Can we weight the askme pages?

July 11, 2005 5:28 PM

Don't think it's been mentioned. It's another Ask.mefi request on scrolling.
How about a weighted system?
posted by filmgeek to Feature Requests at 5:28 PM (14 comments total)

I'll admit it. I didn't even bother to look.

But I'm looking at the threads that get buckets of replies...and the ones that get very few.

I'd love to see the 'best answers' immediately scroll downwards like a rocket...and the ones with fewer answers laying around longer...as opposed to the simple scroll rate.

Yes, I know, complicated, complicated complicated.

But has any thought gone into it? Some sort of weighted formula?

Like: (Best answer*answers/time) with some standard...if it hasn't been well answered after two days or so, then it makes it's rapido descent?
posted by filmgeek at 5:31 PM on July 11, 2005

I've asked. So have dozens of others.

I wish that it would be easier to browse for questions and answers.
posted by loquacious at 5:45 PM on July 11, 2005

Hell, even the 'previous questions' page is starting to scroll by too fast. Weighting is certainly one solution, but definitely not by best answers, at least not for me.
posted by mischief at 5:54 PM on July 11, 2005

One of the advantages of a public web interface is that the solution need not be implemented locally. One needs a page parser and a feed, say, updated every 3 minutes (and hosting space and bandwidth). Or much better, a Greasemonkey script that can reorder the page. But that's platform specific. I don't have the programming chops, but I'll volunteer for documentation and testing.
posted by Gyan at 6:12 PM on July 11, 2005

I see youv'e asked....loquacious...and are a fan of wikis (and are loquacious!)

I'm not suggesting anything as complicated as multiple views...or other methods...

I just think that this is the exact sort of formula that could be useful...even if it was a linear stream.
posted by filmgeek at 6:22 PM on July 11, 2005

I would like to have the option of a filtered view "with 0 answers" in addition to "with best answer(s) marked."
posted by caitlinb at 6:34 PM on July 11, 2005

Now this is a weighted sytem. (Via some right wing monkey)
posted by wendell at 7:27 PM on July 11, 2005

Different people use the site in different ways. For me, this idea is about as far from useful as it could get.

A dropdown list with various views of the data, including something like the request, similar to but perhaps a little more useful than the one on the blue, would be welcome, though. Default view should be chronological, as it is now, I reckon.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:56 PM on July 11, 2005

Often, the simplest solutions are the best - the drop-down list that exists in MeFi, perhaps with an additional option of "best answers" or something? I dunno. I do know that the current view is a problem because the TTL of any given question is way too short to gather sufficient scope in answers.
posted by dg at 8:14 PM on July 11, 2005

Wouldn't people just wait to mark best answer until their thread is off the page? (I think some already do this anyways.)
posted by advil at 2:17 AM on July 12, 2005

dg - we are back to the problem of the code for The Gray and The Green being different from the code for The Blue. At some point Number One will have to address this and I suspect it will not be a small hiccup. The longer this waits . . .
posted by geekyguy at 4:03 AM on July 12, 2005

I continue to be bemused by the idea that "best answers" being checked means much of anything. Some posters don't even bother using the system (I've seen threads where posters were extremely grateful for specific responses but no check marks appeared), some use it frivolously (checking their favorite in-thread jokes), and some "best answers" aren't very good at all. I pretty much ignore the whole thing, and I'd be pissed if threads that had this by and large meaningless Magic Checkmark started "scrolling downwards like a rocket." It ain't broke; don't "fix" it.
posted by languagehat at 6:33 AM on July 12, 2005

I think it wouldn't hurt to have the questions last a certain amount of time, the oldest question is (I just checked) only 5 hours old. I check in the morning, during lunch and at night, and still miss questions (I do have to get some work done).
posted by 445supermag at 1:34 PM on July 12, 2005

geekguy, I know about the difference in the code base. We are really just talking out our arses here, though and speaking up about what our narrow view of the perfect AskMe world would look like. Nothing is going to come of it.

It ain't broke; don't "fix" it.
A system that is designed around input from users spread across the globe, some if whom are on different days, never mind the time differences and that only allows a window of a few hours to gather that input is broken.
posted by dg at 4:51 PM on July 12, 2005