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Just a question/ or suggestion. Have you ever considered using a point system to reward users of computing.net whom answer other users questions the best. No money or nothin like that You just get a pretty icon next to your name or stars. I belong to a forum that does this and the rating's next to the people whom reply really help you deciede to listen to. Generaly the person who post's the question gives out the reward points toward the best answer to whom fix or solved his problem best.
I can ususaly count on someone's answer if they have better ratings or expert in this area.
Just a suggestion for you to ponder.
I think i'm addicted to the computing.net I check it before email's or anything else! lol
Hello,
I have considered this. It is the belief of many who have discussed this on the XP forum that such a system will lower the quality of help this forum provides. After all, what's the point of wasting time answering a difficult question that you may not totally know the answer to if you can answer five easy questions perfectly in the same amount of time? Once people become obsessed with their rating, they aren't going to want to take risks that might lower it.
I also considered implementing a post tracking feature where the number of posts a person has made is tracked. There wouldn't be a ranking associated with this number, just a number. However, the same problem arises in that easy questions can be answered much more quickly.
The arguments I just presented were mainly the opinions of other users. I am not sure how a ranking system would truly affect the quality of help. All can I say is that when it was discussed on the XP forum, people generally were not receptive to the idea.
Justin
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Have you taken a look at
oldlook.experts-exchange.comThey use a point system that works well, and in my opinion, doesn't degrade the quality of the answers. In fact, I often find some of the responses given by some of the people here to be very unprofessional which degrades the quality of this site more than an incorrect answer.
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Hello,
Experts Exchange operates in a completely different fashion from Computing.Net. On alexa.com, I've seen very bad reviews of the service. I'm not sure it is such a great example.
With that said, the awarding of points is going to be quite random if Computing.Net used a system like that. Since Computing.Net is an all free service, I'm not sure how it would work. Point values would be set based not on question difficulty but the "asker's" remaining points to award.
Justin
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The best way to raise the quality of responses on these forums is for the person asking the question to post back to let us know which solution worked for them.
This would make those posts useful as a point of reference.
Unfortunately, this is not something Justin could possibly enforce.
A points system.....no thanks.
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I agree, more input from the person asking the question will certianly help us in providing a complete and acurate answer but that doesn't always mean it's raising the quality. The main point I was tring to make was that I've seen too many times where for some reason the people providing the "help" seem to enjoy ridiculing, giving sarcastic answers or rudley admonishering the questioner. None of which deminstrates the level of professionalism that this site should demand.
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I just typed a long friggin' message, and then accidentally refreshed the page. blast! Anyhow, here's the recap:
Fish-long time no see my Perl brudda! Nice to see you back.
I have mixed feelings towards point systems...I think they slightly go against the friendly, tight community we have here, but I'm also curious to know how many posts I've had.
You can get an estimate on how many posts you've done (or at least how many threads you've posted in) by googleing:
"Name: SN" site:computing.netOriginal poster feedback is a huge problem, but there's not much we can do about it. If I were to attempt enforcing it, I would do it similar to the new "alert" system, except for instead of alerting when you still need assistance, alert when you want to know how something turned out (or have a pending "feedback alert" by default for each new thread.)
You could potentially disable new threads from people who have too many pending alerts (although this shouldn't be too restrictive...Just looking at the alert should be enough of a reminder...posting could be re-enabled after looking)
I'm just kind of thinking out loud...I'm not saying I would do this, and certainly not with a site whose user-base was less mature than computing.net's.
Peace out,
-SN
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Upon rereading my post, I realized that my use of "we" and talking about implementing a feature implied I have something to do with making that decision or am part of the administration of this site...I meant for my own websites, not this one.
-SN
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I've only been a part of two sites that gave rewards for answers.
1) sun's java forums. When you open an account, you start off with $25 dollars. If you need to ask a question, you can entice answers by offering duke dollars. This system failed mostly because people where creating accounts just so they could throw up a dummy question and then answer it with their other account and claim the dollars. Also, people would offer dollars and just never pay up. I havent looked at that site in while, but I believe they're in the process of removing the rewards system.
2) tek-tips.com On this site, the OP has the option of clicking a button that gives another person a point for being helpfull. This isnt a bad system, but doesnt really mean anything. I've seen people get points for posting a general link.
I guess the more advanced your point system is, the more trouble you run into. This site is nice because it doesnt force people to fight over points... and if you answer enough questions, your going to build a name for yourself anyways.
just my 2 cents...
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FishMonger,
There is a much easier way to fix that problem. When you see such posts, report them as offensive. If the user answers posts in an non-constructive manner, he or she will be banned.
Using a point system to try to make posters more friendly seems a sort of long-way around the problem. I would much prefer to just ban the problem posters than change the whole way the site functions.
Justin
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Justin,
You're right, in the future I will report these cases.
As far as the point system goes, I can go either way. My post was to show that there are more important things that can be addressed.
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"The best way to raise the quality of responses on these forums is for the person asking the question to post back to let us know which solution worked for them."
Exactly. An effective forum has an active community exchange. There are no substitutes, only distractions.
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SN,
Where did you learn so much about google? Did you learn it from reading the info that google provides about itself on its own website?
I really like the way you can google your own posts on computing.net. Good way to find out if someone you replied to ever posted a reply. I sometimes forget to save the link to a certain reply of mine to a thread started by someone else and then it's very hard to find. In "my computing.net" the list is only to threads started my me, of course.
You seem to be a google expert. Here is a question that I'm curious about. How can google scan and save every single word of every web site in the universe and then let you find it by searching certain words 2 or 3 days later? I probably didn't express that right, but you probably understand what I'm trying to say.
Jimi.
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Jimi-
I'm hardly a google expert, but they have an enormous amount of features nobody knows about. My wife recently had a training presentation in front of some corporate bigwigs as part of a job interview...She was allowed to choose the topic, and she chose to do an hour presentation of how to use Google. At the beginning, she asked each person to rate themselves (1-10) on how good they were...They all gaves themselves scores of 9-10.By the end of the presentation, they were blown away at how much they never knew they never knew about google:-) They re-rated themselves in the 2-3 range.
Read every word under "Our Search" on this page. Memorize all the great google keywords: define, site, filetype, link, etc.
The technology used by google is reasonably complex, but they probably keep a database of some kind as they crawl the web of which pages should be returned on the most popular search words.
I was told they also use some AI techniques, specifically learning and planning algorithms, (something about positrons...I forgot everything I learned in my AI class the minute the final was over.)
-SN
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Jimi-
You can add any message to my computing.net...There is a link on each thread labeled "Add this message to computing.net", and it also shows that link after you post a reply.I put each thread I respond to in my computing.net, and sometimes I put a thread in there just because I'm interested in the responses, even if I haven't participated.
-SN
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Sn,
Thanks for all the great info! I never noticed the "Add this message to computing.net", and I just did it with this message.
I was planning on intensifying my study of Photoshop and Web Page Creation. Now I'm kind of getting hooked on search engines, google especially. My wife thinks I've been spending too much time in the computer room. She says I'm getting "weird." She thinks I know way too much about computers. I tell her I'm a neophyte compared to the people that frequent this forum.
Jimi.
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"My wife thinks I've been spending too much time in the computer room."
Wow, that sounds all to familiar. Too bad she is no longer around to bask in my glare at the computer monitors. lol. Hopefully, you are not a newly wed... Good luck!
IR
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IR,
LOL! No, we've been together about 12 years. But she thinks we should spend some time together. That we should do something together. I don't understand what the problem is because I send emails to her from the computer room to the another computer that she uses in another bedroom all the time! And also, many times I've offered her time to spend together too! I said she can watch me fix photos with Adobe Photoshop anytime she wants. That would be hours and hours of time spent together!
Jimi.
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