Solving the Fastest Gun in the West Problem completed
Each question's answers are sorted by descending score and then descending time of posting. This means that if a person sits down and answers a question in a long, thorough way, going through every nook and cranny, once they post their answer, it will already be one of about seven different ones, some of which have already been upmodded. This wouldn't be a problem if those answers were as thorough as the one this guy's posting, but they usually aren't. Some of them are downright wrong, some aren't even answers to the question asked because their poster didn't bother to read the question all the way through.
This causes a problem I like to call SO's Fastest Gun in the West Problem. I've come to a point where I'd rather just send a short, simple, correct explanation, than to go and do some proper research, write a whole blog post about it or even make sure the code I post even compiles, just so it will be noticed, as opposed to the incorrect ones.
As per the discussion here: http://beta.stackoverflow.com/questions/56103/fastest-gun-in-the-west-problem
A few ideas were raised:
1. A grace period during which votes don't matter and don't show. Display is always 'oldest first'.
2. A grace period during which one or more answer can be selected as 'the answer' by the question's poster.
3. Allow duplicate answers to be merged by either the question's owner, an outside editor or by both answer owners.
4. Change the badges and rep gain to encourage longer thinking, longer explanation, code samples, etc.
5. Update the answers 'live' for the first X minutes since it was created. This will help answerers refrain from duplication.
(I would like to extend my thanks for the community for coming up with these suggestions)
new answers that appear while you are composing an answer will alert via topbar, and new answers can be retrieved without interrupting the answer you are composing. see http://blog.stackoverflow.com
- codinghorror
ssg
how come the resolution is relevant to the problem?
4 months ago
Patrick McElhaney
I like @benzado's idea of sorting by vote count, then newness. It fits with the ideal of having the best answers rise to the top. If two answers have the same number of votes, the one that accumulated those votes in the less time is better.
8 months ago
sysctl
There is a separate problem with people who post an elaborate canned answer to their own "problem" within 2 minutes after they post the question. These answers get up-modded quite frequently.
9 months ago
johanb
You will need to show results as current but with an added feature of shuffling the display order during the first hour or so.
9 months ago
RBraxton
No answers can be accepted until the first group closes. Those in the same group are displayed in random order. (consistent random order or perhaps terse answers first)
9 months ago
RBraxton
How long of a delay is long enough? 24 hours? What about a nightly update? Yuck on both counts because answers are desired asap. Why not just time stamp when you begin an answer which is valid for awhile (a grace period) until you post or timeout. And if anyone else begins an answer within your grace period, then both/all posts are given the same rank. The first submit closes the group.
9 months ago
edwilli
How about making part of the formula for what comes to the top is post length, if the votes are the same for 2 answers the longer one bubbles up?
9 months ago
sfusco
@codinghorror
dynamic update of the UI while editing is a great idea as well, something like Slashdot's "firehose"
9 months ago
sfusco
- Keep the sorting at the vote level, things voted up should be read first
- Forget "delaying" things, keep the "start time" (point in T user started typing), and the "end time" (point in T user clicked submit)
When vote count is equal (read: 10 answers, all zero) sort by the time the user has actually spent on something (end time - start time) since this is really what is desired.
9 months ago
RoryBecker
Chris' Suggestion (above) makes sense
9 months ago
ChrisNoe
I suggest sorting by votes, then by rep-of-posting-user, then by newest
(though newest would hardly ever come into play)
That seems more consistent with the meritocracy-confers-value model.
9 months ago
RoryBecker
Wondering if a simple rating of answer might help.... 1 - Correct but not quite enough. 2- Spot on. 3 - Exceeds expected answer
9 months ago
zooba
My previous suggestion along these lines was rejected but I still stand by it. Add a delay/grace period during which no answers can be selected as 'the' answer.
A personalised view showing questions you have asked but haven't accepted an answer for combined with the delay also helps with the problem of people forgetting to select an answer.
9 months ago
dwdyer
I like the delayed voting (and accepting).
Other things that would help would be to remove the -1 penalty for down-voting (see http://stackoverflow.uservoice.com/pages/general/suggestions/29501) and to allow all voters to vote down as well as up (http://stackoverflow.uservoice.com/pages/general/suggestions/29516). Then we might see early answers voted back down to the level they belong at.
9 months ago
ypeled
I like the delayed voting. The fast-shooting must be stopped!
Another byproduct for the fast shooting is when there is already an answer to a question (even wrong one!) people don't refer to your question. I have posted a question (that now I see it's quite similar to yours...). Take a look at:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/131778/how-do-you-pick-which-question-to-answer-in-stackoverflow
9 months ago
orangy
I think we should differentiate between "agreed" vote and "it helped me" vote. Those are very different things, when you give 'em a deep thought.
9 months ago
RBraxton
Bad, good, better and best... Wow! UserVoice has that!
9 months ago
Silvercode
If people could vote the importance of a post, then that might help. For example if someone posts a good solution, then people could vote it as "good" if they think that there should be a better solution. Then that answer averages as "good". But if later comes an excellent answer, it could be averaged as "excellent" by 1 vote. Of course you could weigh vote count too, but you could also rate posts
9 months ago
johan.buret
- I'd suggest to sort the answers by Votes, then newest, then longer.
- One suggestion would be to give a live "hit count" , how many answer were posted to xxx ,when editing your answer, so that one-line answers don't creep by dozen.
9 months ago
Chris Charabaruk
Hear, hear! I've blown more votes than I care to on bad, shoddy answers that were posted to questions within 3 minutes, and trying to get good answers where they should be. This is a show-stopper.
9 months ago