Timeline for Mark wrong answers
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 3, 2011 at 19:33 | comment | added | DougW | @Grace Note - Agreed. Would be nice if everyone was as altruistic as yourself. Unfortunately though, since it doesn't seem that they are in general, I'd like to see us take steps to optimize the system so that people acting in their own best interests contribute as much as possible. Cheers. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:28 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @Doug It's understandable behavior, I don't deny that. I also don't fault anyone for doing it, either - it's your time, and it's a pretty optimal way to use it. Doesn't make me any happier to see its prevalence. ♪ | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:28 | comment | added | Pops | Those users are using the system incorrectly, no question about it. The real answer is to find a way to modify their behavior. But I've never been able to figure out how. And I'm guilty of it, too; if I only have two minutes and I see two question titles I know something about, the one with fewer existing answers generally wins my valuable, valuable attention. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:27 | comment | added | DougW | @Grace Note - I understand what you're saying. I think it's understandable behavior though. The system intrinsically rewards early answers, and power users have picked up on this. A straw poll amongst my developer friends confirms this. They rarely visit questions with 2 or more pending answers unless they stumble upon them accidentally. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:25 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @Doug Getting back to you, I understand the frustration of how the people do use the system. To me, though, this is just feeding into an undesireable user behavior that spurns viewing questions independent of their content. It's the kind of behavior that keeps quality answers away from the questioners who need them. But I can understand why it's easier to accept this as the reality (as, indeed, it is the majority of our reality), and optimize for it. I'm not going to stand in your way, but to me, it's still duplicating the fundamentals of how the site is intended to operate. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:23 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @Pop I'd repost my comment if I hadn't, in reality, just redirected it to Doug. And, to wit, that strikes me as those users being idiots. Just on my own experience, my highest rated posts are always posted late, and usually after someone else has already answered. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:19 | comment | added | Pops | Well, now that you're trying to recreate my comment, I guess I will repost it. My point was that the vote totals on answers are only visible on the question pages, not the main page or question list pages or tag pages. Therefore, they're of limited usefulness for the situation the OP describes, where people don't even bother visiting the question because they assume one or more of the existing answers must be good enough. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:16 | comment | added | Pops | @Grace, yeah, I saw your response, and typed my own response, but refreshed the page before I submitted it in case you had deleted yours. Which you had. COMMENTS ARE FUN | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:15 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @Pop You just said summat along the lines of "I agree, but I think the OP is looking for something that separately indicates the unanswered status, something that can be applied specifically by the author", no? I actually responded myself, but then you deleted your comment and mine fell out of place so I had to delete that as well, haha ♪ | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:15 | comment | added | DougW | @Popular Demand - Ah weird. No, I think my comment stands on its own alright. People will probably just assume I'm crazy and talking to nobody, but that's alright ;) | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:13 | comment | added | Pops | @Doug, when I posted my comment, your comment loaded on top of it; we must have been typing at the same time. So I deleted it almost immediately. Do you want me to re-post it? | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:11 | comment | added | DougW | @Grace Note - Unanswered doesn't cut it because the vast majority of them are questions where the OP has gone MIA. Users looking for points don't find it worth their time. My suggestion would change that dynamic and allow the OP to state that they are absolutely not abandoning the question, they just haven't received an answer yet. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:10 | comment | added | DougW | @Popular Demand - Right. I've asked a number of questions where a few answers were posted, and even upvoted by others, but clearly missed the point and I would never accept them. Currently there's no way to indicate this, and it's not like people come back and change their votes once you explain why the answer is not correct. I think a lot of stuff gets orphaned in this way. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:08 | comment | added | Grace Note StaffMod | @Doug Yes, this is how things are intended to work moreso than how they necessarily function in practice. But we have an Unanswered tab that is dedicated exactly to bringing attention to the questions that have nothing but wrong answers. It seems exceptionally redundant to introduce yet another mechanism on top of both downvotes and the Unanswered tab. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 19:06 | comment | added | DougW | @Grace Note - I understand that this is the theory, but it is not what happens in practice. In practice, people are watching the new question feeds, because quick answers are more valuable. They generally skip questions that show 2, 3 or more answers having been posted, because they assume that the odds that they're all incorrect is low. Just because the OP hasn't accepted an answer yet doesn't factor in. They assume they just haven't done it yet. The downvote activity does not seem to compensate for this. | |
| May 3, 2011 at 18:57 | history | answered | Grace NoteStaffMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |