Do you agree with me that Mahalo users should be restricted to asking one question per hour?
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M$19 Answers
-lower belters would have a max. of 4 questions per day (white-green)
-higher belters could ask up to 6 (purple-brown)
-Black belters can ask up to 10 (or unlimited)
The only reason I debate using a time-based system is that there may be some legitimate cases in which a person would want to ask a couple questions per hour - especially for users who don't have computer access much throughout the day and do their Mahaloing all in one go.
Concerning the higher belters who've already climbed the ranks via questions, there's no correcting that now. These restrictions would be mainly to curb question flooding from new users. Personally I like a lot of questions - moreso than I know you do @albanian - but I agree that there are times when it's out of hand, so I'll agree with the need for some restriction.
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M$That said, I think we as a community need to be more vigilant about pushing good questions up with tips, and educating new users about appropriate behavior
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M$
It is the only way currently. Asking questions from the page itself insures that the question is matched to the page. @jeffhoard has run one or two contests requesting users to find pages and "clean up" the unrelated questions by asking questions directly from the page.
So, while it may not be the "best" method, it's the only tool page managers have to deal with the problem right now.
@spoon... agreed it would great to be able to a) specificy search terms for questions and b) delete unrelated questions.
However some topics are too niche to have many questions, and some topics are hard to define a good search term for.
Also, if irrelavant questions get matched, that is a perpetual battle to keep the page clean, whereas if there actually are a few relevant questions, the job is taken care of for much longer.
That doesn't sound like a good way to handle "unrelated" questions.
I think that shows a major issue with how pages are currently set up. There needs to be another way to manage the questions on a page because if you "push down" unlreated questions on a page it also pushes down interesting questions on the main page of Mahalo Answers.
As much as I like having pages interact with answers they were originally unique and created as such. If they don't interact well with each other (this seems like a case where they don't) it isn't fair to penalize the success of the other part of Mahalo. I guess I don't see why it isn't set up so questions that make sense for a page can't be pulled into it (similar to how we can pull questions in from twitter). This also removes the need to ask a question that might already have been asked in the past.
If the questions are meaningless, you can always report them as 'spam', allowing staff to take action.
I hardly ask questions myself, but I would feel extremely limited if I found out I was limited to one question per hour, especially if I would probably have forgotten the question an hour later, however interesting the question was in the first place...
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M$
Ok, I see your point. However, I think a restriction like this is not exactly the right type of solution to the problem. As you describe, the real problem is that people will post many 'bogus' questions just to get points and get their stats up.
As far as I can see, this is a pretty futile way of trying to achieve that, as asking a question will provide you with exactly 0 points. It is the choosing a 'best answer', which will yield 2 points. Seems quite a lot of work for two points, especially as 2 points will only help your stats at very low belt-levels, where your maximum # of questions is already severely limited.
Even a green belt level will only allow you to ask 10 questions, which would result in a whopping 20 points per day, while you need 375 points to progress to a purple-tip. I think any questioner trying to up his stats this way will very quickly find out that voting for unrated questions is a faster way to earn points.
The problem I see is a large number of questions are being asked to increase points and the people asking are not getting involved in the answers... or they are picking answers after the question has only been up for a couple of hours. How are these really helpful to the community if:
1 - the question asker is not actually interested in them and doesn't put thought behind them.
2 - the question is not up for the community to have a chance to answer (only getting 1 or 2 answers doesn't give much hope that a true 'best answer' will be given)
3 - the same question is asked in several different ways because the asker just wants a bunch of questions for their stats.
The point is to stop people from blasting other users off the main page with long lists of questions. It is hard to believe that someone would have more than one real question per hour.
"It is hard to believe that someone would have more than one real question per hour."
What we find hard to believe and what is in fact the case are often two rather different things.
@krysstel has just given you a good explanation of how it happens that she asks a lot of questions in quick bursts.
I agree it is a little bit overwhelming, esp if you wanted to get your own question visible at one of those times, but I've never doubted they were questions she was interested in, and the times I've answered one, it's often led to an interesting conversation.
"blast someone off the main page"
I'm sorry. but respectfully submitted
that idea never crossed my mine
I have a limited time on mahalo between hospital visits, other chores, office work
sometimes it is more convenient for me to submit mine in groups
I do keep a list in a WORD document, as I ponder things, off and on during the days of life
yes, it is about 48 pages...................
no, it is not from a "book" or "internet question list"...............
If gaming is the biggest worry here, perhaps the solution would be leaving questions open for a minimum 24hrs, therefor users can't close them after 1 answer.
Apart from that, I don't think there can ever be "too many questions" Plus, who are we to judge the legitimacy of a users question? As long as it's not spam, I have no problem with users asking bulk amounts of random questions. Nobody is forcing Mahaloians to answer questions they don't like. Use your interesting votes to promote the good questions.
Questions on Mahalo are a good thing, why don't want to impede or throttle the flow of activity?
Naturally, if you think somebody is abusing the Question system for personal gain, use the "Report" button and we'll deal with it on a case-by-case basis.
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M$And I'm seeing a lot of questions here (as a newbie myself) that are not well asked, like people just enter stuff as it crosses their mind without doing any of the original research that would help you ask a good question. After all, you can't get good answers if you don't ask good questions, so maybe a more robust Question Reward system instead of the hourly restriction?
Seems like there are two mechanisms right now to deal with this:
(1) The Spam button. I'm not really seeing much of a Spam problem here right now, but we know it when we see it and it seems to be being dealt with.
(2) The Yes/No Helpful buttons. I think these are underutilized. It seems like we are all too polite to hit the No option and have our name tied to it.
In addition to the Interesting/Tip feature. Still, what if a question earns you Zero points, but a single tip of any sort pops it to 1?
Now this also doesn't address another problem: getting quick answer points to flood questions. (I may be abusing this, but in my defense, I've only been here a day or two and didn't notice this or think about it until now.) So, if someone is flooding the boards with stream-of-consciousness questions, but I have real answers, is it a good idea to just ignore the bad questions, or should I go ahead and answer them with repeated variations on "Well, you are asking the wrong question, because you don't understand the fundamentals here..."?
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M$
Welcome To Mahalo, for a new user this was a great addition to the community discussion, nobody has yet mentioned the mechanisms already in place for users who feel threatened by the amount of questions coming in.
Thanks, jeffhoard and thanks for the tip (taught me something new too - even better).
As I was just patrolling the questions just now, I thought of another detail that might help: maybe the Yes/No Interesting buttons could be on the question list, so you don't have to click into the question to get to them. Then you could quickly tag No to the long lists of questions right in a row from the same person that are clearly pushing the limits of reasonable.
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M$
I would certainly be open to that idea... the system already has the limit on number of questions certain belts can ask so i don't see a problem with time being factored into that. This would also help get people back to the site throughout the day, currently several people log on... pick best answers from previous questions... ask their limit of questions... leave the site and don't come back till next day. Having a limit put in place on how often questions can be asked would bring people into the community more throughout the day which would help many people see what the best etiquette is.
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M$
On the other hand there are some members here like Krysstel who seem to have a talent for asking interesting/thought provoking questions.
A lower time limit, or a limit based on ranking might solve the problems without cutting off the question based 'oxygen' that the answers section needs to flourish.
anyway, thats just my 0.02 M$
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M$
You are right @spoon...
Of course I feel like the redheaded step child since it never dawned on me about points for picking best answer until I was a purple belt.
What I find that is worse with gaming around here is the abuse of commenting and using an 'add source' (and getting 1 point) when in fact you're just commenting.
(another thing I didn't realize was around until I was a brown belt)
"By picking the best answer right away, you get the points asap". This is not true. As long as you pick your "best answer" before it goes to voting (which is four days) you will get your points.
thank you @psionandy
I have had messages targeting me that I write "stupid questions"
but this is only from one current mahalo member
"stupid" to one may be a treasure to someone else
I don't believe Mahalo should be run as a dictatorship by one person
not my cup of tea
"Yes, @lesliec but what @spoon is pointing out is a method (I am guessing) of waiting for just one response (perhaps) after just a few minutes, voting for this as best answer and 'getting the points' for 'asking the question'."
I understand what he was saying, I was trying to say that whoever was using that as an excuse was wrong. You get the same amount of points no matter if you choose best answer within minutes or days, as long as you are the one to choose best answer.
A good way to stop that is to maybe put a timer on questions. Not giving the asker the right to choose best answer for at least 24 hours.
Well, @krysstel, as you just passed the black belt challenge with great remarks from staff, I wouldn't worry about that one single person.
However, you should take notice of your black belt comments on focussing more on answering than questioning. (but this thread is not particularly about you, I hope)
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-suggestions/do-you-agree-with-me-that-mahalo-users-should-be-restricted-to-one-question-per-hour
I didn't know you could do that. Is it new? It's a good idea if not abused.
@krysstel I don't think anyone is suggesting Mahalo be run by a single person. It should be run by the community (as it currently is), that is EXACTLY why these kind of questions need to be brought up so it can be discussed. In your responses I sense you are feeling a little defensive but I would like to point out no one is being blamed directly in this discussion. Regardless of what might have been said or done in the past... it is exactly that, the past... this question (and others that might be like it) are here to see how we ALL can work together to make the site the best it can be. :)
The Mahalo staff can make all the changes in the world to the site but it doesn't matter if the community is unhappy. The only way for them to know how the community feels is to read comments/answers in questions that relate directly to the site.
@albanian that feature is not new... in fact it has been around since the beginning I believe, it just isn't used very often.
I've found it extremely useful when someone gives a great answer and I just want to help enforce what they had to say with a valid source. There has been issues with members overusing it though, so it is another item that needs to be kept in check.
I think the 'gaming' is becoming a bigger problem... just yesterday I sent a question to a new member asking if they had considered leaving their questions open for a longer period of time, so more people have a chance to give great answers, and the response I got was "By picking the best answer right away, you get the points asap".
I think there needs to be a stop-gate in place to limit new members from doing this as they likely don't have a full understanding of how the system/community works yet. I also think it is important for members to call eachother out and give advice on how to be a better member.
Yes, @lesliec but what @spoon is pointing out is a method (I am guessing) of waiting for just one response (perhaps) after just a few minutes, voting for this as best answer and 'getting the points' for 'asking the question'.
However, this 'gaming' attempt - I would guess wouldn't work because I thought limits were daily, so you'd at least need to keep a question open for a day.
Either way, I do think that the system is overly focused on 'points' and that often we lose 'Mahalo' quality as members scramble through belt levels.
The more we can all continue to encourage well rounded contributions from both new and more experienced users the more solid this whole community will be!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You are not seeing the problem that I brought up. Let me explain again. Say you have a question and ask it. So far so good. But then someone else who is trying to get the most questions asked record or something asks a dozen questions. Your question has now been pushed off the front page. Once a question is off the front page it gets hardly any views and is lucky if it even gets an eventual answer by someone doing cleanup. So you got to ask your question, but what good did it do you? Meanwhile, the guy who asked the batch of questions doesn't care if he is pushed off or doesn't get many answers or discussion because all he cares about is asking lots of questions. This is the situation. If you don't like my proposed solution, I'd certainly like to hear others.
Limiting the questions would hinder creativity. I see a topic and I want to ask a question.. if you do not care about the subject does that make it a bogus question? I think that we are not here to judge the questions and questioners but to learn and share knowledge and have fun researching and the like.
This is about asking questions, not answering them.
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M$
The people asking a lot of questions on Mahalo have absolutely nothing to do with curiosity. If someone is curious about something they will ask a real question. We are talking about people who ask numerous questions quickly out of some ulterior motive, perhaps points or perhaps to get high on the list or maybe even because they are empty headed babblers; but, at any rate it's not to actually find out something.
You weren't very specific in your question. Maybe questions should go through a filter like how submissions on Digg.com get filtered to see if articles have already been posted... but in this case filter out the questions that have not only been asked already, but are useless. Mahalo could make a longer process for asking questions by asking users their own questions like "What is the purpose of your question?" and etcetera. Yes? No? Maybe? It'd be annoying for us users who do have a lot of interesting questions that we post back to back within an hour or so... but it might solve your little peeve you have going on.
When people don't have to 'invest' in their question, they tend to not care in the quality. (this is a generalization based on newbies)
I know there are people who use their free questions to put out some great ones (@albanian, @gno, @mithrandir, @spoon, etc..) but it also leaves the door open for newbies and others that don't take this site as seriously to push out crap.
There has to be a good balance to make anything of quality work.
Would you all be willing to have fewer free questions?
I guess this really is a question of compromise.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$To me Mahalo is working perfectly. Why is there this sudden need to start limiting and censoring people?
Over the last few days there have been more topics on limits than I have ever seen before.
If someone wants to ask questions and gets answers then doesn't that make Mahalo a better Question and answer site?
Time limits and penalties just make no sense to me. I see more Mahalo questions being shown on Google search and I think that shows an active site.
But this is just my opinion.
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M$
If someone wants to ask questions and gets answers, everything is going fine. But what if someone asks questions and doesn't get any answers because seconds after they are posted someone else puts in a dozen? That has happened to me a lot. And when someone puts in a dozen at a time, they are almost never genuine questions because putting them in all at once hurts their chance of being answered or discussed.
Mahalo is to have questions and to be answered, isn't it?
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M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$I do agree with Susan about voting questions interesting. If more members did that the better questions would stick around longer.
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M$
Plus at a minimum of 5c a pop, voting interesting is something that only those of us with bigger balances tend to do much.
The problem with relying on the "interesting" vote is the fact that it doesn't always work. I have the issue of not being able to use the interesting vote option on my work PC (and others are having similar problems it seems from questions that have been asked recently).
This feature is extremely important for users to take advantage of but the Devs need to get it working for everyone or else it doesn't live up to what the site needs.
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M$
also i was tought a dumb question is a question never asked...
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M$
When discussing the "bogus" questions that is meant to mean those which do not have any thought or true interest behind them. There are many questions that come into the system which come from users that have no actual interest in the answer (we can see this by the lack of involvement from the person asking the question and those users often asking the same question, though wordes slightly differently, over and over).
A question that brings about a large number of answers and comments is good for the site because it creates community involvement and these questions almost always result in higher tips and lots of quality answers.
This question has generated numerous answers and comments. A heated discussion, I would say. That is an example of a good, discussion type question. Whether or not any of the suggestions are put into effect, it seems likely most participants have learned something or other.
On your other point, you were taught wrong because there are many dumb questions asked, usually because of laziness. But that is not the topic of this question.
Good to know that there are limits - but they're pretty liberal. If I had my druthers, I'd tighten the limits a little more. After all, I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone maxing out their questions per day.
And yes, I think users also need to use some discretion and be handled on a case-by-case basis if they start launching a question assault.
To me, the bogus questions are more the pointless questions that are flooded into the boards - coming from users who are just clearly trying to beef up their belt rank.
Totally agree, though I think that if you are tipping the limit should be higher.
To me, bogus questions are the bastard cousin of no questions. Both cause helpful users to turn away and bring the site to a useless standstill.
However, there is a VERY fine line between bogus questions and "fun" questions, and I just don't want to scare away a smattering of "fun" questions as part of a bogus question witch hunt.
Sadly, Mahalo actually propagates asking more or less 'bogus' questions, as @ssmacd mentioned in another answer thread. Even though I don't agree with the idea that 'bogus questions are better than no questions', this seems to be the thread of thought here.
completely agree with u but limits should be little raise
from 4,6,10 to 6,10,14
Dont we have a per day per belt limit already? Curious users can either exhaust the allowance all at once based on their online time or distribute it over 24hrs.
I understand what @albanian means by this question. Sometimes the page is just filled with questions from a single user mostly related to one category.
Personally I dont post questions just for the sake of asking questions, but only whenever I have a serious question, or to get help, etc.
Since the very purpose of this site is to question and answer, I dont think we can instroduce additional restrictions for asking questions. But I would like to see users follow some discretion while posting the questions.
Those are much more reasonable limits than currently are in effect.
@mithrandir, if you're referring to "bogus' questions as those being asked from the page, Ivery respectfully beg to differ. The questions are only as "bogus" as the asker makes them. For example, when I was working on Boston vacations, I asked a few questions such as "What is the Best Time of Year to Visit Boston" and "Where can I get Boston Red Sox Tickets". These are questions that anyone viewing the page might like to know-- and as a result I believe that they added value to the page.
The fact that I actually didn't need that information didn't make them bogus.
One per hour is far too restricitive.
I don't think the number of questions is that much of an issue anyway, it is more whether the questions are interesting, whether the asker genuinely wants to know the answer, and if they are well written.
Also while we don't have a way to control what questions show up on managed pages, I think it is legit to ask relevant and interesting questions from the page to prevent it being full of unrelated junk.