Profile page answer counts shouldn't include follow-ups.

March 12, 2006 7:42 PM

I think that in the profile pages, the answer count for Ask MetaFilter should exclude the user's own comments in their own questions.
posted by Sharcho to Feature Requests at 7:42 PM (36 comments total)

Why? Because they are not answers?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:43 PM on March 12, 2006

But sometimes they are.
posted by Gator at 7:44 PM on March 12, 2006

Explain why?
posted by keijo at 7:44 PM on March 12, 2006

I'd prefer to dedicate my time to people who contribute back to AskMe.
posted by Sharcho at 7:45 PM on March 12, 2006

I'd comment, but I don't think you've contributed enough to metafilter.
posted by crunchland at 7:50 PM on March 12, 2006

A lot of the questions appearing on MeFi lately are from people that register an account to take advantage of the MeFi community without ever contributing back in any form. Since there's an incredible amount of questions everyday, I'd prefer not to waste my time helping people that only help themselves.
posted by Sharcho at 7:57 PM on March 12, 2006

to take advantage of the MeFi community without ever contributing back in any form

But I enjoy reading questions. I'd go so far as to say I enjoy reading questions more than I enjoy answering them. People asking questions are contributing in the most important way possible to AskMe. That's what it's for!

If you've got some crazy algebra for what makes a user's question worth answering, I think you'd be best off tracking it in your head rather than asking Matt to do it for you by forcing it on everyone else. But if you feel like you're wasting your time by answering questions when the asker hasn't met some sort of mefi-participant status, then by all means, don't; it'll work out better that way for all involved.
posted by mendel at 8:18 PM on March 12, 2006

No one has ever asked for this feature before and I don't see any good reason to implement it but you could probably write a greasemonkey script to compare their question post IDs with their answer post IDs and subtract on the fly.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:20 PM on March 12, 2006

If you've got some crazy algebra for what makes a user's question worth answering, I think you'd be best off tracking it in your head rather than asking Matt to do it for you by forcing it on everyone else.

Seconded. If it's that big a deal to you, you can easily enough (1) refrain from answering questions asked by newbies (or anons, since you have no way of determining if the user is one who is worth your time), and (2) refrain from answering questions from users whose questions-to-answers ratio doesn't meet your expectations for a useful contributor. If math is not your thing, you can set a minimum number of answers -- I'd figure by the time a person has a whole page worth of AskMe answers under his belt, he has almost certainly made at least a few of them in other people's threads, and they have therefore presumably tried to make themselves useful enough to be worth responding to.
posted by Gator at 8:25 PM on March 12, 2006

A lot of the questions appearing on MeFi lately are from people that register an account to take advantage of the MeFi community without ever contributing back in any form.

Wait, so we make a handy, attractive service readily available to people without requiring that they first indoctrinate themselves thoroughly into the existing community structure, and when they do that they're taking advantage?
posted by cortex at 8:54 PM on March 12, 2006

snootiness²/WTF! = lame

note: that is WTF factorial, not WTF with emphasis
posted by Falconetti at 8:55 PM on March 12, 2006

at least it's not != lame, which is how I first read it (too much JavaScript for today, I think).

There should almost be a metatlalk FAQ, pre-emptively answering questions that keep coming up, like "why doesn't the site make sure I'm not helping someone I don't think is worth helping?"
posted by Tuwa at 9:19 PM on March 12, 2006

cortex gets it! Sharcho does not!
posted by xmutex at 9:46 PM on March 12, 2006

I think that there are a nearly infinite number of far more important things for Matt to worry about, including the cleanliness of his bellybutton.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:39 PM on March 12, 2006

I'd prefer not to waste my time helping people that only help themselves.

Don't let the door slam you in the ass on the way out.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:41 PM on March 12, 2006

AskMe was created by pure, unadulterated altruism, and that's what sustains it. Take it from a few folks who were here at the time. If you'll only contribute to others who meet some standard you've got, then you're not in the right spirit. Whatever spirit it is you're in should not be encouraged via features or policy.
posted by scarabic at 11:37 PM on March 12, 2006

Feel free to help out whomever the hell you want, but if people get the idea that the number of answers posted matters more than the quality of those answers, then AskMe will probably slide into uselessness. What's good about the site is that it's a place where you can find useful information from people who know something that you don't about a certain topic. Encouraging people to answer for answering's sake will just encourage more noise.
posted by bunglin jones at 11:57 PM on March 12, 2006

Can't you just click on their answers and take a quick look to see how their answers come down? If they're mostly commenting on their own stuff? Don't get me wrong, I think you probably should just suck it up and answer the damn question if you can, but I don't think you need to get the site changed in order to figure that out.
posted by OmieWise at 4:02 AM on March 13, 2006

"AskMe was created by pure, unadulterated altruism, and that's what sustains it."
(And $5 a head.)

I don't want to answer questions that jews ask. Can you put in a script that will let me know not to aid them in their control of media and banking by telling them where to get pizza in Peoria?
posted by klangklangston at 7:17 AM on March 13, 2006

You're all blowing things completely out of proportions. Anyway, I think you've all made your point. Let's move on.
posted by Sharcho at 7:37 AM on March 13, 2006

Metafilter: I think you've all made your point. Let's move on.

Should I have left the 'Anyway, ' ?
posted by Chuckles at 7:51 AM on March 13, 2006

I'd like to take this opportunity to complement the site on the utter lack of "First comment! WOOT!" idiocy. It doesn't matter whether it's because of a higher class of members. or some horrific reprisal mechanism - that there isn't any of that crap is a major positive.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:51 AM on March 13, 2006

Sharcho, I've heard others express similar opinions.. I don't really agree, but you're not alone..
posted by Chuckles at 7:57 AM on March 13, 2006

I don't want to answer questions that jews ask. Can you put in a script that will let me know not to aid them in their control of media and banking by telling them where to get pizza in Peoria?

Maybe they would get a gold star?

First, they came for Stan Chin. And I did nothing, because I was totally jealous.
posted by cortex at 8:08 AM on March 13, 2006

Sharco you obviously feel like we aren't getting your complaint, could you point us to a couple users whom you feel should have different AskMe post counts?
posted by Mitheral at 8:19 AM on March 13, 2006

Mithreal, here's an example of a such a user.
posted by Sharcho at 9:25 AM on March 13, 2006

Sharcho writes "Mithreal, here's an example of a such a user"

OK I see what you mean. Two other possiblities than russ is a leach: 1) he's actually a well known MF personality and he doesn't want that personality to get in the way of his question, 2) he's actually an anonymous MF user who wants to ask questions without the detail there in outing his anonymous ID. Third bonus, could be taken either way, explanation: he is a MF user who wants to ask more than one question a week.

Whether he is just a non contributor or there is some other explanation I can't see any solution that doesn't encourage noise to raise comment counts.
posted by Mitheral at 9:37 AM on March 13, 2006

Other posters have noted that asking a question adds value to the community. I agree with that and I'd like to add that answers are valuable not only to the poster but also to the community at large. If you have valuable information, I'd appreciate the opportunity to read it regardless of your opinion of the person who posted the question.
posted by stuart_s at 9:48 AM on March 13, 2006

AskMefi wouldn't be much without the questions, now would it?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:09 AM on March 13, 2006

That's a question, isn't it?
posted by Plutor at 11:16 AM on March 13, 2006

Hey, so's that!
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:30 AM on March 13, 2006

What's what now?
posted by cortex at 12:25 PM on March 13, 2006

odinsdream, I'm not going anywhere. You'll just have to continue to suffer my presence.
posted by Sharcho at 4:14 PM on March 13, 2006

FWIW, your 6 comments in this thread don't count. Well, they do. But not to me.
posted by SuperNova at 12:24 AM on March 14, 2006

Also this would encourage people to give crap answers. And we definitely don't need more of that.
posted by delmoi at 5:11 PM on April 10, 2006

Just for the record, I'll say that after Mitheral's explanation I changed my mind on this issue.
posted by Sharcho at 5:13 PM on April 10, 2006