The adopt an unanswered post initiative

Message

dj_choco · Post by **dj_choco** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:30 am

Clete2 wrote:
afraner wrote:It shows currently 8191 unanswered post, but the last one shown is 4149 on page 83. Behind there are only empty pages. I wondered if this is an error with the forum or my browser, but I guess it's the forum.
Joe wrote:I bet its far more, since the search function of phpBB caps at (2^15)+1 (aka 8193).
That's interesting, but sometimes there are even 8194 unanswered topics.
[edit]
I counted ones again, not 4149 but 4120 unanswered.
[/edit]
This would mean that the counter up there is accurate, but it will not go past those 80 or so pages. We don't need to answer the older posts.

or the ones labled very clearly [SOLVED]!

BiggJ · Post by **BiggJ** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:45 am

I often look at unanswered post, but not until seeing this thread, did I start looking the older ones first ... I started at:

http://forums.gentoo.org/search.php?sea ... start=4100

... which is page 83 or so, where the posts actually start (every page after that came up blank). And after answering a half dozen or so I am noticing that alot of them are duplicates posts. By duplicate, I mean, same author and exact same content. Perhapse we should get some of these deleted?

An example:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... highlight=

All are by the same author: "trajedi"
All have the same title: "stupied error's why do i keep getting them.?"
And all have the exact same post in them:

trajedi wrote:what do these mean.?

Code: Select all

/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: line 108: /dev/stdout: Permission denied
eutils
/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh: line 108: /dev/stdout: Permission denied
base

Not only that, but they were all posted with in 2 minutes of eachother.

--J

Andersson · Post by **Andersson** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 1:17 am

Perhaps posts like that should be left deep down in the database instead of being dragged up into the light. They are not bothering anyone anymore and it's a lot of job to find them and remove them all...

Also, is there a point in answering posts that are more than a couple of months old? The original author is probably not interested anymore and the software in question has probably had several new versions since then.

I think your time is better spent on the newer questions where somebody is waiting for an answer.

BiggJ · Post by **BiggJ** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 3:23 am

Andersson wrote:Perhaps posts like that should be left deep down in the database instead of being dragged up into the light. They are not bothering anyone anymore and it's a lot of job to find them and remove them all...

Also, is there a point in answering posts that are more than a couple of months old? The original author is probably not interested anymore and the software in question has probably had several new versions since then.

I think your time is better spent on the newer questions where somebody is waiting for an answer.

Point taken.

shash · Post by **shash** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:28 am

Joe: 2^15 comes to 32768!

supenguin · Post by **supenguin** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 2:36 pm

I noticed a while back whenever I posted, the post would show up twice or more... Don't suppose there's an easy way for non-moderators to flag a message as a dup?

Also, while answering the older posts is not a good use of time, I'm not convinced answering the absolute latest posts is a good idea either. You'd never see anything older than a couple minutes if you just answer the latest! Maybe start a couple pages into the unanswered posts?

plate · Post by **plate** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 5:36 pm

Report obvious duplicates, stuff answered elsewhere or whatever you think could be safely deleted to this thread. That's one location all the moderators watch, much better than sending PMs to one or several of us.

Great initiative, by the way. Particularly gratifying since we didn't have much of a reaction to this earlier attempt at starting the same thing...

Tazmanian · Post by **Tazmanian** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:38 am

Avoiding unintelligible unanswered posts

Pre-emptive thread split.

Koon · Post by **Koon** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:55 am

I see a problem in this initiative : helpful people will concentrate on new topics (with 0 reply count) rather than on fat old topics (with >0 reply count). If someone wants his question answered and sees a thread that somewhat talk about his problem, does this initiative push him into creating a new topic (bad) to attract this initiative's members or to participate in the old topic (good) ?

What would be better is to include a [SOLVED] subject system to easily spot unsolved problems. It can be included in the forum system as a rule of usage (with a very high risk of people not using it or using it with the wrong syntax) or as a forum mod (with a high risk of not being done, since it requires system modification).

-K

wolvenwraith · Post by **wolvenwraith** » Thu Jan 08, 2004 11:55 pm

TheCoop wrote:I've started on these, managed to answer ~5 so far...

I answered one from a guy who uses the same avatar as you.

ectospasm · Post by **ectospasm** » Fri Jan 09, 2004 7:30 am

plate wrote: Great initiative, by the way. Particularly gratifying since we didn't have much of a reaction to this earlier attempt at starting the same thing... 8)

That first attempt made me start doing it. Every time I come to the forums now, I go to the unanswered link. Now that this thread is here, I can evangelize it. (-:

adaptr · Post by **adaptr** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 3:26 am

I don't understand why you say that last bit - to my mind the problem (and its solution) are quite simple:

- Yes, I also think it a very good idea to try to reduce the unanswered posts to a minimum, if only because people trying to answer them will have an easier time of it (i.e. not having to wade their way through hundreds of posts that aren't worth answering, for any of the reasons mentioned earlier).

Getting rid of the very old unanswered posts should be quite easy, too:
- reply, this alone will make the problem go away

But don't just reply with a "unanswered for a long time, so there" message, since that will accomplish nothing.

I propose answering those with a question to the OP on whether he still wants an answer, thus letting nature take its proper course:
- if he does, he will reply, and the post will show up in "last 24 hours".
(or re-post it if he's smart)

If not, he won't reply, and the post is off the unanswered list

I'm totally not worried about sage advice vanishing off the forum in this way, since the fact that the OP does not want an answer can mean one of two things:
1. He got an answer elsewhere, and so can anybody else; if he was feeling social he would have posted this info in response to his own thread and might even have tagged it SOLVED;
or
2. he doesn't care, so why should we ?

Votes, please?

I think I might start on this anyway - answering the insanely easy ones, but asking the Question for any that are left orphaned for a looong time.

My response would look something like this:
" Dear Gentoo user,
Your post to the Gentoo forums has not been answered in [1/3/6 months' time, a long time];
I am hereby asking you whether you want to pursue this matter further, or, if you have found an answer since then, whether you would care to close this topic, optionally posting the solution or information that you found.

If you still seek an answer to your questions, consider simply re-posting a new one.

Regards,
The adopt an unanswered post effort"

adaptr · Post by **adaptr** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:28 am

Okay this is real weird - now only the actual first page of "unanswered" contains any posts, the rest are ALL empty!
Either that or my Firebird is b0rking somewhere...

Tazmanian · Post by **Tazmanian** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:36 am

adaptr wrote:Okay this is real weird - now only the actual first page of "unanswered" contains any posts, the rest are ALL empty!

I'm seeing this starting at page 86. To be precise, I can see 4242 unanswered posts, whereas the search reports 8166 unanswered posts.

4242. Very Douglas Adams-like.

adaptr · Post by **adaptr** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 5:17 am

Yes, that's roughly the same as others in this thread have said.
I mean really only ONE page of unanswereds, then - nothing.

SPW · Post by **SPW** » Sat Jan 17, 2004 6:48 pm

I like this initiative to reply to unanswered posts. But I already tried to do this since I began using the forums. The problem is that I'm sort of a n00b too and cannot answer most of these questions because I simply do not know the answers. That's why I have no problem with people asking easy questions. A lot of you criticised people for posting "n00b questions" but I have a solution:
advanced users answer "advanced questions" and beginners answer "beginner questions"

aerotux · Post by **aerotux** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:17 pm

This is a great idea.

But a lot of times posts get answered but the problem is not solved. Wouldn't be better to add a keyword on posts that are not resolved (from now on)? something like "unresolved" somewhere in the post.
Then, when someone solved the problem, he could add another keyword like "gentooresolved". This way we can actually search for unresolved posts, no matter how many answered the posts have.

Then the new search will be: "+unanswered -gentoosolved"

We could make this an standard if some administrator put a messege on the forum index like this:

IMPORTANT:
When submiting a question please include the word "unresolved" in your post.

When resolving a problem please include the word "gentooresolved" in your post.

Link to search page (with search_keywords=+unresolved -gentooresolved) and a text with something like: Help the communty answering some of our unresolved threads

What do you think about implementing something like this?

Do you see it posible?

Bye!
[/quote]

Andersson · Post by **Andersson** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 12:19 am

aerotux wrote:
IMPORTANT:
When submiting a question please include the word "unresolved" in your post.

When resolving a problem please include the word "gentooresolved" in your post.

Link to search page (with search_keywords=+unresolved -gentooresolved) and a text with something like: Help the communty answering some of our unresolved threads
What do you think about implementing something like this?

Do you see it posible?

I suggested something similar once (it wasn't about unresolved questions but something to help searching) -so I obviously think it's a good idea

But with so many new people coming in every week, and so many old members unused to this, and it being different from every other forum on the net... I think it would be hard to keep people doing it.

Besides, what if someone want to add a related question in an old thread (a good idea sometimes since it notifies every poster on the thread)?

aerotux · Post by **aerotux** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:10 pm

Yes, you are right about that. Does anyone know if it exists a hack for phpBB forum that mark a thread with two status flags? That could really answer our ideas. I'm sure there is one for vBulletin forum, maybe there's one for phpBB too.

gareth · Post by **gareth** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 8:55 pm

Joe wrote:8193 unanswered posts? I bet its far more, since the search function of phpBB caps at (2^15)+1 (aka 8193).

kcalc on my PC makes (2^15)+1 = 32769

or, maybe that old Pentium floating point bug has evolved into a general maths co-processor monster in my Athlon

I think the adopt an unanswered post is a great idea, by the way.

tomk · Post by **tomk** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 11:50 pm

Well it seems to be having an effect, there was 9911, then 8571 and we've currently got 8109 unanswered posts.

Keep up the good work

deepthought · Post by **deepthought** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:41 pm

And where, please, can I (after adopting a whole mass of unanswered posts) register to increase my personal AdoptiCount (tm) value?

Regards,
Alexander

ectospasm · Post by **ectospasm** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 7:45 pm

deepthought wrote:And where, please, can I (after adopting a whole mass of unanswered posts) register to increase my personal AdoptiCount (tm) value?

Why do you need recognition? Isn't it enough that you're answering such questions?

deepthought · Post by **deepthought** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:57 am

I can't answer this question, but I'll tell you who can.

"I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me. [...] A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate -- and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called... " -- well, I assume you know the rest.

Regards,
Alexander

<log>maybe introduce irony/sarcasm/joke flag. should bug the forum ops about it.</log>

ectospasm · Post by **ectospasm** » Fri Jan 30, 2004 5:10 pm

deepthought wrote: <log>maybe introduce irony/sarcasm/joke flag. should bug the forum opt about it.</log>

Now don't I just feel stupid...

The adopt an unanswered post initiative

don't forget to skip [SOLVED]

Re: The adopt an unanswered post initiative