There's a reason we didn't give you that pony, Timmy.

June 12, 2009 8:56 AM

We can browse users' favorited posts/comments via their profile pages pretty easily. So, I'd like the same functionality when it comes to "best answers": ability to click on the number of "best answers" given to a user, and see which of their answers have been marked as such. I figure something as obvious as this would have been built in by now, so why ain't this pony prancing?

Here's why I think this is a "Good Idea":

• We can already see which of their answers have been favorited by other thread-readers, but not necessarily by the OP. If we're quantifying things like that (no, I know that favorites mean many things to many people), then shouldn't the OP's opinion should be given similar weight, if not more?

• If it has something to do with people playing the system, the only effect I can see is that AskMeFites would be more likely to want to give great answers to boost their numbers and/or esteem. Result: better answers. (...or just more convincing answers? I'm pretty gullible.)

• As an answer can be marked "best" only once, it would negate any incentive to give an answer just to garner high numbers. (...and favorites already provides that incentive.)

(• While we're at it, I'd also like the same ability when it comes to seeing which of a user's MeFiMusic submissions have been playlisted.)

The profile page, as I envision it being revised, would look like this:

MeFi: 12 posts, 1234 comments
MetaTalk: 0 posts, 666 comments, 2 flameouts ha ha
Ask MeFi: 23 questions, 68413 answers, 3 marked best answer
Music: 18 posts, 145 comments, 1 playlist, [on 15 playlists?]
Projects: 0 posts, 3 comments, I keep forgetting it's even here even tho it's awesome
Jobs: 0 posts bueller, bueller

[or maybe have it down here:]

Favorites: 86 billion (yes this is tehloki's page)
Favorited by others: 765
Best Answers: 3

In short, please direct me to the conversation y'all had where you said, "No, uhhh, we shouldn't do that," and then you shot this pony! I can't believe you people would be so cruel. I'd like to at least visit its grave.

posted by not_on_display to feature requests at 8:56 AM (56 comments total)

So there's some information there that's not, uh, displayed, to your liking?
posted by Mister_A at 8:58 AM on June 12 [1 favorite]

BEST ANSWER! clickclickclick ... hay .. oh!
ISWYDT
posted by not_on_display at 9:00 AM on June 12

I endorse this product and/or service.
posted by bondcliff at 9:01 AM on June 12

In short, please direct me to the conversation y'all had where you said, "No, uhhh, we shouldn't do that," and then you shot this pony!

Here's one of probably several old threads on the subject, and here's a good way to look for others (since the internal search doesn't do quoted phrases).

I don't really have much of a position on this one, and I think Jess and Matt are both sort of on the road today, so response beyond this might be a little light or slow in coming.
posted by cortex at 9:07 AM on June 12 [1 favorite]

Since I'm frequently Captain Bringdown for pony requests, I'll put forth the party-killing argument that giving more visibility to best answers could make them more like favorites. I can picture a not-too-distant future where someone says, "oh YEAH, well I have x best answers and you only have y best answers, so I win!" I'm just throwing out the idea that it could turn best answers into a game.

In a perfect world where numbers are simply numbers and not the measure of a person, I'd like to see this too, because it could represent a collection someone's best contributions. I'm just worried about some unintended consequences.
posted by pb at 9:07 AM on June 12 [3 favorites]

Shooting ponies? Is that where the term "beating a dead horse" comes from?
posted by jabberjaw at 9:07 AM on June 12

This was just marked as a best answer, though it's clearly a joke. So it's often a meaningless designation.
posted by desjardins at 9:10 AM on June 12

Actually the question is kind of a joke too, but that's another topic.
posted by desjardins at 9:10 AM on June 12

As an answer can be marked "best" only once, it would negate any incentive to give an answer just to garner high numbers.

Ah, but a question asker can mark as many answers as he or she likes as 'best' with no limit on that.

I believe this change would cause two possible changes down the line:

- turn the # of best answers into a game to be 'won'. You'll see things like mefi mail from people asking that you mark their clearly good answer as best and why did you mark that other person's answer as best but not mine, I'm really trying to help you here! You might even see a metatalk thread from that person complaining obliquely about a 'certain user' that never marks their answers as best and isn't that unfair?!

- You'll see more threads where every single answer gets marked as best, which we all kind of personally hate because it means nothing then.
posted by mathowie at 9:14 AM on June 12 [1 favorite]

MeFi: 12 posts, 1234 comments
MetaTalk: 5 posts, 4 of which are questions that have been dealt with dozens of times before and the admins have given the same response every goddam time; 666 comments, 2 flameouts ha ha
Ask MeFi: 23 questions, 68413 answers, 3 marked best answer
Music: 18 posts, 145 comments, 1 playlist, [on 15 playlists?]
Projects: 0 posts, 3 comments, I keep forgetting it's even here even tho it's awesome
Jobs: 0 posts bueller, bueller
posted by nowonmai at 9:14 AM on June 12

Since I'm frequently Captain Bringdown for pony requests, I'll put forth the party-killing argument that giving more visibility to best answers could make them more like favorites. I can picture a not-too-distant future where someone says, "oh YEAH, well I have x best answers and you only have y best answers, so I win!" I'm just throwing out the idea that it could bring best answers into the realm of a game to be won.

The people who go to that level of nyah nyah don't really need numbers. But making the best answers more visible might even take a little tiny bit of the wind out of such an argument, because you just can't get THAT many of them, and if you do have quite a few, it's likely in a very specific area.

It's an awful lot harder to game best answers. Even in the mushy land of Dear AskMe, it's a lot easier to play to the favoriting crowd than engineering a best answer from the OP.

I think the number of times in the zillions of AskMes that the best answer designation is given to yuck answers or jokes constitutes a pretty low noise-to-signal ratio.

(Also, I've definitely had the thought that I'd kinda like to know how many best answers I've received. They give me a little happy glow, and I don't always notice them on the sidebar.)
posted by desuetude at 9:22 AM on June 12

I actually agree with you but this has been suggested and shot down a few times already.

If it has something to do with people playing the system, the only effect I can see is that AskMeFites would be more likely to want to give great answers to boost their numbers and/or esteem. Result: better answers.

The problem with that it would end up encouraging more answers, but not necessarily better answers. For example, for simple questions, the OP usually chooses the first person who replies with the answer as the best answer. So if you were trying to game the best answer system, you would be more likely to post a short and quick answer rather than one that is fully linked to resources and gives a better overview of the answer for the OP that would take longer to write. It would also probably encourage more people who don't actually know what they are talking about on a certain subject to throw out random answers in the hope of getting picked, which is already a big problem in AskMe.

Also, I like keeping track of my own best answers because I think it gives me good feedback about what kinds of answers are actually helpful to the people, which in turn helps me give better answers in the future. A hack that works for this is that I added myself as a contact, which gives me handy alerts in the MeFi contacts sidebar whenever my answers get chosen as best.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:23 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

cortex gets best answer in the thread... again. Thanks for the find-a-grave link.

/me reads thread, sobbing and muttering, "Bastards."
posted by not_on_display at 9:24 AM on June 12

I can picture a not-too-distant future where someone says, "oh YEAH, well I have x best answers and you only have y best answers, so I win!"

Not to mention, often question askers of the more moronic persuasion will pick the worst possible answer as their best, so you could also have fights erupting over which answer was really best.


pb, as long as you're here, what's mefi.us and why do I suddenly have to allow it in NoScript?
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:25 AM on June 12

I am not unopposed to this idea.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:30 AM on June 12

mefi.us is our new static domain for hosting scripts, styles, and images. We moved away from our *.metafilter.com subdomains for static content to save a few KBs on each request. Sorry about the NoScript hassle, but for most it's a seamless upgrade.
posted by pb at 9:31 AM on June 12

Not a hassle at all. I was just curious.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:33 AM on June 12

In a perfect world where numbers are simply numbers and not the measure of a person, I'd like to see this too, because it could represent a collection someone's best contributions. I'm just worried about some unintended consequences.

I also don't care one way or another if this pony is implemented. But here's a potential compromise between the for and against to help with this unintended consequence...If you really want to be able to see a users bestest contributions, how about allowing the view comments page to be sorted different ways - by number of favourites, best answers first, most recenct, oldest, number of users' comments/answers in thread, total comments/answers in thread (others?).

No count of best answers would be presented, but you could view comments and sort by best answer if you really want to see the best of. If you're dying to know how many best answers, you'll still have to count them yourself, just like you do now.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:34 AM on June 12

As a counterpoint I have a lot of best answers, but some of my other answers? "Wrong" hardly begins to describe them. Going by that metric would also bias towards high-volume answerers like myself.

You really just have to take the answers as they lie (lay?). Counting too much on user reputation is only going to mislead you.
posted by GuyZero at 9:42 AM on June 12

Does the OP have a problem with something not_on_display?
posted by Night_owl at 9:46 AM on June 12

I am against anything that might possibly cause any more fighting which this seems like it might.
posted by jessamyn at 9:50 AM on June 12

OK, so on the 5 stages of grief, I've just blown through the first three, "denial" and "anger." I'm up to bargaining now.

I can totally see the headache for the mods when peoples' behavior and want for recognition causes whining. (I like a happy mod. I get angry at MeFi when MeFites make the mods angry.) However, do they already do that, even without this pony?

I like If...penguin's idea of sortable activities. I'm often a tl;dr ADD type, and I'm glad best answers are highlighted to begin with. My reason for asking for the pony was so that I could see what the anatomy of a best answer was, and to see how it changes from person to person, or within one person's pool of best answers, etc. I get few best answers, myself, and would also like to know what it is other people find useful in a good answer.

Maybe I'm still in denial and anger. Best Answer whores killed my pony!! but NO!!! My pony still exists, just in a different way!! I'm going to skip the 4th stage, "depression"... ultimately I'll get to "acceptance" but for now, still: denial and bargaining, with a little bit of looniness.
posted by not_on_display at 9:56 AM on June 12

A while back a similar question was asked, and tkolar gave his first born to Rumplestiltskin and was gifted with a magical voodoo way to find out the numbers. I don't know how it's done but it is a curiosity to some people. We have so many random and superfluous stats and data here that I don't see the harm in anyone knowing. I mean, the data is already here for anyone who cares to sift through it. Why not make it easier for those who want to know? I have no pony in this massacre, I just don't see the harm.
posted by iconomy at 9:57 AM on June 12

If you're dying to know how many best answers, you'll still have to count them yourself, just like you do now.

Do people actually do this?
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:58 AM on June 12

I am against anything that might possibly cause any more fighting which this seems like it might.

From now on, every time you use that argument I'm going to fight you on it.
posted by bondcliff at 10:01 AM on June 12

Do people actually do this?

I used to, but then I got my third best answer and ran out of fingers to count on.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:03 AM on June 12

From now on, every time you use that argument I'm going to fight you on it.

Have you seen what she's had to deal with these past couple days?
posted by gman at 10:06 AM on June 12

Have you seen what she's had to deal with these past couple days?

Um, no. The only thing I ever pay attention to here is how many best answers I get.

Anyway, I was joking. I'd never fight Jessamyn. I've met her. She'd totally kick my ass with one hand and still be able to drink a beer with the other.
posted by bondcliff at 10:09 AM on June 12

I get sad because I have 346 askme answers and I don't think I have ever gotten a best answer. I think maybe that should be telling me something.

And I read that cat question, even answered it, but I kinda thought it was chatfilter and was really questioning whether the questioner was serious.

Another (small and petty) part of me hopes the cat does kill her, but only because I want to read the metatalk follow-up post.
posted by cjorgensen at 10:10 AM on June 12

Another (small and petty) part of me hopes the cat does kill her, but only because I want to read the metatalk follow-up post.

You don't need to say every weird thought that comes into your head, you know. Wishing ill will on to other MeFites makes the baby jessamyn cry.
posted by jessamyn at 10:24 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

Ok, I just read up on the past couple of days on Jessamyn's Metatalk history. Now I feel bad and I'm wondering if there's a way to Fed-ex someone a kitten and a footrub.
posted by bondcliff at 10:26 AM on June 12

I have a love/hate relationship with best answers.

Individually they can be very helpful in threads with clear-cut answers, especially when the OP takes them seriously and uses them appropriately. However, collectively they are kind of meaningless because there are too many threads where the OP doesn't bother to mark a best answer at all, or marks the silliest ones. And, worst of all, in questions of a personal nature (especially relationshipfilter) the OPs seem to mostly mark the answers they wanted to hear rather than the real best answers.

So, yeah, I love it when I get a best answer, and it can definitely be a "yay me" ego booster, but I hate it when I see the designation being misused, and I think the erratic nature of their accuracy would preclude them from being a valuable source of information about any particular user's worth as an answerer.
posted by amyms at 10:29 AM on June 12

There have certainly been questions where I secretly wish AskMe had worst answer capability.

At those times, I also wish there was an "Are you kidding me? Can you even READ?" flag.

Man, I really *am* going to be re-incarnated as a cranky old goat.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:33 AM on June 12 [6 favorites]

Can someone construct a logical argument that makes "Favorited by others" a good thing to show on the profile, but "Best answers" a bad thing?

If anything, I think it would be reversed.
posted by smackfu at 10:38 AM on June 12

If there was a count of worst answer then maybe a count of best answers might make sense.

Man, I really *am* going to be re-incarnated as a cranky old goat.

And that would be different from now how?

I kid! get it?!!!
posted by GuyZero at 10:40 AM on June 12

In a perfect world where numbers are simply numbers and not the measure of a person, I'd like to see this too, because it could represent a collection someone's best contributions. I'm just worried about some unintended consequences.

I don't see why we should be listening to somebody who only has 364 favorites.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:52 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

I keep up with Ask threads through recent activity, and my answer generally drops off the page by the time the OP starts making best answers. I generally don't find out I got marked as best until a long time afterward, at which point I go prancing to my friend and squeal I GOT A BEST ANSWER ON METAFILTER!

This is the same friend who has to hear about every time I get a photo in Flickr's Explore. I should buy them a beer.
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:58 AM on June 12

I have 20 best answers out of 137 total answers. Do I win a prize?
posted by Perplexity at 11:02 AM on June 12

Shouldn't the proper metric be percentage of best answers? Or maybe even (# of best answers) / (# of ask threads you posted in)?
posted by smackfu at 11:02 AM on June 12

I sort of think any anti this pony sentiment is seeing a specific difference between favorites and best answers that I don't see. Which is not to say that they are the same, only that the potential for abuse and the subjective nature means there will be favorites or best answers marked for a variety of reasons. Being able to see favorites based on user is an interesting way to see interesting comments - being able to surf best answers in a similar fashion would be interesting too.

Anti-favorites squealing to the contrary aside, and acknowledging that the favorites system has shortcomings, favorites have not ruined MetaFilter. I don't think this would either.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:28 AM on June 12 [2 favorites]

You don't need to say every weird thought that comes into your head, you know. Wishing ill will on to other MeFites makes the baby jessamyn cry.

You're right, and I apologize.

I am pretty sure the OP was just being creative with the question and didn't actually fear for her life, therefor my above comment was meant to be more along the lines of wishing a cartoon piano fell on someone's head. I am pretty sure the incidences of kittens killing people are quite low, so by framing the question as she did the question doesn't even scan as valid to me.

If she'd phrased it as, "How does my cat interpret prolonged eye contact?" if would have read as much more genuine. The answers seem to be taking it in that direction.

And I don't think I say that many weird things (and no, no one needs to try to go prove me wrong).
posted by cjorgensen at 12:15 PM on June 12

I'd like a cartoon piano to fall on cjorgensen's head, because I think after having been accordioned he would make a funny sound.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:49 PM on June 12 [1 favorite]

I really want this pony, but I've given up on it.

At this point, I'd simply like to be able to see MY OWN Best Answer count - or hell, you don't even have to tally them if it's a problem, just give me a link to them.

They are my answers, and to an extent, that's my data, and I find it continually annoying that I'm blocked from accessing my own MetaFilter information by MetaFilter. I don't mean to sound grumpy but I think it's a legitimate beef.
posted by DarlingBri at 1:56 PM on June 12

I don't really see a point to it having a separate stat. Best answers are just favorites from specific people, the question askers.

Maybe people would feel better about it if they were counted, simply as favorites. Counting them in a different category is pointless.
posted by graventy at 2:22 PM on June 12

But favorites are boookmarks.
posted by smackfu at 2:25 PM on June 12

They are my answers, and to an extent, that's my data, and I find it continually annoying that I'm blocked from accessing my own MetaFilter information by MetaFilter.

You aren't being blocked from anything, it's just not being handed to you on a silver platter. I'm sure someone could write a perl script (or whatever) that goes through your comments and delivers you a number, if it'd make you feel better.
posted by graventy at 2:26 PM on June 12

Juliet Banana: This is the same friend who has to hear about every time I get a photo in Flickr's Explore. I should buy them a beer.

Give a friend a fish and s/he will eat well. Convince that friend to join MetaFilter and mathowie will net 5 bucks.

Also, and I speak from experience, getting friends to join up makes for one more thing to talk about on long road-trips.
posted by Kattullus at 2:26 PM on June 12

So, how can I make my friends join up? Other than telling them that I think it's neat and offering to give 'em five bucks, I mean?
posted by box at 2:53 PM on June 12

graventy: "You aren't being blocked from anything, it's just not being handed to you on a silver platter."

To the extent that many other quantifiable things - questions asked, questions answered, posts made, favourites given, favourites made - are quantified on MeFi, and this is a much-requested feature that is continually turned down, then yes it is being blocked. The data is there, but Team MeFi do not want to surface it.

I use Recent Activity and Profile to track, well, my personal Ask world and there is simply no alert or record for this activity in the same place other activites are tracked and recorded. It's a feature that is conspicuous in its absence, and thus, frustrating.

BTW I understand all the reasons why Team MeFi doesn't want to surface this data and they are perfectly fine reasons. At the same time, a number of users badly want this feature, so it seems like showing each person their own data only is an unobjectionable compromise.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:05 PM on June 12 [1 favorite]

So, how can I make my friends join up? Other than telling them that I think it's neat and offering to give 'em five bucks, I mean?

Use this link to gift a friend an account, as laid out in the FAQ.
posted by cortex at 3:22 PM on June 12

...or send them links to defamatory statements in contentious threads which use their real names.
posted by gman at 3:45 PM on June 12

... it seems like showing each person their own data only is an unobjectionable compromise.

I think DarlingBri makes a good point.
posted by amyms at 5:10 PM on June 12

How do you add yourself as a contact?
posted by exceptinsects at 12:56 AM on June 13

Click on this link, which is the add contact link with your user number at the end -
http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/xfnlinkbuilder.mefi?to_user=21704.
Your name won't show up in your contact list, but now you can see your own activity in the Contact Activity sidebar on the front page of MetaFilter.
posted by iconomy at 7:25 AM on June 13 [1 favorite]

Oh, cool, thanks!
posted by exceptinsects at 9:13 AM on June 13

Why are they called "best" answers? By definition, can't there be only one best?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 1:01 AM on June 14