Possible solution to the current auto-NBA problem. What are your thoughts? Details inside.
Each asker should simply read each incoming answer and assess - "does this answer provide me with any relevant information?" If the answer to that is "yes" the asker votes up the answer. Then, the community comes in and votes up only the best of available answers. The asker can still select BA or NBA at any time in the allowed 5 day period.
At the end of 5 days, if there are any potentially helpful answers, they will have at least the asker's vote so the question will not go to auto-NBA. If the asker selected BA or NBA things are the way they should be. If the asker did not so select and there is at least one answer with more votes, it will auto-BA. If there is a tie at 1 vote (from the asker) the question goes into sudden-death tie-breaker according to the current system. In this way, no question goes into auto-NBA unless there were answers, and none of them were of any use. Of course for anon questions this does not really work, but that leaves those no worse off than they are now.
Thoughts? Tweaks? Alternative solutions (that do not require Mahalo changes)?
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M$3 Answers
If the asker is actively involved in their question, reviewing answers, voting on them, giving feedback on them, and ultimately likely to choose a BA themselves.... well, then this approach is not needed. There will likely be at least one helpful vote anyway, from the asker, if any answered merited one.
If the asker is not actively involved in the their question, for whatever reason, it looks like this solution is not applicable, if I understood it correctly.
So overall it looks like it adds complexity without probably making a lot of difference to how many questions will end up with an undeserved NBA.
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M$
As an asker, I vote up any answers that I think are useful.
Others can cast their votes too.
When the question is due for a BA, I’ll choose a BA.
Problems:
1. 1st answer arrives after the “deadline” to choose BA.
2. 1st answer arrives very near to “deadline” to choose BA.
I may not be in time to vote up or choose BA and it goes NBA.
I think this is the part that Mahalo needs to solve.
Possible solution:
1. Extra days for these questions
An addition of logical condition is needed:
if answer count = 0 yesterday and answer >0 today, then: more days before due
2. We still need a voting queue (undecided or unvoted) for these questions.
3. Refrain from answering questions that are near deadline or over the deadline for the time being.
opinion
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M$
Great answer. Had @philipy not provided one I thought a bit better, this would have been BA. A worthy answer for sure.
You can't expect the askers who don't care about selecting NBA to vote for helpful answers.
I presented some alternative solution here
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-community/a-way-to-solve-the-nbas-for-questions-with-no-helpful-votes
It's similar with calling out the experts as you mentioned on your previous answers
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M$
It looks like you're right.
Strange, I'm sure I read it the other way earlier. Maybe it's changed. Or possibly I was up too late. :)
EDIT:
Looking at the Q&A here:
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-community/mahalo-answers-voting-simplified
The question now states:
> If there is a tie, the question will not close until one answer has more helpful votes.
However several of the answers only make sense if the answerers thought that a tie leads to NBA. So either there was lot of misunderstanding, or maybe there has been a change of policy.
I guess my notion is to modify how people get involved in their questions. Previously, if I asked a question and got several answers I thought as good BA candidates, if I couldn't decide between them, I'd just let the community vote. While this is now still possible, it requires at least my voting up each answer as it comes in, at least if it is as good as previous answers (or better). That way, at least I guarantee that even if I disappear from the computer for a week, and even if Mahalo leaves things as they are, there will not be an auto-NBA.
For those who refuse to get involved at all in their own questions (in which case, why did they ask them in the first place?) as well as for anon, this new policy would not help.
Yes, if people were in the habit of leaving the decision to a vote, they should probably stop that now, and make a choice, even if arbitrary between a number of tied answers.
Under the present system to give out several helpful votes and then leave it to a vote is still risking an NBA, as a tie is treated as NBA according to what the dev said.
My understanding is that a tie where there have been votes (i.e. not a tie at 0) goes into sudden death voting, where the first vote between the tied answers decides the BA.