

The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions - dangoldin
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/the-wikipedia-of-long-tail-programming-questions/

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kleiba
Off topic, but to me personal, what has become an even bigger annoyance is
floods of newbies (< 10 reputation points) that ask a question and _never_
come back to tick off the correct answer. Some of them even write a comment to
thank the poster of a particular answer, but still they won't give them the
credit they deserve. I wonder if that's because they're so new that they don't
know they're supposed to mark the correct answer, of if they just don't care.

It happened to me once or twice, but I've seen the pattern in other threads,
too. Of course SO should be a platform that welcomes beginners, but if that
problem persists, I fear that competent people will hesitate investing the
time and effort to answer questions for which they may never be rewarded.

~~~
klochner
There's an easy solution here - don't answer newbie questions.

Their questions are typically less complex, which means some other newbie
trying to amass points will take care of it.

~~~
kleiba
Yeah, that's what it boils down to - but I have to say deep down I don't
really like that idea.

Often times, the questions asked by people new to SO are legitimate questions,
and not necessarily your typical "newbie question" à la _How do I run a
compiler?_ So I'm not talking about 101 or RTFM questions.

We all started out as newbies at some point, but also, just because someone
hasn't got a lot of reputation points on SO doesn't necessarily mean that
they're a newbie programmer.

I believe that SO should be a place where everyone can ask a question whether
you're new to programming or an old-timer. If it's a thorough question it
deserves a thorough answer. But then that answer deserves due credit, too -
whether it's me or someone else answering.

~~~
klochner
Send me a list of your orphaned answers and I'll upvote em (subject to quality
review).

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timrobinson
They're not being entirely consistent on this.
[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/dr-strangedupe-or-
how-...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/dr-strangedupe-or-how-i-
learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-duplication/)

Jeff in November: _"Having one “perfect” form of a question that contains
every possible answer to every slight variation of that question is a myth at
best and actively harmful at worst"_

Joel, this month: _"Don't answer questions that have already been answered
elsewhere"_

~~~
jessriedel
I think it's clear that there's a sweet spot that's not at either extreme.
There's naturally going to be discussion about where exactly it lies.

Thanks for that link. In case anyone else is interested, here are his
"official guidelines":

1\. Having one “perfect” form of a question that contains every possible
answer to every slight variation of that question is a myth at best and
actively harmful at worst.

2\. Having dozens and dozens of variations of the same question is clearly
bad.

3\. What we want is on the order of 4 or 5 similar-but-not-quite-the-same
duplicates to cover all possible search terms and common permutations of the
question. It is also OK for these duplicates to have their own answers so
people who find them don’t have to click yet again to get to a good answer.

~~~
timrobinson
I'm happy to keep duplicate questions in the system, even if it means I repeat
myself when I answer them.

But question askers need to show that they've done a little research first: if
I can type a few words from the OP's question into Google and get a reasonable
response, then the question's a candidate for closing.

(One phenomenon I've seen is "I don't believe it unless I see it on Stack
Overflow". Somehow a Stack Overflow answer is better than the same information
posted elsewhere...)

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d4nt
_Don’t answer questions that have already been answered elsewhere. Yeah, you
might earn a couple of points of reputation, but..._

Doesn't this just suggest that the reputation points system needs tweaking.

~~~
klochner
Maybe.

There isn't necessarily a points-based incentive system that will achieve the
desired goal here, at least without breaking something else.

You can consider points and social norms as combining to form a global
incentive system that is more robust (but less well defined) than a strictly
points-based system.

------
dangoldin
Does anyone know whether from an SEO perspective it's better to have fewer
pages with more content on each or more pages? As a user I prefer more content
on one page so I'm glad Stackoverflow is approaching this problem from a wiki
standpoint.

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DanielBMarkham
Solving this problem has been a pet project of mine for some time.

There's some solution space between a forum and a wiki. You need a question-
based navigation, with common questions pulled out, multiple answers and
viewpoints, and all of it rated and commented on.

To put that structure in a forum involves too much overhead. to put that
information in the structure of a wiki involves too much editorializing.

I've seen many attempts at coming at this from a strict UI standpoint, as
mentioned in the article, but I have never felt that they worked that well.
There's also the issue of whether a question is an actual duplicate or is
different, or if the difference really matters. All of this is pointed out in
the article.

I know I got tired of folks asking about book recommendations on HN and
finally wrote an app that keeps track of what hackers recommend to each other.
I tried to base the entire site of navigating from common questions to books
that help answer those questions. I'm not entirely happy with the solution,
but I find that trying to write a solution in code many times helps with the
problem more than just talking/writing about it.

Looking forward to hearing more about this as the community continues to
engage the problem.

~~~
gwern
> I've seen many attempts at coming at this from a strict UI standpoint, as
> mentioned in the article, but I have never felt that they worked that well.

What is the problem with UI approaches, do you think?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I _think_ there is a tension between the user's desire for simplicity and the
underlying complexity of the data involved.

So the user thinks: "I want to know how to fix X". But it's never really what
they want to know. It's always something different.

This is the same problem software development teams face when asked to fix
something. Simply because you can state it in a sentence does not mean you are
communicating to me all I need to know to help you.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Very much so. This problem only gets bigger as people get more technically
sophisticated. Most people are satisficers (when the first idea pops up that
could even remotely fix the problem they stop thinking about more solutions)
and they tend to force that on others as well. It's rare for people to be able
step back and state their problem in a pure form, instead people like to state
their problem in the form of an unimplemented solution (thinking that makes it
easier).

Developers who aren't skilled in recognizing or dealing with this sort of
thing are at a significant disadvantage. If you naively implement all of the
random satisficed solutions people submit to you as "problems" you end up with
an incoherent and conflicting mess.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Agreed.

From painful experience I'm happier with the idea of providing a reading list
to somebody than simply trying to come up with some kind of immediate quick
answer to a loosely-worded question.

A book author sets the table: he provides background, vocabulary help, and a
context. Inside of all of that, he can discuss the issue from multiple angles
and provide advice. There's depth: you take time to understand where the
author is coming from. In return he provides you in-depth advice in the area
you are interested in. More than that: good authors teach you how to _think_
about solving problems in a particular area.

Instead of that format, on the net we have hit-and-run McDonalds sagacity.
Questioners don't have time for a book. They have some random problem and
Google is their friend. As a responder, I'm just some schmuck on the internet,
busy doing other things and mostly distracted. I'm taking all of 30 seconds to
guess what the person's problem might be, then fitting it all into some random
mood and context I brought along with me. No matter how smart I am, it's just
not the same. It's useful at times, no doubt, but it's not the same. I don't
think the social networking paradigm translates over well to advice-giving.
Heck, even with book authors I find that the quality varies quite a bit, and
that's folks that take months to address an issue.

Again, I'm not saying these sites aren't valuable: I use them all the time. I
just think we may put too much stock into the first returns from a Google or
SO search. Trying to add structure to the process isn't going to necessarily
make it better. If voting and friends work for sharing jokes and links, and
they work for forming a community, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are
the bedrock for creating a valuable structure to answer repeat questions. When
we discuss this we might be like the guy who has a hammer and can do anything
-- as long as all the problems are nails. (In other words we know the answer
is going to be a tweet or a quick reply reused from a previous question, we
just are trying to figure out how big of a hammer/format/magic we need to make
it all work)

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colanderman
Does Stack Overflow give points to users who follow these guidelines?

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mcantor
Discoverability.

Discoverability, discoverability, discoverability.

