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Does what I was saying make sense? I was also wondering how much beer would I have to bribe you with in order to be able get your thoughts on how we should appr

by StuieK 14y ago

Does what I was saying make sense? I was also wondering how much beer would I have to bribe you with in order to be able get your thoughts on how we should approach those sorts of issues? Love to be able to bounce ideas of someone who understands the issues with what we are trying to build.

peeters 14y ago
I think it makes sense that you're continuing to think about it :-). Your definition of a good question is reasonable, I think. But it doesn't take much reading on tech forums (yes, even HN) to see that some questions, like "Which is the best programming paradigm" are really battlegrounds for religious wars. As engineers our goal should always be to use the best tool for the job, but without a defined "job", we retreat to personal preference and experience. I think there are various alternatives to try to mitigate voting being a popularity contest. One is to remove any claim of the question being about the "best, given no context". The question might be better phrased as "Which Raspberry PI OS is right for me?", where the "me" is defined by the reader. Then the quality of the answer would be determined by whether in the answer, it qualifies the assumptions. Something like: "Premise: You want to control small hobbyist mechanical and electrical systems using the onboard GPIO" and "Premise: You want to use the PI for media sharing." Another option is to abandon a simple upvote system in favor of qualified thumbs-up. Like "This answer is ✓ Clear, ✓ Insightful, ✓ Accurate". Unfortunately that wreaks havoc on your pretty charts, unless you find a way of unifying those votes into a single score. And I'm also not sure it aligns well with your desire for collaborative, continuously improving answers. If it's not clear, or accurate, it should be edited!
- StuieK 14y ago
  One really simple change could be altering the wording to be "What are the different..." when its very high level and "what is the best.." when they have scoped it enough. It's a small change that reflects your points. If its scoped enough that in the topic description they have defined their requirements, I think "What is the best..given these requirements" could be suitable and the votes would work. >If it's not clear, or accurate, it should be edited! You should be writing our copy... :) (Side note: I wrote the entire about us, FAQ and contributor guidelines in the usual Slant format so the community can edit and discuss them. My hope is to get this level of meta-discussion consistently improving our approach to these issues) > Another option is to abandon a simple upvote system in favor of qualified thumbs-up This could work, I'll sleep on it and think about how that would play out. I also guess my beer bribe didn't hit home. Scotch?

by StuieK 14y ago

peeters 14y ago

I think it makes sense that you're continuing to think about it :-). Your definition of a good question is reasonable, I think. But it doesn't take much reading on tech forums (yes, even HN) to see that some questions, like "Which is the best programming paradigm" are really battlegrounds for religious wars. As engineers our goal should always be to use the best tool for the job, but without a defined "job", we retreat to personal preference and experience. I think there are various alternatives to try to mitigate voting being a popularity contest. One is to remove any claim of the question being about the "best, given no context". The question might be better phrased as "Which Raspberry PI OS is right for me?", where the "me" is defined by the reader. Then the quality of the answer would be determined by whether in the answer, it qualifies the assumptions. Something like: "Premise: You want to control small hobbyist mechanical and electrical systems using the onboard GPIO" and "Premise: You want to use the PI for media sharing." Another option is to abandon a simple upvote system in favor of qualified thumbs-up. Like "This answer is ✓ Clear, ✓ Insightful, ✓ Accurate". Unfortunately that wreaks havoc on your pretty charts, unless you find a way of unifying those votes into a single score. And I'm also not sure it aligns well with your desire for collaborative, continuously improving answers. If it's not clear, or accurate, it should be edited!

StuieK 14y ago
One really simple change could be altering the wording to be "What are the different..." when its very high level and "what is the best.." when they have scoped it enough. It's a small change that reflects your points. If its scoped enough that in the topic description they have defined their requirements, I think "What is the best..given these requirements" could be suitable and the votes would work. >If it's not clear, or accurate, it should be edited! You should be writing our copy... :) (Side note: I wrote the entire about us, FAQ and contributor guidelines in the usual Slant format so the community can edit and discuss them. My hope is to get this level of meta-discussion consistently improving our approach to these issues) > Another option is to abandon a simple upvote system in favor of qualified thumbs-up This could work, I'll sleep on it and think about how that would play out. I also guess my beer bribe didn't hit home. Scotch?