Routing question to particular Stack Exchange user or users?

Question

To the questions I put up on a particular topic/tag often I get fantastic answers from certain Stack Overflow users simply because they know the topic better than the others.

1. Is it possible for me route a question to a member or set of members who could give me good, concise answers?
2. Very often, the Stack Exchange use would overlook my question or probably even miss it in the mass of questions (like on Stack Overflow), this facility would still make it possible for the question to be delivered to the particular member.
3. The name of the member/members to whom the question is routed is may/may not be made public. It's up to the member to answer the question and he/she is not bound.
4. The question would still be viewable to others and they could also answer.

Answer 1

I'm going to buck the trend. I actually don't think it's a particularly bad idea. Sometimes other people really do know that I'll be interested in a question (and may be able to answer it), but occasionally I'll miss it for some reason. In those situations, I'd welcome my attention being drawn to it.

Obviously it could become a bit of a burden, so I'd want:

• A way to bulk-delete questions from the list, just based on title/tags
• Automatic removal of a question from the list if I answer it
• A link in the question page to remove the question and go back to the list
• A way of blocking users who bother me too much

This feature could also be a way that users could remind themselves to come back to answer a question later. Marking it as a favourite is one way of doing that, but I use favourites as a more long-term list, rather than a to-do list.

There's one problem which is already inherent in the system, but which this would make worse: it would encourage users who are waiting for an answer from an individual to upvote or accept an answer as soon as it's been posted by that "blessed" answerer. That's dangerous - it goes against the principle of judging each answer on its own merits.

Right, now for the onslaught of downvotes...

Answer 2

If you want a particular user to see it, try and find their contact details in their profile (if they make any available).

We should not be trying to leverage individual users but the entire community.

The best way to "contact" particular users is to make sure that you are writing your questions clearly and that you are using good titles and tagging. Many of the power users around the sites will be following their specialty tags, so if you reference those tags, it is likely to pick up their attention.

I do not care at all for ideas which lean towards private messaging, "shout outs", referrals, etc.

Answer 3

Gotta trust the system. I assume that most users mark their favorite tags and don't generally read ALL questions. Chances are that those pros are going to see your question if it's properly tagged in an area they favor. This feature could possibly discourage people from taking care with their tagging.

It seems like the functionality is basically already there, from the system's perspective. Anything more direct would likely be... pushy.

Answer 4

Although you're not talking about purely private messaging, the first part of this answer still seems relevant:

Looking at other help sites, the most common use for this system is new users bugging established experts to look at their questions. If you were Jon Skeet, would you really want to have to filter through 100 requests per day? ... delete delete delete

Answer 5

Keep in mind that if you get great answers from a particular user, that means many other people do too. If you open up a way for everybody to contact their favorite users, those users will likely draw away from providing answers in the future. Let users answer on their own time, and at their own convenience - don't make it into a task for them :)

Consider this...

You can pretty much already do this. We all know that Jon reads the c-sharp questions. So tag your question with c-sharp, and let him come across it. Suppose you could send it to his inbox instead, along with everybody else who is sending their question across to his inbox. Your changes aren't increased, and in fact they may be decreased as he may feel "inbox-questions" are supposed to be answered. If he feels pressured, he may just delete them all - killing your chances of having yours answered. For your own good, tag your questions well, make sure they're thought-through, and Jon will find you.

Answer 6

Beside the points already mentioned, this would discourage answers from low-rep members of the community. When you ask something on SO, you expect the community to answer you. If you don't like answers from the community and wish for a specific user's answer, you shouldn't post it on SO. You should use another means of communication to contact the user directly (which is a bad thing, but that's a separate story.)

A natural consequence of formally asking and waiting for a high rep user to answer your question is that you wouldn't care about the answer of a user with 40 rep anymore. This would be harmful to the community and discourage new talented users. You should care about the quality of the answer, regardless of its author.
In my opinion, the social problem with this approach is much worse than practical problem of handling lots of requests.

Answer 7

People are not all knowing, and even though they regularly give good answers. Might also mean that they are plain wrong on another answer.

Keeping an open playing field gives exposure to the question and you might get an answer you never would have expected.

Answer 8

On Physics.SE, we don't have much activity from some of our better users. I sometimes see a post and think "ohh, xyz would give a great answer to it", but the aforementioned xyz isn't online at the time.

So, I created this meta post

I think that creating such a meta post may solve your problem. Maybe. SO is quite large and that may create problems on its own.

Answer 9

That's quite the question - perhaps the people you notice giving good answers to your questions are the only ones patient enough to read through the whole thing? You might get better responses for more people by asking concise questions with an easily definable 'good answer'.

Answer 10

While I understand the concern something like this might have in a broader context, I can give a specific, concrete example of how this feature might have been valuable to me in particular.

In 2011, I asked a fairly obscure question (Is it possible to run Java3D applications on Nvidia 3D Vision hardware?).

I fiddled around with the problem over the next few weeks, eventually got it working and posted a solution. It's a pretty small edge case, but if my answers save someone else the hassle I went through, I'm more than happy to share it. Java3D isn't a particularly popular tag, so not a lot happens in there, and I honestly don't check it that regularly.

I did some more work in this area for a few more months, before shelving it and moving on to other things.

At some point in early 2012, a follow-up question was posted to my original question (Is it possible to run Java3D applications on Nvidia 3D Vision hardware in windowed mode?) This is a pretty specific example of a follow-up, linking back to my original question and mentioning me by name.

However, I never saw the question until this week (over a year after it was posted!) I probably could have helped out a year ago, and had the hardware and software available to be of assistance, but without some sort of notification, I probably never would have seen that question, except for dumb luck. Now, my answer is likely out of date, and the questioner is long gone.

If that connection could have been made a year ago, I think it would have provided some more useful information.