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Old 10-07-2005, 03:44 PM   #1
dovkruger
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: NY area
Distribution: redhat EE3, Fedore Core 4
Posts: 23

Rep: Reputation: 15
some suggestions


You could use a unix-based programming forum.

Your rating system is very silly given that it's based on posts within your system as opposed to any degree of knowledge. I'm a "newbie" yet I find myself getting precious little help from (very verbose, but relatively unknowledgeable) members
 
Old 10-07-2005, 04:36 PM   #2
reddazz
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: N. E. England
Distribution: Fedora, CentOS, Debian
Posts: 16,298

Rep: Reputation: 77
So how do you suggest that the site owners gauge peoples Linux knowledge? Also if you have a better system for rating users, then let them know.
 
Old 10-07-2005, 04:36 PM   #3
Charred
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Location: Utah, USA
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http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...p?s=&forumid=9
 
Old 10-07-2005, 05:09 PM   #4
XavierP
Moderator
 
Registered: Nov 2002
Location: Kent, England
Distribution: Debian Testing
Posts: 19,192
Blog Entries: 4

Rep: Reputation: 475Reputation: 475Reputation: 475Reputation: 475Reputation: 475
The rating system really is just a count. I don't know how many times Jeremy or the mods have said that the count is just that, guage the answer you are given yourself, do some research don't just go by the number of posts.

At LWE London, Jeremy and a few of us sat down and discussed ways of improving this and the site, especially after the upgrade. I won't go into details here, if it doesn't happen I'll look a bit daft, but if it does come off you will all be pleasantly surprised.
 
Old 10-07-2005, 05:15 PM   #5
kencaz
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2005
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Distribution: Mandriva Slackware FreeBSD
Posts: 1,468

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Re: some suggestions

Quote:
Originally posted by dovkruger
You could use a unix-based programming forum.

Your rating system is very silly given that it's based on posts within your system as opposed to any degree of knowledge. I'm a "newbie" yet I find myself getting precious little help from (very verbose, but relatively unknowledgeable) members
I agree (with the above responses)... You suggest you are a "Unix programmer" so what kind of rating system would you suggest...? being a newbie does not have anything to do with the response of the members here... are we suppose to think you have a degree in programming and unix? give me a break... ask smart questions get smart answers...

I really think you just have a problem with the "Newbie" lable and your ego... keep posting and helping others here and you will be able to update your status.

KC

Last edited by kencaz; 10-07-2005 at 05:19 PM.
 
Old 10-08-2005, 10:22 AM   #6
jeremy
root
 
Registered: Jun 2000
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As Ray mentioned, this is something we discussed at a bit of length at LWE UK. No details yet, but I'd be interested to get members' feedback on the topic.

--jeremy
 
Old 10-08-2005, 01:05 PM   #7
Ephracis
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Registered: Sep 2004
Location: Sweden
Distribution: Ubuntu, Debian
Posts: 1,109

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Unix-programming forum

IMHO the programming forum is good as it is. Although programming for win32 is different I think that you can still have a mixed forum to avoid problems.


Rating members

You could make some kind of afero-like function. That is: let people have a button on each post which will take users somewhere where they can thank that person for any help given in the last post.

To avoid abusage you can either:

1) Only have "Thanks" and no more, not rating anything just putting a thanks there. This way a person cannot lower someones rate without a valid reason to do so.

2) Force the person who rates the persons help to write a small comment which have to be good enough to make the rate valid.

I think that number 1) is much better but that's just my opinion. There may be more ways to avoid people abusing this but none that I can think of at the moment. I think that there are enough "serious" people that will actually use the function to make it worth the code. If the new layout will give it enough exposure and you will post something I think that it will be a kind of hype for a while. The problem would be how to keep it used even after one year.

Well, enough said from me.
 
Old 10-09-2005, 11:28 PM   #8
scuzzman
Senior Member
 
Registered: May 2004
Location: Hilliard, Ohio, USA
Distribution: Slackware, Kubuntu
Posts: 1,851

Rep: Reputation: 47
Quote:
You could make some kind of afero-like function.
See that "Thanks" button down there? Mouse over it and look at the URL.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 11:39 AM   #9
dovkruger
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: NY area
Distribution: redhat EE3, Fedore Core 4
Posts: 23

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
explanation

I posted two suggestions. The first is that you make a distinct Unix programming forum. The one forum for programming is an odd hodgepodge of issues totally unrelated to Unix, and it would make more sense given your primary focus to have at least a forum dedicated to Unix specific coding. I'd suggest more, likea scripting forum for shell and perl, and a unix system programming forum.

My own recent query was more of the scripting/Unix application area, and by bad luck, the first two people to answer were, well, read for yourself and laugh.
But the third really showed why I came to LinuxQuestions. The strength here is that you are focused on Linux and have a good core of expertise. The bad news is that is masked by lots of people making inane comments, with superficially exactly the same qualifications as the good ones.

As far as a meaningful rating system, experts-exchange.com is a good example of what's good and bad. They have a fairly clever engine, and I realize you probably don't have the resources to duplicate their approach, but it's worth taking a look. They also attract a bunch of freaks who compulsively answer questions to collect points (I have no idea how, or if, they do anything else). Even there, while I have gotten some answers, I have been very disappointed in the quality of the answers to my questions. Still, I think rewarding people for good answers is a good idea. It's just that even EE is more about quantity of answers than quality. I think some fusion between a forum and a wiki is the ultimate way to go, the question is how to filter the inevitable crap.

I asked about ratings not because I give a damn about what you rate me as, but because I get answers from senior this, and grand poobah that, and then it's crap -- then I find out, the metric is how many messages they write, and the light goes on.

I use linuxquestions for those hard occasional questions, and try to give some back too, even though this isn't really my area -- I'm mostly a programmer, which is why I come here when there's a sysadmin issue I want to resolve.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 03:05 PM   #10
reddazz
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: N. E. England
Distribution: Fedora, CentOS, Debian
Posts: 16,298

Rep: Reputation: 77
One thing you have to remember is that people are offering you their help for free, nobody is paid to help out, so I think you have to appreciate the time and effort that people put in to helping you out. Sometimes, you will get right answers and other times the possible solutions may not be accurate or won't work on your particular system, its part of the game when you turn to forums for help. If you feel that you are not getting accurate answers from the forum members here, you can try the official forums of the distros you are running, request for tech support/assistance from the distro maintainers if you bought a boxed set or pay for support from various companies offering Linux technical support.

As for rankings, its been mentioned loads of times that they don't reflect the level of expertise that a member possesses. Personally, I don't think its possible to create a good grading/ranking system because of the varied nature of Linux and the different purposes that individuals use their Linux installation for. I for one am not very good with Linux on servers (because I'm not really interested in that part of Linux/Unix), but have no problem with Linux on desktops (and most of my posts reflect this). How would I be ranked using the ranking method you propose.

Last edited by reddazz; 10-11-2005 at 03:25 AM.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 04:23 PM   #11
titanium_geek
Senior Member
 
Registered: May 2002
Location: Horsham Australia
Distribution: elementary os 5.1
Posts: 2,479

Rep: Reputation: 50
you are asking for subdivision of the forum? there are many reasons this won't happen- to discourage crossposting and to encourage people to search for the answer. maybe, if you want UNIX stuff, post in the *nix forum.

Get over a cruddy answer- it happens. We are all volunteers- no body is paid, not even the mods. sorry if it happened, but you will probably find help eventually.

titanium_geek
 
Old 10-10-2005, 06:35 PM   #12
Ephracis
Senior Member
 
Registered: Sep 2004
Location: Sweden
Distribution: Ubuntu, Debian
Posts: 1,109

Rep: Reputation: 50
Quote:
Originally posted by scuzzman
See that "Thanks" button down there? Mouse over it and look at the URL.
Hah, actually I knew about that one. I wanted a clone of it, but more simple. I don't like affero, I wanted something more simple and easy than that, something smaller. And just for LQ.
 
  


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