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Questions here need accountability!

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by a former member

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I know some of you who are regulars here can sympathize with me here: People who are posting questions are not closing them or even bothering to rate any of them. Now, I try to get here as often as I can, but this isn't my only place of visit. I'm here to keep up with everything and help out when I can, but none of our time here is well spent when the questioners are ignoring your answers or don't even bother to thank you with point awards. I

A complaint is no good without a solution, so mysolution is that this forum auto-send emails every day reminding questioners that they have an open question. This will also help us in figuring out which questions are STILL open (after months), and eliminate some "wasting time" answering questionsthat aren't even active. WHat do you think? Post a comment to the techrepublic people demanding accountability!

Q

40 replies

by t. e. walker

I'd give it 5 days from date of first answer before sending reminder e-mails, and have a time limit on how long an open question can remain active. After a certain amount of time, the question should be closed automatically by TR. I have seen another post which suggested 30 or 45 days. This seems reasonable. Might not be a bad idea to send one final warning email to the person who opened the question that their question will be closed by staff if they do not answer it themselves. Might also be a good idea to automatically award each person who took the time to answer the question with a nominal amount of points from the poster's account - say, 5 points - which would both help encourage the poster of the original question to have incentive to rate the answers themselves (in order not to lose points), and to encourage people to respond to questions. If the amount is nominal and fixed, it would hopefully not be too much extra work for the TR staff.

by christine muehling

I'm new to frequently here, um, frequently but I do agree. I browse tech support pages constantly, which often gives me the answers to problems I can't answer with published sources.
I am often sorry there doesn't seem to be a solution to things because either the original poster didn't finalize, or the solution was conveyed privately.
I'll pay points! (Not that I have that many to offer!)

My ?.02
Christine

by donq

Looking over most responses I note the vast majority are not rated. That is unfair (Accepted or Rejected) to the individual taking the effort to help a contemporary.

I would propose TechRepublic award offered points and remove the asked questionautomatically when answers go unattended for more than 34-45 days! What would you suggest to incourage fair-play and/or user accountability?

If someone assigns more points than they own give him/her a negative balance and/or check availability before alloing the question to post?

BRAVO question but what can we do about the 326550 open points?

by Former member

I agree 100%. Couldn't have said it better myself. But I would say that after 15 days, drop off the open questions that have been 'inactive'. Clean it up! And award those points..

by joshua 57

One of the new features at TechRepublic addresses this issue. A rather complicated algorithm is in place but a close approximation would be to say a reminder is sent to the questions author 30 days after an answer is posted. If the author takes no action another reminder is sent after 30 days. If after another 30 days the question has still not received attention from the author it is closed and points are distributed evenly to those that provided answers. In summary: A reminder is sent at 30 days, another at 60 days and the question is closed at 90 days when points are distributed.

by syscokid

Joshua,

Are you associated with Tech Republic, or is this something you've heard? If the former, please inform those in charge that those time frames are WAY too long. People post questions they want immediate help with. By 30 days they've either fixed it or given up. Fourteen days for reminders is more than enough.

And if this is true then chestnuts like "Need an old TechRepublic Article" will be dropping off soon, I hope.

by joshua 57

There is a need to balance the interests of both side of the question. I personally believe the time line is too long but it doesn?t harm anyone. Old questions need to be closed and people need time to experiment with the answers that are provided. I think both sides will be served with this implementation.

I?m confident adjustments will be made if needed.

by donq

Check any often used category, Index down a few pages and EVERY category holds Open questions (with and without answers) from 1999 through now???

a 90 days algorythm is not in place!

by syscokid

Well whup me upside the head with a 2x4, but I just noticed that some questions I answered months ago are being rated. It could very well be a coincidence, or maybe reminders are going out.

Now, all the answers have been rejected, either becausethe poster had no intention of giving points, or they've just lost interest. Which is another argument against 30-60-90.

by smers

Great algorithm!, now you need to go back into it and change the triggers to 5, 10, and 15 DAYS. Three Months is way too long to wait for forced distribution.

Steve

by mbarker734

Hey that's all fine and dandy. Just post an answer (doesn't even have to be to that question) and play the odds. Good chance the question will go into default and you will recieve points. hmmm, If I only had 5 points for every one you could do that with.

But then again, some people post ligit answers and still get no rating/points. Seems to me the poster simply reads the answer performs the suggestion and ignores the reward.

I would rather my answers go unrated than get rejected to simply save someone points. I don't post answers unless I have a solution, as I am sure is true for many others as well. When looking at the stats, accepted/rejected can look bad even with very viable answers.

by syscokid

I agree, but it's not a problem only here. I have the same problem at another site I frequent.

I used to keep a database of my questions and follow up myself. It paid off a few times but it's cumbersome. Now if the "My Questions" section contained all your questions, instead of a random sampling of 20 open and closed questions, that would be useful too.

Finally, far too many people post tech questions in the discussion area, where they rarely get answered. This should be discouraged by more than a statement in the FAQ. Who reads FAQs unless absolutely necessary. It should be on the Start a Discussion page.

by davidandgoliath

Do you have more than 20 questions open at a time? That seems like a pretty rare case if you do. The questions are sorted by descending last activity date. The closed questions could have a MORE link to give you a full list, and I suppose the open questions list could too.

I agree with you about people asking questions in the discussion area which should have been asked in Q&A forums. The distinction needs to be more clear on the discussions home page and on the post page.

Thanks for the constructive input!

by syscokid

I guess I have more than 20 open questions! But not really, questions show up there where my answer has been rejec6ted but the question is still open. And yeah, I just figured out that they were sorted in reverse order by activity date.

The My Closed Questions section is questions I've asked. What I'd like to see is a section called My Accepted Answers because 1). Questions are frequently repeated and I'd like to easily find my previous answers, and 2). so I can see which of my answers wasaccepted in the (all too frequent) event that I don't get email notification. (Got more points overnight, no idea where they came from).

Which brings up another off topic question. Whatever happened to the 50 points per day for logging in? That went south long before the site change.

by joshua 57

I hesitate to say that I am speaking officially. However, I do work at TechRepublic. It?s a great place to work with at good product and a wonderful community.

by Former member

C'mon, 30 days is worthless. People need to stay on top of their questions. 5 days is more reasonable, and I still prefer a daily reminder. It's not intrusive. That's the price you pay to have a question read by nearly a million technical people! And if you post a question, do you get notified when someone answers? Should be.

There are many people who post here and need a reply ASAP, get a reply, and close the question. THere are others who post a question, read the answers and leave, neverreturning until they have another question. These are the ones that will be "inconvenienced" and I say let's inconvenience them!

by donq

Anyone can look in (almost) any category and find both answered and unanswered questions 1+ YEARS old that remain open Josh. Why don't you check what you publish first?? Now you can do us all a favor and tell QC lots of users are upset because theforum is abused so often and TechRepublic's fix IS NOT WORKING!!! Help us - don't fib to us Mr. TechRepublic employee.

by davidandgoliath

The reason this was changed was to comply with some "no spam" standards. I don't know the exact wording, but the idea is that a user should have to take an action (check a box) *if* they want to receive email from a site, and the default should be to not receive the email.

Trying to please hundreds of thousands of users is tough to say the least. Some want checked by default, some get emails that they don't understand and think TR is spamming them. I think letting the user specify in a preference would be nice, but then some people complain about or refuse cookies. We try to do what will please the most people and what the powers-that-be agree to.

by syscokid

I know this is going off topic bit now you've got me going! :)

1. It's insane for me, when I post an answer, to have to check off that I want to be notified immediately when my answer is rated. Of COURSE I do! How else will I know? The box should be checked by default. This is one situation where "opt-out" is ok.

2. Even when I check the box, I don't necessarily get notified. My points have increased 3 times since yesterday, and no notification. now MAYBE I forgot to check that darn box once, but THREE times.

I've written to TR about it and it's been "referred to the development team".

by sibasis75

yeah if its going to be done let it be done the right way ... the responsible way... People not responsible enough should be given an oppurtunity to do things the way it should be done ... no offence ... just wishing for a better tommorow... will evolve to the best tommorow if everyone understands responsibility ... :o)

by Former member

Couldn't reply to that one, due to max. reply level reached, so u won't be able to reply to this one either!

But u probably realized that it USED to be that that auto-notification box was checked by default. Now they changed it for some reason.
But you're lucky to have seen an increase in points, because I haven't seen anything since I started answering a few days ago! None of them have been rated!

by syscokid

I'm pretty sure he's talking about a newly implemented policy. It'll take some time to weed thru all the old stuff.

After all, they DID get rid of that hacker pretty thoroughly, though it took some time.

Let's concentrate on getting them to shorten the reminder timeframes.

by syscokid

This is one situation where "opt-out" is just wrongheaded.

OK, I can see where answering a question shouldn't necessarily *subscribe* you to a question thread (though I think it should), but come on. Find me a handful of people who, when they answer a question, don't wonder how they made out.

by Former member

Thanks for the answers! I see I'm definately not alone in this matter! I have some additional comments:

We're all more or less computer literate here and we don't think that automatically notifying us about our answer ratings would be constitutedas SPAM. The box should undeniably be checked by default.

I would like to see daily email reminders go out to questioners whose questions are idle and open for more than 5 days. 10 day-old idle questions need to be removed to the CLOSED section.

And for those with a habit of leaving questions for the bit bin, I say no longer allow them to post questions. Like you guys, I don't have a lot of time to sit here and answer questions all day, only to have them be ignored or not rewarded. Thereneeds to be better accountability!

by mjervis

I myself have left questions open. However here are the reasons I have left them open. 1. not sufficient enough answers. 2. waiting on an answer that would work. I feel the 30,60,90 should be changed, however I feel it should be 30,45,60 because some questions ask about scheduled tasks that have monthly overlays. And reminder messages are not spam, If I had a reminder message on my last 2 questions they would not have stayed open. I feel also that box should be checked by default. <<< only my 2cents >>>

by davidandgoliath

You can now reject answers without closing the question which you couldn't do in the past. You can also post comments to your question to further clarify it or to state that an answer worked partially, etc. You could leave it open and if you weren't getting answers and it is important enough, you can now increase the number of points its worth. This should pop it to the top of the list for other users who use the filter to sort questions by points.

Hope this helps.

by earthworm

With the new Coments feature a question should not go more than 10 days without some form of intraction from the questioner. 5 days may be a bit short due to the workweek may not be a valid time for experimenting on some systems, to check if answers are good, but 10 I think is a good number. Give ten days of stagnation from questioner, then send a not, give an additional 5 then kill it.

The old questions are deffinetly a problem.

-Earthworm

by donq

Thanks a MILLION for entering + following the discussion! This forum has helped folks in the past, and will help many more in the future. We all learn new stuff every day - and that's what's so great about this web site. I was evidently wrong about the new algorythm not working (apologies) and that is GOOD NEWS. Checking the automatic notification by default is also a good idea!!!

We'll just get better and better by discussing our concerns honestly!

by asdfasf

Remember that the new site only went up a few weeks ago. They coulden't just delete all the old questions at that time. Give it time to work out. But lower the timelimits.

by Former member

This site has improved trememdously! Many thanks to the TechRepublic team! It's really nothing they did, it's just the people getting a free ride and not honorably following the 'community' rules...

by keblerelf

I definitely like the ideas from the last posts in regards to showing those that have been answered and accepted. The thing that gets so annoying right now is that in the list of questions that I've answered it shows ones that were rejected and closed, accepted and closed, not rated, etc etc. The only way I've found to tell if one I've answered has even been rated is to go through and click on every single one. If nothing else I'd like to see something next to each question that at least showedthe status (still open or closed) and even better if it showed as well if your's was accepted or not. Then I'd also like an option to where I could remove one (or multiple) questions from even showing up on that screen anymore.

by whoiskevin

This product just went up a few weeks ago. With 30, 60, and 90 day time frames the first cut hasn't occured yet.
You don't help us get action to lower time frames when you demonstrate lack of understanding. If you are a technology person I would think you would be a little more quick than that. Being critical is easy. Obviously the concerns have been addressed now only the frequency is in question. I suggest a mail to customer service since we can't guarantee the right people are going tosee this discussion.

by donq

It looks like some Ctrl = C - Ctrl + V wizardry to me? I for one won't try it to verify my suspissions however.

This turned into a great discussion y'all!
Thanks for all the good ideas AND positive feedback!

by xdrfox7

testing:
if it takes six men six days to dig six holes, How long will it take one man to dig a half hole ...........?

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