Q&A top scorers

If we're paying with points... I suppose I can afford to buy. At least they'd get some value!

Don't forget, I'm the DD, so it's on me.

I see only one flaw to offering a highest points allocated list, they would be the same people at the top of both lists.

The guy with 500K points can offer 100,000 for a simple question.
The guy with 5K points will not be able to live up to it, and therefore both lists Top scorer and Top awarder could easily be manipulated by the top scorers to have them in both top 5 lists.

Did that make any sense? It was almost a tongue twister.

The points awarded via the Q&A section aren't the determining factor in rank there anymore. That's obvious. But there used to be many other ways to harvest [a word I don't use lightly in this case] points. I suspect I and the others on that list achieved the rank we now have from those other means.

As you can see, I have something around 30k points for answering questions. However, I have 4.2M in total. I don't think you can see that, can you?

All of those points are available to me t award to others in the Q&A section, but aren't the total that I earned there.

Well first of all the thought of lumping Discussions and Tech Q&A into one forum doesn't reeally appeal to me, I want to get away from questions sometimes.

Last night I was told by two new menbers that Discussion forum is for asking technical questions and not for off topic discussions. To which I simply cut and pasted the headings from both Q&A and discussions to show them exactly what each forum is for.

The system is great, it works and is helpful. The navigation is not clear, that is why everyone simply Discusses thier issues instead of posting to tech Q&A. I think ernaming and moving these links as well as a clear intro page to each forum explaining the purpose would be MUCH more effective.

Even if you separated the two WITHIN Discussions, people will STILL mispost on a regular basis, thus the problem is not solved.

If you are restructuring the site, it takes a whole 30 seconds to change your CSS sheet for the Navigation, I downloaded your page to dreamweaver and tried it myself.

I think perhaps you guys are looking too deep to resolve a VERY simple issue.

As for recognition, well it would be REALLY cool to see TR actrually cough up priizes when they say they will. From what I understand none of the Geek contest runners up got mugs, none of the uber geek runners up did either, although we did get the TR finalist signatures.

Perhaps put it into a point system similar to Horse Player Interactive points. You have a small online catalogue of goodies, TR flags, stickers, books, mugs, t-shirts whatever you have. People simply BUY them with earned points. Your outlay would be minimal, I am sure your other sponsors could also chip in prizes ect.(C-Net can't help?) It would work so well, is being done everywhere, ClubZ, HPI, Coke and Pepsi, it just works. It costs the company VERY little and increases participation well, while offering some great user stats to the site owners.

So simple, you were ALMOST there with the Tech Q&A page but it seems it just wasn't followed through.

"Ask Your Questions Here" "Help others and earn prizes."

It really has potential, what you have already done is great, just not finished.

I don't think that it's worth trying to moderate [any more than is currently being done] the miscellaneous discussions. If people post in the correct place, I doubt any other the other topic headers would be in need of moderation.

Personally, I like the idea of getting some ranking done based on your Q&A participation. That doesn't mean it has to be the ONLY ranking system you have. I mean, c'mon, it's a bunch of different database queries... And they are the batched type, for the most part... Give the intern(s) something to do!

And as for ranking discussion participation, well, I think we'd end up with a lot of negative ranking, if you follow...

There are several type sof talent here, though... I notice a propensity to create articles based on discussions we have. Perhaps awarding some points to someone for that, too. "I got published, and 5000 points!" or something like that. Or if someone submits an article of their own, and you use it, give them some more points.

And rank on genre as well as total points... Have a ranking for the Q&A lovers, a separate one for articles, another for discussions [still don't think that one will fly, orville], etc. And as suggested above, give the rolling ranking, too.

And if you REALLY want more participation in something, offer some TR-gear for the points earned... Oh, wait...

Tech points earned are as good a method to rank peers in the Technical Q&A area as any other.

Percentage of accepted answers has a few problems in my mind.
1 is the large number of unrated answers.

2 Is that if the ranking was based on accepted answers some peers would be less willing to offer answers to questions unless they were 100% sure they had the correct answer.

As to moderators, I don't think they are needed for the Technical discussions and questions.

What you might consider through, is moving the "off-topic" discussions to there own separate area.
Perhaps a TR water-cooler or Break room specifically for peers who wish to exchange ideas on non-technical topics.

That way, peers and visitors who are bothered by the political discussions can easily avoid them. Yet, those of us who wish to participate can do so freely.

Chas

.
I would sure like the "My Discussions" to list the ones I'm currently involved in instead of older ones, some years old.

Thanks

By the way, what ever happened to the idea of a larger 10k/5k indicator (the one next to your alias) - and more of them with more colors for more levels of point achievement?

Well, I answered your nonquestion. Do me a favor and wait for anyone else to post for the points. If it's too diluted, I'll give them my share...

I share your exasperation about questions in the wrong place. Ever notice there are no general discussions in the Q&A section? Cheap and or lazy people? I'm mostly in a funk where I ignore the questions in the wrong place, at the moment. Perhaps I'll care enough again soon to bitch about it again.

Thanks for the kind thoughts.

.
The World Series of Poker is held at the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas.

We could have a World Series of Q&A at the water cooler in TechRepublic forums.

You have a great advantage, however, if we're playing "table stakes". You've got all the chips!

yeah I said it, SNOB!

.
A friend of mine in high school had a Morris Minor. I wasn't driving in the 1960s, as I didn't get my license until 1969, but I did pump gas (full service - what's that?) all throughout high school. (When it was okay for a "child" to work.)

Max, you should keep that to yourself, don't go around tell Oz that you're dating yourself...

I seem to remember that as well. I joined TR in 2000, but didn't participate much in the discussions and Q & A until this last year. But I remember looking at my points thinking that was quite I few I had.

Does anyone remember how many TR gave you once you signed up?

.
Points given just to sign up - 500, I think.

Points given to read (click on) an article - 5, I think.

Points given to download something - 20, I think.

Points given to participate in a survey - 20, I think.

Points given to "refer" another mamber - 500, I think.

There are probably more, but I don't recall them all.

I don't know if these things still apply, but they used to, at one time.

They once had a point sheet (haven't looked for it in years) that outlined how you get points.

You get points, or I should say, you DID get points for reading and rating TR staffer articles, participating in discussions and of course the whole Q&A thing.

I still think its amazing -- I bring this up EVERYTIME I talk in a discussion about tech points because I think its funny on one hand and so underhanded on the other....

They (they being TechRepublic of course) explicitly posted clear as day on their site long ago that techpoints could actually be used towards tangible merchandise. It was originally one of the reasons I started using the site (that and they do have some semi-helpful articles on here), I thought it was cool. Then somewhere between then and now...I guess a big wig at TR reamed the staff a new one for suggesting merchandise for techpoints because all of a sudden *poof* all TR employees pretend to play dumb on the topic and say "what? we never said that"...ooook...yes I'm that desparate for *another* mug with a company logo on it that I'm making this up....rrrrright!

The techpoints are stupid. flat out worthless...I don't know why people pay any creed to them. If they aren't good for anything...what is the draw (besides say my points are more than yours) to someone giving me 5 or 5million points to answer a question?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think its pointless.

Also to be honest, this site ranks fairly low in my opinion on well answered or even well explained and technically accurate answers given. Its not my first site by far to bring a major question I have related to technology.

Some of the responders truely sound like they are without a clue. I wonder if they are even in the field sometimes.

Note: I said *SOME* not all, there are a few on here that I value your input because its been correct before when I asked them something.