Unanswered AskMe Contest?

September 4, 2006 11:14 PM

Yahoo! Answers UK 5 million answers challenge-a gimmicky promotion for a not-very-good service, but it gave me an idea:

What if we had a contest for unanswered AskMe questions (those that haven't had a best answer marked) older than, say, a month? Suggested prize: choice of free Metafilter account or $5 for each unanswered question that was resolved favorably. Of course we would need a special page where we could view lingering unanswered questions. Which would be a pretty decent idea anyway; I would certainly read it.
posted by evariste to MetaFilter-related at 11:14 PM (33 comments total)

Well, since only about 1/4 to 1/3 of all questions get a "best answer" mark (scroll through the first few days of the August archive for evidence), this suggestion seems tough to implement and kind of off-target. There are tons of fully "resolved" questions without a best answer. How would you sort out the truly unanswered ones? Those with zero comments? I guess you could do a contest to see if anyone can help "recommend a reputable jewelry maker located on the Baja Peninsula," but I'm not sure it's worth it.
posted by mediareport at 11:39 PM on September 4, 2006

Imitate Yahoo! Answers? Why do that when AskMe is better?
This approach might be seriously taxing for the fun and games Mefites (we all know who they are). They would be bursting with snarky, amusing answers but stymied by the AskMe proscription of such.
posted by Cranberry at 11:58 PM on September 4, 2006

choice of free Metafilter account or $5

It'd be pretty easy to game this. If you have any questions out there with no best answer, you just write your friend who's also a MeFi member and say, "hey, want five free bucks*? Just answer this old question of mine and I'll mark it best."

*By the way, I'm not sure who's supposed to pony up this money. And a free metafilter account's not much use to an answerer who by definition has already got an account. Except for sockpuppetry purposes perhaps.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:00 AM on September 5, 2006

Yeah, it was a lame idea.
posted by evariste at 12:07 AM on September 5, 2006

I'd like to see something like this. Maybe every month we could have "top ten answers" based on difficulty, original research or humor and give out modest prizes to the answerer.
posted by null terminated at 12:20 AM on September 5, 2006

I've been collecting some statistcs for an article I'm writing about Ask MetaFilter and one of the interesting little anomalies is that there have been about 150 questions that have gotten no answers at all - this is about one a week since the beginning of AskMe time. Other neat facts

total questions: 40,347 [as of a few days ago]
unique users asking questions: 5981
unique users answering questions: 8636
total unique tags: 27,560

I'd love to see questions with no answers after a week or so get a STUMPED tag so that people could browse that feed and see what they could do. I know the MeFiBrarian Posse might enjoy that. So, i don't know if it's time to put a bounty on them, but somethign like that is not at all a bad idea evariste.
posted by jessamyn at 5:11 AM on September 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Great stuff, jessamyn. I'd get a real kick out of scanning those sorts of threads.
posted by nthdegx at 5:20 AM on September 5, 2006

I like the "stumped" tag idea. Cash money rewards, not so much.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:20 AM on September 5, 2006

unique users asking questions: 5981
unique users answering questions: 8636

Huh, that's a pretty decent ratio, no?

Also, maybe it's a good idea to keep answerless questions (or those marked as stumped?) open longer, or even indefinitely.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:21 AM on September 5, 2006

Well, since only about 1/4 to 1/3 of all questions get a "best answer" mark...

For the one billionth time: "best answer" marks are irrelevant. Some people use them, some don't; some use them in whimsical ways, some use them for patently incorrect answers. To take them seriously as anything but a casual pat on the back for somebody whose comment the questioner liked at the moment is absurd. This is about questions that haven't been answered, not about questions with no "best answer" marked.
posted by languagehat at 6:12 AM on September 5, 2006

What if we had a contest for unanswered AskMe questions (those that haven't had a best answer marked) older than, say, a month?

According to a strict reading, you're dead wrong, hat.
posted by cortex at 6:37 AM on September 5, 2006

Not that I disagree with the passionate thrust of your argument. Just about the actual text of the post.
posted by cortex at 6:37 AM on September 5, 2006

Heh. "Passionate thrust."
posted by cortex at 6:38 AM on September 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn - please post publication for this article when it goes to print.
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:40 AM on September 5, 2006

What about a sidebar on the green that lists unanswered questions (similar to the sidebar in the blue)? OPs can tag their question "stumped," or otherwise nominate their cobwebbed question, which puts them in a queue for the sidebar. Anyone who satisfactorily answers one of these questions gets a free case of genuine gratitude.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 6:54 AM on September 5, 2006

I think that although the 'stumped' tag idea is a good one, it's probably the case that the (probably very) small % of people who would be motivated enough to cruise those questions were already attentive enough to have seen them (and not answered) in the first place.

Which means that for the 'stumped' tag to be successful/helpful, it needs to made at least quasi-official with an announcement here, in the sidebars of the blue/green and an addition made to the wiki.

There's also the consideration of how much time must pass before you can tag your own post as 'stumped' [and maybe other criteria] -- I can envisage people sending questions back to the pool for a number of reasons.
posted by peacay at 7:24 AM on September 5, 2006

Plenty of "name this book/movie/game" questions get a bunch of answers but are ultimately unresolved. I would be pleased if whatever process is adopted for keeping unanswered questions alive could deal with these cases.
posted by teleskiving at 7:24 AM on September 5, 2006

If this is going to be a separate section, could we please please name it Hmm Hmm Him?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:58 AM on September 5, 2006

Plenty of "name this book/movie/game" questions get a bunch of answers but are ultimately unresolved. I would be pleased if whatever process is adopted for keeping unanswered questions alive could deal with these cases.


As the author of such a question, I'd love this.
posted by Lucinda at 8:16 AM on September 5, 2006

This didn't get anywhere last time or the time before that.
posted by patricio at 10:48 AM on September 5, 2006

To take them seriously as anything but a casual pat on the back for somebody whose comment the questioner liked at the moment is absurd

I disagree with this sarcastic and unhelpful view. Where questions of a technical or other factual nature are concerned, the best-comment markup adds genuine value to the post for all participants, not to mention future readers.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:57 AM on September 5, 2006

Good idea! Start here please.
posted by c:\awesome at 3:58 PM on September 5, 2006

cortex: Damn you and your "strict reading" and "actual text"! Damn you to hell!

OK, it might have been a good idea to reread the post before sounding off.

Where questions of a technical or other factual nature are concerned, the best-comment markup adds genuine value to the post for all participants, not to mention future readers.

See, you're assuming that people mark "best comment" for what are actually the best comments, those that genuinely answer the question. I suggest you pay a little more attention to how people actually use the system as opposed to how it's supposed to work. Believe me, I have no desire to be sarcastic and unhelpful. I try to mark best answers as honestly and helpfully as I can. But lots of excellent answers go unmarked, and lots of bad ones get marked. Keep your eyes open and you'll see.
posted by languagehat at 4:54 PM on September 5, 2006

Do keep in mind that many questions are time-sensitive: I'm going to NY next week, where can I have my undies laundered - kind of stuff, so it would be unlikely for the asker to go back and mark best comments after the drop-dead date. Of course, posterity would appreciate such gestures as answering dead questions.
posted by iurodivii at 6:36 PM on September 5, 2006

I'd love to see questions with no answers after a week or so get a STUMPED tag so that people could browse that feed and see what they could do.

CHRIST. I'm going to have to keep saying this until I'm blue in the face (or green in the face, as it were). The problem isn't going to be helped by people's questions being marked STUMPED after a week, because after a week, those questions will be loong off the frontpage.

There are two solutions. The first is to completely redo the frontpage, making different sections with different placement-priorities (new questions in a box near the top, "stumped" questions on the side, "popular" questions somewhere else, etc.). This is highly unlikely to happen, since it will render AskMe completely different in look and feel from the rest of MeFi.

The second answer I've already fucking implemented like, a month ago to show you how it could be done. For Christ's sake, I don't even have access to the database, yet I can implement the solution in a day. Matt's got the whole MeFi world in his hands (he's got the whole world in his hands) yet the "show questions that haven't recieved a best-answer yet" pony (and really, it's not even a fucking pony, it's more like a small dog, or even a large rodent of a problem) has yet to surface.

AAAAARGH.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:23 PM on September 5, 2006

Keep your eyes open and you'll see.

I am reading the same site as you.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:08 PM on September 5, 2006

MeFites wouldn't get upset about this, would they?
posted by Cranberry at 8:29 PM on September 5, 2006

By the way, in case anyone gives a shit, the method I used to determine whether or not a question has received an adequate solution is if someone marks "a best answer" or if the question has more than 15 comments, it won't show up in the "unanswered questions" list. Yes, I realize you could have 15 responses without adequate resolution, but that's still 15 more comments than the poor shlubs whose questions go completely unanswered.

Also, this will discourage people from arbitrarily tagging "best answer yay!" prematurely (which happens waaaay too often). More times than not, I'll find I've spent twenty minutes typing an answer to a question and in the meantime, some asshat gives a two word answer that doesn't even answer the question, and the OP goes and gives a gold star to the asshat in the guise of a best answer without waiting to see if there's a better answer. Makes me wonder why I bother sometimes.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:30 PM on September 5, 2006

OK, it might have been a good idea to reread the post before sounding off.

Yes, and for the record, languagehat, you actually agreed with my post about the troubles with using "best answer" in the manner the poster suggested. Keep your eyes open and you'll see. ;)
posted by mediareport at 8:31 PM on September 5, 2006

C_D: Clearly your time would be better spent editing the Wikipedia articles concerning your areas of expertise.
posted by ikkyu2 at 9:53 PM on September 5, 2006

Why would you give people who already have accounts free accounts?
posted by delmoi at 9:26 AM on September 6, 2006

delmoi-to give to friends you'd like to invite to MeFi, or for sockpuppetry? I just thought it would be a nice modest prize that wouldn't cost Matt anything.
posted by evariste at 12:40 PM on September 6, 2006

Yes, but accounts have a nominal fee associated with them these days specifically as a sanity check—if what you want that account for isn't worth five of your own green dollars, maybe you shouldn't bother, eh? If you don't want to join Metafilter that much, maybe you oughtn't.

Existing mefites don't need extra accounts, and folks who aren't members aren't (across the broad spectrum of everyone's friends of friends) that likely to want to be. The intersection between people mefites know who aren't members and people who want to be has to be pretty goddam small, and those are the only ones who'd have any business getting hooked up with a free account. And making that a condition of winning would be hard to formalize and impossible to enforce.

It's a nice idea, evariste, but I don't really think it works.
posted by cortex at 2:56 PM on September 6, 2006