Can we single out unanswered questions on AskMe?

March 13, 2006 7:49 PM

As I watched my somewhat difficult and obscure question move unanswered onto the second page of AskMeFi today, I wondered aloud: "We have a filter for those marked best answer and one for fantastic topics, why not one for 'Stumped' that no one answers"? Or are there not enough unanswered questions?

I imagine the author of the question would have to mark whether an answer had been reached or not, and unanswerable questions like "Why does God allow suffering?" could be flagged and removed from the 'Stumped' category.

Is such a thing possible? Desireable?
posted by MasonDixon to Feature Requests at 7:49 PM (25 comments total)

"We have a filter for those marked best answer and one for fantastic topics, why not one for 'Stumped' that no one answers"?

I'd like to see this too, but it might be problematic to implement because there are questions, like yours, in which comments or suggestions have been made, so a simple list of "Questions that no one has even tried to answer" wouldn't include all the unanswered questions. Also, a great boatload of askers who do get a good answer don't bother flagging one as "best," so a simple list of "Questions that have no answer flagged as best" might be uselessly large, though I'm not positive about that. Might be worth a look-see, though.
posted by Gator at 7:57 PM on March 13, 2006

I think a system based on trouble tickets would be more effective than chronological posts.
posted by cellphone at 8:29 PM on March 13, 2006

Is such a thing possible? Desireable?

I have no opinion, but I may (possibly) have an answer for your AskMe.
posted by dersins at 8:31 PM on March 13, 2006

I'm all for having a "stumped" flag. I've posted a couple.

I'm also extremely supportive of extricating AskMe from it's - pardon me - broken and and pointless chronological thread format.

Granted it's what we have/had to work with, but it'd be soooo much nicer and shinier in a format more appropriate for a proper knowledge base.
posted by loquacious at 8:50 PM on March 13, 2006

Perhaps it would be best if the questioner could flag it as a "stumped" question if there are no satisfying answers? That would solve the problems Gator mentioned and also address the oft-requested "I want to ask this question again with clarification because it's fallen way off the front page."
posted by JMOZ at 8:54 PM on March 13, 2006

How about when you flag a question as "stumped", it puts it on the "stumped" page for say 7 days, and you have to manually renew it if you still care.
posted by cillit bang at 9:26 PM on March 13, 2006

cillit bang is on to something.. I would add, only original asker gets to set the flag (which was probably implied), and it can't be done for at least seven days after the question was initially asked. Maybe even a 'boot this question, he really has an answer, he just doesn't like it'...

Nah.. What we really need to do is spruce up the wiki with this kind of stuff.

don't worry, I have no idea what I'm talking about
posted by Chuckles at 9:43 PM on March 13, 2006

I really like what cillit bang/Chuckles are proposing and hope Matt implements it.

Suggested refinement: you can't flag your post as stumped until it has fallen off the front page (which seems less arbitrary than seven days), and you must manually renew it every seven days. Renewing it will not, however, move your post higher up the 'stumped' index.
posted by Ryvar at 10:05 PM on March 13, 2006

Wow, this is one of the first MeTa posts calling for new features that I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with. I agree with Ryvar's version of how this would work. I hope matt implements this.
posted by Falconetti at 10:42 PM on March 13, 2006

I think this would be a pretty useful feature as well, if implemented properly. Good idea, MasonDixon.
posted by fenriq at 11:12 PM on March 13, 2006

I like Ryvar's version. But maybe only once it's off the first two pages, to keep the number down. And maybe add a specific "he really has an answer, he just doesn't like it" flag.

Seems like it shouldn't be any harder to implement than the "Fantastic post" or "Best answer marked" pages.

Good MeTa, MaDi. That's right, I said it.
posted by SuperNova at 11:20 PM on March 13, 2006

Hmm, an intresting idea with a huge potential for abuse.

I was thinking the other day that it might be nice to have some gradiations between questions. Not all questions are of the same import, you know. So a one off question about a song or video or whatever could be placed (by the asker) into a lower priority bin.
posted by delmoi at 11:39 PM on March 13, 2006

Maybe a Four Quadrants system? There are questions that are immediate (guests coming over this weekend) but not important (what kind of wine to get), and vice versa.
posted by Eideteker at 1:57 AM on March 14, 2006

With its slew of anti-intellectual questions that could be answered by a few minutes on Google, AskMe has chased off those MeFites who are deep wells of knowledge.
posted by mischief at 2:11 AM on March 14, 2006

Which explains why me and mischief are still here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:38 AM on March 14, 2006

I like Ryvar's refinement of cb's idea too. I'm not really seeing the potential for abuse, though. Seems like a worst-case scenario would simply be someone who keeps putting his question back in the stumped queue for the fun of it, but if it never rises higher in the queue, big deal, right?

As for levels of importance, meh. I'm not seeing why we'd need to separate them out; in fact, I imagine that kind of system would be abused, because people would flag their questions as "immediate" when they're really not, just to get the seemingly higher prioritization.
posted by Gator at 4:02 AM on March 14, 2006

Having asked two such questions I welcome Ryvars solution
posted by Wilder at 4:02 AM on March 14, 2006

I think this is a great idea and Ryvar's refinement of it is excellent as well. My only complaint is that a 7-day renewal period seems a bit brief. Perhaps monthly?
posted by yankeefog at 4:21 AM on March 14, 2006

I'm a fan of the "stumped" idea with the caveat that there should be a way to keep it from being a special well for posts that are really MeFi posts in disguise ["why is U2 so lame" or "Why won't George Bush learn?"]. I'd suggest monthly renewal and maybe a listing with its own tag or RSS feed so that people who really liked that sort of thing would have little trouble finding it. In the meantime, you could add a "stumped" tag to your posts and encourage other people to do the same thing and mathowie could find a way to make a special link to the stumped thread.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:05 AM on March 14, 2006

Great idea, jessamyn.
posted by grouse at 5:49 AM on March 14, 2006

Awesome idea.

there should be a way to keep it from being a special well for posts that are really MeFi posts in disguise ["why is U2 so lame" or "Why won't George Bush learn?"]

This is really the only way I'd anticipate abuse of this idea, and it seems to be easy enough to work around. Make sure the intent of the "Stumped" page is made clear when marking a post as "stumped", and let users flag inappropriate posts with the it breaks the guidelines flag. Simple enough.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:46 AM on March 14, 2006

This is a good idea!
posted by drezdn at 6:48 AM on March 14, 2006

I agree
posted by rxrfrx at 7:05 AM on March 14, 2006

As for levels of importance, meh. I'm not seeing why we'd need to separate them out; in fact, I imagine that kind of system would be abused, because people would flag their questions as "immediate" when they're really not, just to get the seemingly higher prioritization.

Flagged "this is not urgent" or "this is not important"?
posted by Eideteker at 9:51 AM on March 14, 2006

This is one of the best ideas I've seen in the Grey. Personally, i got a couple e-mails about how good my "Grease-man" question was, but no one was able to give a definitive answer. Which is a shame! A stumped tag would have helped like... TONS. Maybe a million tons. I wouldn't even mind if only #1 was in charge of the STUMPED tag, if there were folks worried about abuse. I think it would be VERY helpful though.
posted by indiebass at 11:22 AM on March 20, 2006