The Q&A Forum.
 

Now that the season is long gone, I am wondering on what people thought of the Q&A Forum. Did it work? Did it kinda work? Did it cause too much confusion?

I'd like to hear the pros & cons of using it next year. What should change, what should not change, etc. We're looking for everybody's constructive criticism and new ideas.

During the build season the Q&A forum should be stuck on the homepage so it gets more attn. I found it useful. It mostly had answers to my questions before i had to ask, and when i did have to ask, there were answers immediatly. Do it again next year!

Automatic startup of discussion elsewhere.. I hated checking something from the portal, writing a 1/2 page response, all so that I could get the "You do not have permission to respond here" .. That was my biggest peeve of the forum.

The majority of the questions were also not using the Q & A Forum as it was intended. Asking questions to the public ("Where did you get containers from") or Asking opinions ("How should auto code be made"), etc.

I think more questions got answered, in a timely fashion also, in the general and technical forums.

Yeah, what Brandon said. I think that the Q/A forum should be open to everyone to answer questions, under the simple condition, "if you don't know the answer, don't post!" I mean, I understand why only certain people were to answer the posts in that forum but a lot of the time, other people knew the answer before one of the designated people could answer. I think by letting more people answer questions, it would cut down on the "extra discussion" about posts and help give answers quicker.

*throws her $0.02 in*

- Katie

While I do think allowing more people to respond would be a good thing, I don't thing granting that privilege to everyone would be the right solution. My 2c would be to have some kind of requirements system setup, like a certain number of posts, or registered some number of months ago, etc. That way, people get adjusted to the flow of the CD community before they can answer. Again, just my 2c.

My main problem was the fact that I could answer a question or two that have not been answered yet, only to remember that I can't post.

I'd had to disagree on this one. I think that only letting certain people answer the questions, it prevented the threads from getting offtopic and going into worthless disagreements. If it were to be open up to all people to answer the questions, how would it be any different than any of the other forums? It wouldnt allow for the "most correct" answers or advise to be given.

yes, i would like to see that happen, but do you really think that it will?

A warning system will be imposed. 3 strikes and your banned for a month. 1 more and your done with.

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Meh. I saw something implemented like the Q and A forum a while back which was ran pretty well. Each person that signed up could either ask questions and answer them. Questions were divided up into seperate areas. If someone found an answer satifisfactory then they got a star or something(I forgot and the website is down). Something like this implemented.

There is something similar to what you are talking about on experts-exchange.com

People get to ask questions, experts answer, the person who asked grades the responses. I think the experts get points based on their grade, and can answer more/less because of this. Not positive exactly how it works, but it sounded familiar to what you were describing.

Being one of the person came up with the idea of a Q&A forum, I've given a lot of thoughts about this through out the year.

Honestly, I think both side of the argument have good points.

If we let everyone answer in the Q&A forum:

Pro: Questions get answered as soon as possible.
Everyone get a chance to offer their help to people with questions.

Con: Threads could potentially get out of topic if some people doesn't treat it as seriously as others.
People can misdirect people with fake answer if they want to.
Rookie members might think they have the right answers when they are actually wrong.

If we only let selected people answer in the Q&A forum:

Pro: Questions are almost guaranteed to be correct.
The selected people will understand how important their responsibility is, and treat the forum seriously.
The threads won't get off topic as easily.

Con: People who aren't selected could have answers to the questions and couldn't answer it.
Generating the extra discussion make the question discussion very hard to keep track of.


So, I still don't know which way to go. Either we let everyone answer the questions, and have lots of moderators there to close the thread right away when there is a good answer, or we have selected group of people, only it is a very very large group of people.

Ideally I want to see the system setup so that everyone can post in the Q&A forum, but only the moderator's posts will show up, while all the others' are pending to be publicized when moderators approve them. Then we can make sure the thread stay short and clean, while everyone can contribute to it.


As far as having a qualification system for moderators... In the past we just pay attention to the forum closely, and figure out who have been really helpful in the past. We also listen to the selected moderators and see who they think should be added to the list. Just think, if every moderator suggest one different person, we will double the amount of moderators every time. I think the people know best when they spend endless amount of time in here reading through different threads.

Also, like a lot of people thinks, I really don't know the way the extra discussion turns out. It is very hard to keep track of the thread, because you never know if the responds are started in Q&A, or in extra discussion. If I have to choose, I would rather take out this feature and let everyone post rather than keep doing what we are doing right now.

...of course, I've written about this in the past. I'll spare everyone from reading it again unless they want to.


Q&A is completely useless. It's destructive, even.

Open it up to everyone and treat everyone like equals or get rid of it. Let people be responsible for their own actions instead of holding their hand and telling them how to behave.

M, We aren't equals. There are Freshman in High School to Career Engineers. You can't equate them on some aspects. Also, it's obvious that some people need their hand held. Which is why many threads get thrown off topic.

I think that anyone whom thinks they deserve to be allowed to answer questions in a Q & A forum should have some form of a testing procedure.

One of the most harmful parts of it was that it was implemented during season and "beta tested" with real necessary questions. Perhaps the current moderators (or sections of moderators) from the Q & A forum could get together and make up a quiz for potentials to take.

Sort of like 'testing out' of classes in college.. you 'test out' of normal status so you can moderate Q & A.

I feel this would generate a way for qualified (based on knowledge of questioned material) persons to assist those in need. Of course, there would have to be reprocussions for intentionally (or unintentionally but very..) misguiding answers or criticism.

If you don't know the answer to a question, you don't answer it.

If you know the answer to a question, answer it.

I don't see how or why having a degree comes into play. We are all equals because we're all capable of learning and understanding the concepts that are used in designing a robot. Whether or not we decide to seek out that knowledge is another topic entirely.

Again, if you're 12 and can explain gear ratios or you're 35 and spent $100,000 on an education and can explain gear ratios. . . what difference is it? The question still gets answered.

Don't hold peoples' hands, treat them like equals. They'll learn how to behave sooner or later, and that's a lot more effective than telling them they're not old enough, or smart enough, or qualified enough to help other people. When you give people a bit of respect, and you make them feel like they're needed and wanted and useful, they'll amaze you.

I promise.

you gotta remember though, sometimes the simple answer is best. this year we had several elementary school kids, two sons of one of our mentors, in the work shop on an almost regular basis. granted, they're geniuses already (at ages 9 and 11), but i want to run everything we do next year by them, and if they don't understand it, it's too complicated.

same thing applies to the Q & A forum. Andy Baker might be a mechanical engineering wonder, but because of that he may see a problem one way, and give a very complicated solution. Some high school freshman we ask might look at the same problem, and give a super easy solution, because that's how they think. no offense meant to Andy Baker, but it's just the way the human mind develops, and i think that younger people can also provide useful, if not sometimes better, solutions, and for that reason alone, the Q & A forum isn't exactly the best it can be. i don't know how to change it to be perfect, but something obviously has to be done, because some people who know answers might never be able to help, because they've been denied the chance, which goes against everything FIRST stands for.

p.s. - don't hurt me, just my $.02 :p