asked
[meta]New years resolution: Clean up all these open question...
Open questions includes the 97 pages of questions that show up unanswered [here][1]. I understand that some of the questions where the OP is still active on the site might just need a reminder email or something to go back and close out his/her questions, or mark an answer. However, on the other side (example [here][2]) where the OP has obviously [never come back][3] to the site would that not warrant at most we close the question due to abandonment. Although closing every question out there that is left opened would not look good for the site. The only other option would be to grant folks the ability to check an answer that most fits the question, maybe. I'm guessing mods might have this ability? Can normal users be given that ability with certain level of karma points? On a side note, will marking a question as closed cause the question to not show up in the "Active" questions? Thoughts? [1]:
http://ask.sqlservercentral.com/questions/unanswered/?sort=active&page=97 [2]:
http://ask.sqlservercentral.com/questions/22270/count-transaction-in-sql-server-2000 [3]:
http://ask.sqlservercentral.com/users/2698/dba
As an occassional participant in this community, I just don't think it matters. When I'm looking to find an answer for myself, I am more influenced by number of votes than accepted answer. When I have a few minutes to try to help others, I look at the top 10 or so active questions regardless of whether they are marked accepted or not. It would certainly be a good thing to do, but it should be a *very* low priority in my opinion.
There, went from 161 pages to 160... blech. That's ugly work.
I used to spend 1/2 hour two-three days a week picking answers on questions that were obvious, and more than a year old, but I still ended up with about 6 pages worth of questions that I wasn't sure what to do with. I'm not sure why people won't pick an answer, but it's pretty clearly an issue. But, deciding on what answer is right after the fact gets dicey quick.
I can understand where you might not want to mark an answer as "the answer" when it does not really, in your opinion, answer the OP's question/issue. However that is when someone just needs to decide how those questions are to be handled. Another thing you would need to deal with in picking an answer is who deserves the karma points. If you mark an answer will it still give the OP the karma points? Then if the only answer is not a good one you would be giving that user 15 points for a bad answer.
True. Further though, if my answer is the best one (in my opinion) and I mark it, I don't get any points at all. It's a complex issue.
Hmmm nice thought. I agree that there are quite a few instances where a user seems to be never coming back (At least with the same name) because many users come on need basis. Those questions should be marked answered if they qualify for the accepted answer. But what is that qualification it itself a question. I think as long as the moderators of the site can judge that it would remain impartial. Giving a normal user that ability could be asking for more maintenance for the moderators to make sure that the marking was impartial and fitted into the criteria of being an accepted answer and also could bring many anomalies to sort out. As far as an alert/email to be generated for active users, I believe the moderators are already on it as there have been instances where they have asked the OPs to mark their answered questions appropriately, but somehow they did not respond? So what to do about those questions?
I don't believe just any user be given the power. It should be guarded by karma point level. I would say at least 20k or higher. Seeing as there are only 6 folks on this site that meet that requirement, 4 of them being mods, that would be a nice high number. The folks that achieve 20k or more in karma spend a great deal of time on this site and understand what qualifies as a good question/answer.
Most of the time, an answer is pretty easily discernable. But, some of the time, the question is weird and the answers are weirder, so knowing what to do is, at best, problematic.
Here's an example:
http://ask.sqlservercentral.com/questions/22184/sql-server-2005-mdmp-filessharepoint-shared-service-provider . How do you mark that? And that's only the 4th from the back (I marked three others).
@Grant Fritchey +1. Sir, I can feel for you guys. This could be really complex and time consuming. This is why we admire you all and take you as the top mentors. But what I get from @Shawn_Melton 's post is to take this to a further level, where you people can mark the questions with accepted answers where possible. So If a user comes searching to this site, he/she could be more sure of which could be the correct answer. The questions where no decision can be made, leave them as unanswered OR mark them as closed?
@Shawn_Melton I have no problem with that. The two guys other than the moderators i.e. @WilliamD and @TRAD with 20K+ points have served this site tremendously and they richly deserve that. This would certainly take off some burden off the prestigious moderators. They are helping us voluntarily and we should take care of them as well. But I guess there are some people in the list of 10k+ which could fit into this criteria as well. So one suggestion is the moderators could assign this job to some other volunteers as well but only if they really want to.
This is a difficult issue to deal with. I think that appointing semi-moderator rights to people may be right, but you have to be careful. An outsider/first-timer may consider it strange/wrong that the people with the highest karma are the mods. As it stands, the karma system and the functions "unlocked" by them are quite limited (unless the FAQ is just out of date). If you look at the [reputation FAQ for StackOverflow][1], you can see what could be possible on this site (the OSQA-Team may need to do a little programming). I think that way may be the better alternative than adding more mods. Power users could then vote for certain actions, which have a final decision made by mods / automatic thresholds. If 5 power users vote for an answer to be accepted, the system accepts it, or a mod has to agree. Just my 2p [1]:
http://stackoverflow.com/faq#reputation
Would it be worth considering a system that automatically marks the answer the the most votes as The Answer after a certain period of inactivity?
If you go back and look at the old questions, and even some of the newer ones, the answers with the most votes are frequently not really answers as such.
Does the physical rewards for Karma thresholds hold any key to this? If people gain more Karma for marking an answer as right then would that encourage them as they would then get to a new book (or whatever reward)? Maybe people get an award for having above a % of asked questions asked that are marked as answered. just throwing the idea in the ring, not sure how it would work...
