Who should be allowed to choose answers for Q&A?
TappedOut forum
Posted on Feb. 26, 2015, 5:38 p.m. by Tyrannosary
I have noticed that no matter who answers questions first on this website or how good the answer is it always will say that it is approved by Epokalyptik. I know that the person who asked the question can change the person who answered it but I still think this is wrong. I don't think the question should be "answered" unless the person who asked the question decides for themselves, not the automatic choice of Epokalyptic and then whoever the questioner picked. Let me know what you guys think about this down below.
JexInfinite says... #2
To answer this question we must first ask, what is a question?
February 27, 2015 7:14 a.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #3
Thread plz
Who even gives a fuck? "Omg Epoch selected his own answer because the OP didn't actually pick an answer, and just like any other of us probably would, he picked his own? Madness!"
February 27, 2015 7:41 a.m.
SpartanCEL says... #4
Epochalyptik tagging [mod] would probably be easiest, but if tappedout gets bigger (I now learned the mods I thought were mods are the only mods) then maybe a page on the admins with a link to their profile, because until I started reading a lot of posts I would not have known you were a mod just from joining.
But it doesn't have to be that, I think just tagging [mod] would work, but the excess notifications on you guys might be an issue if one person answered it and it's still there:p
February 27, 2015 8:16 a.m.
Tyrannosary says... #5
I just think that if the moderators are worried about the OP picking wrong answers then they shouldn't let them pick any at all.
February 27, 2015 9:15 a.m.
Didgeridooda says... #7
I think Q&A is a very useful resource. Friends, and I have used it a few times in the past. Not sure what the future is for it, but the way it is dealt with now is perfect for my needs.
I think this thread was half frustration, and half Tyra starting stuff. Sorry dude, but it is just how you do.
February 27, 2015 9:30 a.m.
Ohthenoises says... #8
My usual use of the Q&A is to verify or disprove a theory I have. Stupid interactions that need clarification.
It's a very helpful section to have.
February 27, 2015 9:41 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #9
I know I'm late as all Hell to the conversation, but I do have a thought to contribute.
The hippy-dippy Web 2.0 world we live in is all about User Generated Content and User Interaction. To go along with this, there's a spectrum of light to strong oversight/moderation that determines the character of each online community. The answers to many questions of the type "should we do this or that" depend on where exactly along this spectrum a website lies. It's possible for different areas of a website/community to be moderated in different ways.
If the MTG Q&A resource is intended to be on the light end of the spectrum, then an Accepted Answer should only be changed if the current selection is incorrect. If it's intended to be on the strong end of the spectrum, then only the "best" response should be selected as the Accepted Answer, and that would be subject to a moderator's review. It was brought up very early in this thread that many users don't bother selecting an Accepted Answer for their own threads, meaning there has to be some level of moderation in order to make the resource function properly.
So is MTG Q&A intended to be a lightly or strongly moderated resource? If it's meant to be something people can trust as an authority and an asset that will drive consistent traffic to the site (from Google searches, etc.), then it might need to be on the strong side. If not, avoid interfering with the natural User Generated Content and User Interaction unless it's absolutely necessary.
PS: Anyone who uses Internet Points to "pull rank" in a discussion always ends up sounding like a d-bag, so don't do it. None of that from earlier in the thread was at all necessary. Seeing stuff like that just gets me riled up.
February 27, 2015 9:55 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #10
@Kingzerker: The points are a meaningless element in this discussion.
@Rhadamanthus: Because the Q&A has a role in defining the site's reliability and authority regarding the game itself, I lean toward stronger moderation of that section. That's why I prefer to check answers and reselect them as necessary.
I agree with the idea that user interaction is a critical part of the site, but it doesn't trump correctness and completeness when it comes to rules questions. I've given my argument for this position before, but the basics are that rules questions have correct and incorrect, and complete and incomplete, answers and their moderation and use should reflect that.
February 27, 2015 10:46 a.m.
Currently the thing says 'Accepted answer' and I never thought that meant best answer, it just meant the one that the question-er accepted. It doesn't say 'Best answer' or 'Editors pick' or anything like that.
A lot of people trust epoch to give the best answers and that doesn't surprise me. But its not a Epoch Answers Your Questions podcast, guys (much as that might actually be fun. haha. twitch anyone?). If we're going to run it like that, I don't get why we currently bother to politely remind people to select their own answers if selecting them is a farce we are just going to override anyway.
February 27, 2015 10:49 a.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #12
Also, to the OP, where in the Q&A does it say "approved by Epoch"?
February 27, 2015 10:59 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #13
I remind people because it's easier to have the correct answer selected by OP than it is to have me make a determination and choose one myself. And because our current POU gives askers the power to select an answer. I also don't always reselect answers. Reselection is comparatively rare.
While I understand the original intention in allowing "selected answers," I'd also argue that the Q&A has developed beyond the initial vision and that changes should be made to the philosophy to help it continue to grow as a resource.
February 27, 2015 11:03 a.m.
Uhhh guys... I'm pretty sure at this point that Tyrannosary is just trolling. It's not like this thread accomplished anything.
February 27, 2015 11:05 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #15
Tyrannosary was never trolling. Good job not reading the thread.
February 27, 2015 11:07 a.m.
Didgeridooda says... #16
Rhadamanthus I would say there is a good possibility he was if it is the same Trannosary that plays on untap. Fairly unique username, not impossible to be 2 different people though.
February 27, 2015 12:08 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #17
His username on untap is the same as on here, he says so on his profile.
February 27, 2015 12:15 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #18
I have no idea what you're talking about or why it's relevant.
February 27, 2015 1:56 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #19
Arguing whether the conversation began as trolling or not is less productive than the conversation itself came to be. Stay on topic.
February 27, 2015 2:01 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #20
This was productive?
All I learned is that go and epoch have differing views about the design philosophies of the site.
February 27, 2015 2:09 p.m.
It comes down to what the Q&A section is supposed to be and what "accepted answer" means. Regardless of what the accepted answer was first meant to be I agree that the section has evolved and the accepted answer should be the one that best answers the question in all its facets. By this definition, a one word answer should never be selected. "Yes" tells me absolutely nothing except that the person answering believes that the interaction works. I don't know that they have looked at the rules or have specific reasons to back up their claims and are just to lazy to explain them. For all I know they haven't looked at any of the rules and are just as clueless as me and could actually be wrong. Also if an answer tells me why something works, that can give me information on not just this one specific interaction in the question, but any other interactions in the game that are similar. I think that is one reason why there is less traffic in the Q&A, people are simply learning. And Magic is not a popularity contest, nor is Tapped Out. If you are here just to earn points, I think you're here for the wrong reason. Sorry for the long post.
February 27, 2015 3:53 p.m.
Tyrannosary says... #22
This is not meant to be a troll in any way, but yeago is saying exactly what I am trying to say even though it may be coming out differently, yes I am Tyrannosary from Untap just like you are didgerooda from Untap, I don't troll.
February 27, 2015 5:49 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #24
Just going off page 6 #2.
Tyrannosary says... #2
LOL we got this to go for 6 pages XD
... What you said there made it look that way.
February 28, 2015 3:55 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #26
The next person to ramble about trolls may find themselves taking a vacation from this site for a while.
Contribute to the productive discussion or don't post. I have little patience for this inane back-and-forth about something that doesn't matter.
February 28, 2015 4:24 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #27
Why not have a user accepted answer, then something like an Editor's choice that you can use?
February 28, 2015 4:36 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #28
That still doesn't really address the actual issue, in my opinion. Having a user-accepted answer is meaningless in a factual discussion unless the accepted answer always and only marks the most complete and correct answers. If it marks any other answer, it's just confusing and misleading readers in an attempt to preserve whatever minor feel-good sentiments may come from having your own answer validated.
That's not something we need to preserve. The Q&A as it is currently used is best served by validating correct answers, not validating users' self worth. We have a great, tightly-woven community that's already quite good at embracing users. I don't see a need to institute a technical option to pat people on the back at the expense of our site's legitimacy as a resource.
February 28, 2015 4:40 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #29
I see what you are saying. Those links really do show up often on google. Outsiders do not know who is most dependable for answering questions there. That said, I do like user participation, and community help. Pats on the back motivate people even if it is meaningless to others. That motivation can keep someone more active.
I could see someone just needing a quick answer to their question, and also have the information there that helps people with similar problems in the future. That is why I think having another tag might help both ends.
February 28, 2015 5:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #30
Why can't the motivation be to have a more productive and complete answer? Is that not the end goal of the Q&A and at least an admirable goal for the individual user? It takes very little time to find a Gatherer ruling or quote the CR (or even just to manually explain the context and reason for an answer). I, and many of the other Q&A regulars, do it routinely.
February 28, 2015 5:09 p.m.
The motivation can certainly be that and to the people who appreciate the specificity, both in ansewring and in asking, nobody is saying remove that.
user engagement is what didg is talking about and i could envision many scenarios where the current philosophy drives down user engagement, both in askers and in fledgling answer-ers.
this isn't strictly a social site and its not strictly a knowledgebase and both mentalities have to be considered. and its all happening in the context of what i see as disappearing user interest in that section. if we stay the course for another year and traffic falls off another half, this could very well be a moot debate. We may have the most pristinely answered, objectively precise answer-base that nobody uses.
February 28, 2015 5:14 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #32
I don't think the stance on correctness has much, if anything, to do with the decline in traffic. We aren't witch-hunting people for giving incorrect answers (generally, the corrections are civil and offer the context to help educate whoever was incorrect).
It may be just me in this camp, but I don't think that losses we incur from asking people to be factually accurate and complete are really losses that we need to be concerned about in the Q&A. We're not telling people "Your answer was too short and you should feel bad." We're just prioritizing better answers when it comes to the designation of a single "accepted" answer.
Not that this statistic would be simple to find, but I wonder if there's been a corresponding rise in the number of people proactively reading the CR and Gatherer rulings over the period of time in which Q&A site popularity has been declining.
February 28, 2015 5:19 p.m.
May I offer a point - is it that it looks like interest is dropping off because questions are posted in the wrong forum? We've only recently been able to move things to Q&A so we may see more threads being put there?
February 28, 2015 5:20 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #34
That, too. Over the past 4-6 months, there's been a surge in the number of people posting rules questions to the forums instead of to the Q&A. I must have moved a few hundred threads out of BE and into the Q&A when yeaGO implemented the conversion feature.
That's just more to suggest that we need to improve the visibility of the Q&A and maybe implement a centralized posting system that will help users place their posts.
February 28, 2015 5:23 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #35
Since the system was inspired by stackoverflow, why don't we just adopt their system and have users upvote and downvote answers?
February 28, 2015 5:23 p.m.
It doesn't necessairly follow that democracy picks the best response haha
February 28, 2015 5:25 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #37
It does for correct answers.
At least for stackoverflow it does.
February 28, 2015 5:26 p.m.
i agree. anyway, that's not what stack does. stack lets the question-er pick the answer they like. its understood that people will provide follow-up answers. and those are just as valuable. i am still not really seeing any logical reason to force this to be the "objective best and most complete answer" because people are free to read all responses, and I imagine responses with quotes from the rules will certainly draw the eye.
February 28, 2015 5:27 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #39
They may, but is it not misleading or confusing for someone using a Q&A thread as a reference to see an incorrect or a poor answer selected? "Accepted answer" again appears to the user to mean "official" or "best" answer, regardless of what the intention was for that feature.
February 28, 2015 5:31 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #40
Most magic players would be able to tell which of the answers is best regardless of a display of the most favourite or best answer. We have this to our advantage over something like say, yahoo Q&A.
February 28, 2015 5:32 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #41
And I again must raise the question: Does the assumption of the reader's discretion excuse a suboptimal or misleading implementation of a site feature?
I still maintain that the answer is no, especially in cases where the feature is being used more or less like a "like" or "upvote" on any social media site.
February 28, 2015 5:34 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #42
Ok, so then we start the voting system :P
yeaGO gets to keep his originality, and the community can drop this subject and decide for itself what the best and worst answers are.
February 28, 2015 5:36 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #43
I mean, if you wanted to implement a better system for pat-on-the-back encouragement, why not have a "Thanks" button for comments? Even if you just display a user's cumulative comment rating on his or her page rather than on the comments themselves, you're still achieving the desired effect without misusing (in my opinion, and based on the possible applications) an existing feature.
February 28, 2015 5:37 p.m.
Yeh I just think we should remove the assumption that the reader can decide whether the picked answer is the optimal one. It's an added layer of complexity that isn't actually necessary.
February 28, 2015 5:37 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #45
Oh, and have the answers display a number, a where
a = (upvotes - downvotes)
So that the community can see which are rated the best.
February 28, 2015 5:39 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #46
I still don't like the voting system because it requires that enough knowledgeable users contribute to each question in the Q&A to select an answer. Why not give the users the power to answer (like they already have) and the moderators the power to select (thus removing a large percentage of the chance for inadequate or incorrect answers to be selected)?
In practice, it's really no different from the current system. I manually proof each question that goes through the Q&A and make sure that the most reasonable, correct, and complete answer, if available, is selected (and in situations where it is not available, I provide it myself).
February 28, 2015 5:40 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #48
Well, for one, it would take the burden off of you.
Two, my experience with the q and a has been that users will post answers that are "correct" and then when your in depth answer is posted, they generally agree that yours is better, ergo, they would upvote yours.
To make this system less corruptible, users should not be allowed to up vote themselves.
February 28, 2015 5:44 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #49
Downvotes generally aren't productive, anyway. Upvotes can be used as a popularity thing and to denote things that are generally more appreciated (whether by virtue of being better or by virtue of being more in favor with the community). Downvotes are, in my experience, implemented out of both vindictiveness and seriousness. And the serious applications don't really undo the damage from the vindictive applications.
February 28, 2015 5:45 p.m.
vampirelazarus says... #50
I don't care if he does, it makes sense for this particular system that resolves this particular issue.
Schuesseled says... #1
I'm thoroughly convinced the best way to clean a laptop, is to pour the rubbing alcohol in betwixt the keys and then give it a good shake.
Bummed I missed out on the sing along.
Bicycle race, bicycle race, bicycle race.
February 27, 2015 3:43 a.m.