MetaTalk posts tagged with answers

Me asking AskMes

cmoj — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:03:41 -0800

What makes an AskMe question get a lot of answers? Several times I've posted (or seen) human relations, tech or nerdy questions of the kind that I thought would have gotten lots of answers but didn't. So, basically, what makes a good (as in prompts response) AskMe question?

n Favorites in the last 24 hours

qsysopr — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:40:06 -0800

Under popular favorites why is there "n favorites in the last 24 hours"? Is that of interest to any of you? I'd rather see " n answers in the last 24 hours", so I know whether or not I should revisit a thread.

Help me give more helpful answers on AskMefi

giggleknickers — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:54:24 -0800

How can I answer Mefi questions more helpfully? It seems to me that there tend to be a lot of unhelpful answers on Mefi. Not to complain, because there are loads of wonderful, helpful people here, and because I know I'm guilty myself. I would simply like to think about how I could be more helpful and not clutter up threads with unnecessary or annoying answers. The guidelines mostly cover how to ask questions, not how to answer them. I'm trying to look at all the things that make an answer annoying and unhelpful, so I can avoid it myself (and I know I've been guilty in the past and probably will again once in a while in the future despite my efforts). For instance, if someone asks: I'm on the Snoogily Donglewonk Diet and I heard it's good to do low intensity exercise when you're on this kind of diet. Is there any data on how much I should exercise? I don't have time to do more than an hour a day. I imagine some of the answers will be as follows: 1) Unsolicited advice (by far the most annoying and also the most common annoyance). My brother's cousin's aunt's friend's chiropracter's goldfish didn't have success on this diet. Don't do that diet! I know there are some instances where this might be appropriate, for instance if someone is going to unknowingly do something dangerous or illegal, but most of the time it is just annoying and derailing. I understand the urge, though! 2) Haven't read the whole question. Try doing two hours a day. 3) Not even trying to help. If you didn't want to get fat, you shouldn't have eaten so many cupcakes LOL! 4) Guesses from those who have no more information than the asker (when the asker was seeking information rather than ideas or opinions). I never heard of the Snoogily Donglewonk Diet, but half an hour a day, I guess? 5) Claims that the question is not valid. Why are you worrying about your weight? Just accept it. So those are the kind of responses I am going to make every effort not to make myself, which I can also use in situations outside Mefi. What other kinds of responses should I avoid making? Please don't link to examples or mention usernames. No naming and shaming, please! Please!

First They Came for the AskMe Questions About Rectal Porn...

davidstandaford — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:35:21 -0800

People who choose to complain about a question instead of trying to answer it are bad enough as is, but it was so excessive for this question about porn that the question itself got deleted and I think that's really inappropriate. What was especially egregious about this example was the question was an anonymous question, which means a moderator had already approved it for Ask MetaFilter. But instead of letting well intentioned people try to help the question asker, people came in to complain about the question itself and ruined it. If you don't have a helpful answer for the question, then don't answer it. If you must, flag it, email a mod, or post to metatalk. Because of the nature of metafilter, it only takes a small number of people shitting in a thread to ruin it for everyone. And while metafilter isn't a democracy (and rightly so), this is an especially annoying example because it only takes a tiny tiny minority of people to ruin a question. There are lots of questions that a small number of people might object to for some reason and they could easily ruin all of them if they wanted (or at least require a ton more work by the moderators) and I think with examples such as this we should discourage that type of behavior and chastise those people who engage in it. [I realize that it's possible that this question also accumulated a ton of flags and it was deleted solely for that reason. It's hard to tell from the deletion reason whether jessamyn is referring to the answers posted or flags that might be used on the question, but even if it was massively flagged, that doesn't excuse poor behavior by the people who answered the question. And even if it was flagged, I still think it was a fine question and people who don't like the question can skip it and answer something else.]

Clarification on reasons to delete answers

dobbs — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:01:42 -0800

Poster asks: Does dating through craigslist actually work? I answered simply, "No." My answer's been deleted. This is not the first time my on-topic answers have been deleted from threads and I find it pretty annoying. Further, someone else posted "Yup" and there answer is still there. WTF? Yeah, I know I could email ops and ask wtf but I've done that before and have never been satisfied with the answers "It was flagged" or "It was a judgement call" or whatever. I don't see how those excuses are relevant. The barometer should be: Is it on topic? Does it answer the question asked? If those two are Yeses, the answers should stay, regardless of the number of flags something gets or whether the ops like the wording/tone/whatever.

AskMe Answer Generator

orange swan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:28:08 -0800

Before you post your next AskMe question, you might try checking out MetaChat's thread of suggested automated AskMe answers. From "Don't eat it" to "Try Craigslist" to "Check out these twenty-five identical previous AskMe questions on this topic" to "Learn how to communicate. Pouring your heart out to 60,000 random strangers on the internet ≠ effective communication with your partner", we've pretty much got every topic covered.

Everything here is chatty

troybob — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:46:34 -0800

The question on the page is not always the question that is really being asked. Often on AskMeFi the correct answer is one that illustrates that the original question was the wrong thing to ask--an insight often offered by people who have asked themselves that same wrong question before. This kind of approach is part of the value of this site. It was deleted as unanswerable, but it's pretty crummy that it was done after a bunch of people took the time to come up with thoughtful answers to it. It would be nice to keep in mind that with deletions you are not only screwing over the one who make the original post, but the ones who take it seriously enough to put good-faith effort into making a meaningful response--24 such responses in this case. If you're not going to pre-screen questions, at least accept some threshold of community response (and in this case, quality response) that would prove it a valid thread of discourse.

note: Ask MetaFilter is as useful as you make it. Please limit comments to answers or help in finding an answer. Wisecracks don't help people find answers. Thanks.

bigmusic — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:55:04 -0800

Also, I think that the definition of "noise" needs to be extended to encompass posts that are just people giving their opinions without providing anything new to the discussion. posted by 1 at 2:08 PM on February 12 The comment in question: If you want to have sex with a woman who is probably far less wealthy than you and who, all things being equal, almost definitely wouldn't want to have sex with you under those circumstances if it weren't for the fact that she needs the money, then yes, that is still a place where you can do that. I have solid second-hand knowledge that are still enough prostitutes to go around. As for "worth it," well, that's like asking whether it's "worth it" to pay, say, $13 for a hamburger. It all depends on your preferences and cannot be answered by anyone else for you. But if you think that using economic coercion to have sex with women is about the most absolutely fucking appalling things there is on this Earth, then I feel pretty safe in saying that it probably won't be worth it. posted by 1 at 1:03 AM on February 15

Seriously guys, he just wants a name.

vytae — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:50:46 -0800

The poster of this question has clearly stated, "I'm not trying to solve their problems, I'm looking for specific recommendations for a marriage counselor. You know, like a name. If I wanted advice about 'how do I deal with my friends' psychotic marriage problems,' that's the question I'd have asked." I've flagged the responses that judged the poster rather than answering the question, and several of those comments were deleted, but many of them remain. I'm curious about where that line was drawn. Also, if people really feel the need to question the poster's judgment, hopefully they can do it here and leave the thread with less noise.

Sorry, I had to do it.

hadjiboy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:12:17 -0800

A few days ago, I had posted something on AskMe, and had got some wonderful replies from my fellow Mefites. I wanted to acknowledge them here, along with the community as a whole (for doing the great work that it does), and say how glad I am to be a pat of it.:) Thank you MeFi!

Fake statistics aren't valid answers.

Rhomboid — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:01:16 -0800

Posting a esolutionsdata.com link in response to an Ask Metafilter question is bad form. Go hone your stand-up routine somewhere else.

New RSS Feeds

WCityMike — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:33:29 -0800

PonyFilter: Can we have RSS feeds for users' answers/posts? It'd be nice if you like a person's brand of answers and want to keep abreast of them, but are the kind of person who lives and dies by RSS feeds. Plus, y'know, well, there's this.

Speculation in AskMe answers.

Kirth Gerson — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:45:16 -0800

So idle speculation really is "what the green is for"? That's a surprise.

Google answers goes away

mendel — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:27:13 -0800

One down. [mo' in.]

Answering the question that wasn't asked, but should have been.

LittleMissCranky — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 12:20:01 -0800

Dear AskMe: There is a prince in Nigeria who desperately needs my help. What is the best way to transfer $50K to an overseas bank account?

Better than best answer?

Alterscape — Wed, 17 May 2006 08:36:18 -0800

I'd like a way, beyond "best answer," to give feedback/kudos to users who offer exceptionally helpful AskMe answers. [more inside]

What askMeFi question has the most answers ever?

bjork24 — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:46:42 -0800

What askMeFi question has the most answers... ever?

List of your top ten answered tags from AskMe?

mimi — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:25:24 -0800

Tags: User profiles show "Top ten tags used on Ask MetaFilter posts" -- which is neat!, but would it maybe be really neat if there were a "Top ten tags used on Ask MetaFilter answers"? I know that what I've asked about and what I've answered to are in pretty different realms.

How many questions is too many for posting on MeFi?

rmm — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:05:26 -0800

How many questions is too many for posting on MeFi?

Hi, my name is x, and I'm a MeFi Addict ('hi x!').

yes, it's come to the point in my life where I turn to this site because I know it'll have links/commentary on a variety of issues. I know if I post a question someone will inevitably have a good answer... the question is, what's the ratio of questions I should ask to questions I should answer? If I ask a question, is there some sort of karmic payback I should perform - i.e. try answering a few questions in return? I certainly don't want to seem like I'm a lazy person here. I honestly come after I've done a bit of research - honest!

Just curious - or is this too meta perhaps? I don't want to outstay my $5 welcome... although if a certain site owner had a donation button that might help me sort out my karm ;)

AnonAskMe often poses embarrassing personal questions

cribcage — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:59:01 -0800

AnonAskMe often poses embarrassing personal questions. Sometimes I withhold my opinion because, if you're too mousy to attach your name to your question, I don't think you deserve people's signed replies. Does anyone else agree?

What questions work the best with Askme? Worst?

filmgeek — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 22:11:08 -0800

Ask.Meta Question askers/answerers.

What does Ask.metalk work really well with? What does it suck with?

RSS for Answered Questions?

Mwongozi — Fri, 20 May 2005 07:40:51 -0800

Can we have a separate RSS feed showing only answered questions?

AskMe Caucuses

RockyChrysler — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:06:45 -0800

as i wander through every bike-related askme query and see the same user names replying to each question i've started to wonder: would there be a benefit to allowing mefi users to organize themselves into caucus-like groups? would it serve the community better if, in much the same way individuals are grouped by region on their profile pages, we could somehow align ourselves by interest/expertise to make better use of our collective resources?

Don't get snarky just because you don't like the answers.

techgnollogic — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:38:46 -0800

Etiquette suggestion: don't get snarky with people who are trying to help you.

Pony Request: Anonymous answers

googly — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:10:16 -0800

This post led me to wonder: would anonymous answers be a useful pony to add to Ask MeFi? [MI]