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How about, when they hover over the Quick Answers link, we have an extra prominent link "Ask a question about this article" that redirects to the message posting page
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Not a bad idea, if it is the first in the list that could work.
Did you know:
That by counting the rings on a tree trunk, you can tell how many other trees it has slept with.
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Guy asks how to convert .doc to .txt. He gets several answers. He posts his own answer, "Thanks. I'll try them." His answer is voted 1. Why? The reason given is "fake answer".
A guy showing common courtesy is voted 1? WTF? He should be voted 10! How many times have you guys been thanked for an answer in QA? I have, ONCE.
This numerical voting system is anti-community spirit. It's fun to shoot fish in a barrel, but this is too much. Let's dump it and move forward.
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Most likely he was down-voted by those repliers who were pissed off at him for not marking their posts as the answer 
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Nish, I 5ed that; you did not really mean it, however, I think it is not too far from the truth.
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Hans Dietrich wrote: How many times have you guys been thanked for an answer in QA?
In forums, all the time. Which I often answer with a "you're welcome".
In Q&A (which I used regularly during a period of 4 weeks, early this year), hardly ever. Not sure what that tells me. Are Q&A enquirers less polite? I see no reason to think so. Is Q&A less courtesy-stimulating? Yes, it is; I see the structure with limited hierarchy (question, comment, answer, comment), not stimulating discussion, and the author names more hidden, making everything rather impersonal. There is no way to express gratitude, "thank you" does not fit the comment format, comments in my view are expected from a third party.
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I see a lot of comments thanking the answerer, Luc.
However, I agree the design needs adjusting.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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We're adding voting to comments (simply good/bad - sorry Luc) so that rubbish like this can be filtered. Votes to answers will be tied to comments, and if the comment is inappropriate it, and its associated vote, get removed.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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In the end, you probably will have spent lots of efforts resulting in a forum as we know it but with a different layout.
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I agree, but I can't really complain about the QA forum, since I don't own this site.
In my view, the QA forum is a response to you-know-what. If Chris&Co. believe the QA forum will make the site more attractive to advertisers, then I'm all for it.
On the plus side, I believe the QA forum has had the beneficial effect of absorbing questions that would clog the regular forums.
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Quick Answers is something I'd had planned for years. Years and years. We certainly looked at what else was out there in the final revisions, but the core of Quick Answers is our base CMS, which allows us lots of fun options, and the core of the UI is a flat BBS style single-question-multiple-answers that I'd been wanting to try forever.
Initially I was going to make the forums one, single forum, with tagged posts, but I truly believe the forums are great for rambling disucssions, and QA is great for focussing on an answer.
The question is, though: do rambling discussions get you better answers? Does a focussed Question and Answer make it easier for those searching for answers find what they need. Remember: one of the core goals here was to reduce the number of questions posted. (and so no: it's not a response to any advertising pressure)
In any case, we're going to continue playing with it. Nothing ever gets accomplished if you don't at least give things a try and see where they go. The more constructive input we get on how to improve, the better.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I am constantly (pleasantly) surprised at the little nidbits that pop out in forum threads (even in the Lounge). I think Luc is 100% right on that score.
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For programming fora too?
In general, do you feel that a dedicated page for a question and it's answers (with the best answer first) is more or less beneficial to someone actually trying to find an answer than threaded discussions?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I will try to word this sensitively.
If the CP search facility worked effectively, then it wouldn't matter whether you're searching QA or a proggie forum.
Given a newbie mentality, I doubt that most questions are preceded by, "Hmmm. Should I do a search first?"
To answer your question, for vets, it doesn't matter, because they will read all the answers anyways; for newbies, a forum where a non-numerical rating (thumbs-up only) could be attached to an answer would be helpful.
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The search is something we are planning on fixing, though I do strongly feel that if newbies searched, they wouldn't be asking the types of questions we see. In this case, even the best search system is useless.
(on the side: what do you consider an "effective" search system in this context?)
Hans Dietrich wrote: a forum where a non-numerical rating (thumbs-up only) could be attached to an answer would be helpful.
Luc?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: what do you consider an "effective" search system
If google can find it on the site, then so should the CP search engine.
I had an example of this yesterday. I will try to remember what it was.
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I too have had the unpleasant experience of not finding my own stuff on CP.
Hans Dietrich wrote: If google can find it on the site, then so should the CP search engine.
I would like to agree, however we can't expect CP to spend the resources Google does in developing its algorithms.
OTOH I'm inclined (or sufficiently naive) to expect it could become much better with a limited effort, and that in turn would improve the "user experience" and somewhat reduce the number of junk questions.
If I can find the time, I'll do some research and make a suggestion to Chris.
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Luc Pattyn wrote: If I can find the time, I'll do some research and make a suggestion to Chris.
I had to come up with a search algo for my site (link below) and discovered that it was trivial to let google do the work for me - a site search without the ugly google logo. As you say, google's the best.
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Hans,
1.
if you have a solution that uses Google and works in real-time, i.e. it can find the data right after it has been added to your site, then I'm interested in learning about it for my personal use; and I would applaud it be available on CP of course.
2.
For CP I would hope to first find what is present, and then get even more functionality than Google can offer, e.g. I would like to first search, then interactively sort the results (when they are not too many), maybe by creation date, by last update date, by average score. IMO DataGridView functionality (such as in CP Vanity) is great; I implemented that on my own site (which uses full search, not word indexing, without problem, made possible by its very limited database size).
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This probably wouldn't work for you. I'm not interested in finding something seconds after it has been added. I DO want to be able to find stuff I know is there and has been there for a while, which is my benchmark for an effective search.
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OK, I have the normal Google search box on my site, it only finds what has been indexed before; I also have a pretty good idea how and when they crawl the web, the net result is it only finds what has been there for say 2 weeks.
That has its merits, however if I need to suddenly reply to a CP forum message I know I read only a few days ago, it wouldn't help me. OTOH, CP and Google having a special relationship may solve that. Most forum messages are reported by Google right away, all too often the question I read on CP and try to answer is the first thing that shows up in Google!
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Chris Maunder wrote: what do you consider an "effective" search
I was looking for my article on DLLs, specifically Part 3, which I knew was called "XDLLPt3". The CP article search found no matches. google found this: Step by Step: Calling C++ DLLs from VC++ and VB - Part 3[^]
So to answer your question: an effective search is one that finds something I know is there.
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Wow.
We never, ever thought anyone would search on filename. I just learned a new thing.
I will add that peice of meta data to the full text index.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Hans should use QA then, it offers 5 radio buttons, none of them is numbered (don't click "vote", numbers may suddenly appear).
voting means a reader expresses his appreciation; he can judge positively or negatively the things he reads (articles, answers, comments, anything a user enters), and the average score can:
1. help CP to create ordered lists,
2. enable future candidate readers to make a quick selection.
having a scale (e.g. 1-to-5) allows for nuance.
voting here is not to be confused with an election, where all participants express their preference amongst candidates.
BTW: maybe scoring is the better term.
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Luc Pattyn wrote: voting here is not to be confused with an election
On CP, you can be sure that voting will not be considered an election. Maybe sniping. Maybe "people acting immaturely". Maybe "wreaking havoc on the community spirit". Maybe "sabotaging the site good-will". Maybe "driving away prospective new members". Maybe "destroying the interest in contributing".
But not an election. Nope, you got that one nailed, Luc.
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