Questions v Discussions ?

You know, I'm sure we could set up the preference for questions or discussions. In fact, we used to be able to choose between New Post, New Topics, and something involving the age of posts. I took a look at the MyPreferences page and couldn't find it for you. Anyway, I don't think that would have done what you want. You just want a button at the top of the screen, right?

There's an "unanswered questions" tab at the top of the page. It currently brings up 485 questions, so I'm guessing it's everything that hasn't been marked as "answered" by the thread originator.

that seems to be the only place Q's are separate from D's...

Roger - that was my memory of it as well, but now I can't find it. The various kerfuffles of discussions happening in the middle of questions was what started me trying to find it again. It seemed that for folks who want to discuss things, there should be some way to sift the questions out. And for the Questioners, it'd be nice to keep that clean for them.

anywho ...

Unanswered is the only thing there is now. But it really doesn't do the trick, as an important part of it all seems to be the ability to not see them.

What we are considering now is to separate them completely, and make a questions area and a discussions area and not mix them on lists like "new posts".

What do you think about something like that? It's something I've been meaning to get feedback on before working on.

Not me! I wouldn't at all mind an option to select Questions and Discussions separately, but strongly prefer New Posts to remain as it is.

I agree with roger.

That's the crux of the decision right there. With separate pages the questions might not get the attention they need, but at the same time the separation would probably help the nature of the responses they get.

With an option it would have to default to being the same as it is now, and I'm not sure that the option would be used by enough of the people who could benefit from it to make a cultural impact on the questions.

I'm on the fence about it myself, but I think the option route wouldn't achieve the goals (of better separating topic types by purpose), but that might be helpful to a small amount of users who like the additional control over topic filtering.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are other topic types planned. For example, there will be a url topic type, customized for the recommendation of articles, videos etc. When there are more of those it might make more sense to have separation.

I was thinking it could possibly be an option for the person setting up the thread : question / discussion / question or discussion. Then I thought that might make it too awkward who has just arrived here and wants to ask a question or start a discussion - and doesn't know what to select.

So the current setting would be the default, and splitting it into questions and discussions would be the secondary option? I suppose with tags it'd make it difficult to split it out at the forum level.

Back to mulling.

I just went to look at the New Posts page. Would there be a way to mark a thread with something to i.d. it as a question on that page?

Nemmind - I see the words. I'm trying to think of something small and incredibly obvious.

ok, I've been thinking about this a bit more and what I'm after (to dream the impossible dream <singing>) is a way to sort the questions by forum

I'd like to be able to see if there are unanswered questions in specific forums. Couldn't care less in others. Scrolling through all of the quiz-type unanswered questions to find an unanswered food/pets/gardens/insurance law/rehabilitation/neuropsych question is a bit more of a project than I generally have the energy/interest/time for.


I'm going to go sing now. I've given myself another earworm.

Some more to add to the thinking then: We plan to eventually make a tag opt in or opt out.

In the opt out idea you could just filter all crosswords for example. With that in place it sounds like it might handle your quiz problem (and everyone else's word games problem).

With opt-in, you may be able to "subscribe" to tags and follow a subset of them more closely.

That could work - if you can entice people into tagging their threads.

It certainly sounds like it has great potential. I'm really looking forward to the next stages of A2K.

I am a Republican. I do not like change.



Usually

Two ideas on that:

1) require tags when topics are posted.

2) Use term extraction algorithms to deduce them through code (automated tags would have less weight than human tags)

just a thought on tags for what the hell...

sometimes a thread may be better off without tags.

and I usually leave a couple spots blank on a serious thread because the tags that get added, as a rule, are better than my own.

I imagine that some people might prefer it that way but there's no benefit to the community for a topic to have no tags.



Well they could replace yours if you added them, but there's nothing wrong with not adding them.

Using term extraction can make them more relevant, the garbage tags some folks use tend to have one thing in common: irrelevance to the topic. No algorithm can match that kind of stupidity so at the very least it would be an improvement there.

I choose #1 - I like the control of knowing (at least in some cases) my subject fairly well, its relevance, and potential interconnections. Perhaps a compromise would be automatic tags if the tag space remained blank for X number of hours. I tend to give threads with blank tag spaces at least one tag to help them on their way.

good thing as I tend not to look at untagged threads unless it's incredibly obvious what they're about - cryptic, amusing titles aren't likely to see me pop in to see what they're about unless the thread is tagged