote: a second modification to a message makes your "Modified..." sentence invade my sig (iff more than 5 minutes)
Yep, that one happened to the original message in this post I think.
.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 have to agree with some of Luc's feeling about Q&A rather than the forums, but my major dislikes are twofold:
Firstly, the absence of a discussion capability reduces the usefulness to nearly zero - it is rare to get a question which can be answered completely in a single reply - if only because most of the time the OP doesn't have a clue what he is asking in the first place. The discussion based forums handle this better.
Secondly, when you visit the forums you can see what is being asked, and how much answering has gone on. With the Q&A format you don't get such a feeling for what is going on - particularly if you tend to start with "view unanswered questions" as I do.
I also don't like the points system for Q&A - I feel it makes it too easy for idiots to establish a good Authority reputation just by posting stupid "answers", each of which takes 5 down-votes to counter. I'm not saying anyone is abusing the system to do this, but we know there are some who have a number of "shell" identities just to up vote themselves / their friends.
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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I think there isn't very much of a difference in the rep aspect: Q/A Answers and forum answers both get +10 for posting, +5 for being up-voted, and -2 for being down-voted.
The only differences I'm aware of are:
- forum replies aren't always of type "answer" by default (only the first-level reply to a "question" type is); when they aren't of type "answer", an up-vote yields Debator points instead of Authority points.
- Q/A answers being bookmarked get +10 Authority, forum answers being bookmarked get +5 Debator (the distinction based on type isn't made here).
And of course, Debator points are of dubious value, there's two kinds of them: those one gets for authoritative content, and those one gets for drivel anywhere, including Lounge and maybe the backrooms. That is why CP Vanity now offers a way to get total rep excluding Debator points!
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From the Member Reputation System[^] page:
Answer Accepted
A member receives points for having their answer marked accepted by the author of a question.
25 points
10 times per day
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together.
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Right, I overlooked that one. It makes a big difference indeed.
IMO it is not good; either the acceptance is by the enquirer himself (I would hope so), then that isn't worth more than a single up-vote (well, I'm willing to allow for some extra weight, I'd say depending on the enquirer's own authority); or it is automatic, i.e. by a sufficient number of others having up-voted, then it has been rewarded already, no need for a bonus.
And then there are people who would like to prevent edits/comments/extra votes on answers that have been accepted, so abuse would become irreparable?
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Luc Pattyn wrote: Debator points are of dubious value
I disagree. One of the main reasons I am a member of CP is because of the discussions in the Lounge. It is the same for a lot of members. If somebody contributes to the Lounge, they are contributing to a lot of member's ongoing interest. That seems like it's worth something.
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I don't mind the Lounge points, I do mind two completely unrelated kinds of activities being combined into a single category, as I explained.
And I don't mind them being part of the total, however, personally, I would prefer there were a relative limit, say capping real Debator points to 50% of total (which means you need to gain other points too if you want your total to go up by debating). IMO we don't need two or more backroom people to potentially amass millions of points without doing anything useful on the site (I am assuming points can be earned in backrooms, it has changed a few times, I don't know how it is now, I don't go there).
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Luc Pattyn wrote: we don't need two or more backroom people to potentially amass millions of points without doing anything useful on the site
Nonsense! Their posting in the Lounge (maybe not so much the backroom/soapbox, as those are not as popular) attracts other members (like me) who do contribute to places other than the Lounge. They are like the entertainers of Vegas that keep the real contributers (the tourists, with all their money) coming back for more.
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I find that statement undeserving to the likes of, say, Shog or Paul Watson - two early and, to me, extremely valueable and loved members who have provided some content in the form of articles and answers, but whose true value to our community, and the very reason I implemented Debator points, was purely their presence, their discussions, their outlooks, comments and voice.
Not everyone has to post an article or answer a message to contribute to the Site.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I agree, I was wrong. I don't know the people you mention, but I can see there's many ways of contributing, all have merit. I still don't feel completely OK with the possibility of someone achieving top reputation without technical contribution though, however I think I'll get over that too.
I maintain you're mixing two things in Debator points, half of mine are Lounge-based and I'm OK with them; the other half IMO should have been Authority as they are really technical replies in programming forum discussions, part of them at a time message type was still irrelevant; later there has been a period I turned all answers to "General" to get a 1-to-5 vote rather than good/bad votes; I now try and remember to change the type to "Answer" whenever applicable!
BTW: I find "post comment yields Participant points" pretty inconsistent. If you look at the short list of ways to get participant points, posting comments is the odd one out.
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