and suggested to john that he play jeopardy with them
I'm not sure "hard" questions are really what we need to seed, so much as good questions
that one that got shutdown the other day for instance... @Pearsonartphoto knew it was poorly worded at the get go, but it evolved into a better questions
@rfusca I'll just relax then. It is probably me just going off on a rant. I just got irritated when I tried to suggest to ask non-trivial questions, and felt ignored by some Smug staff who were doing just that. It is probably me just being too eager to fit the SE mold right off the bat.
@cabbey I agree that would be great to have. Do you think each javascript customization would make a good new thread?
@dpollitt as long as the especially bad ones either get closed or negative notes, it signals the community that this isn't the direction we want to go. And thats primarily what this phase is
@dpollitt I think a LOT of them would... they almost all started as someone asking "how do I do _____?" on dgrin
@rfusca the converse however also happens... if a SE novice had posted @Pearsonartphoto's question, and got the negative backlash he got, they would have walked away from SE and been pissed at us for pointing them here
(though I assume the collection of SE vets involved in that wouldn't have done that to a newb....)
@cabbey ya, for new people, you have to bring out the kid gloves on bad questions. Generally, all SE sites should try to do that. SE is a different world and not everybody 'gets' it right away.
I'm all for kid gloves on new users. Welcoming them, helping them edit questions so they can stay open, etc. My worry isn't them. This is a beta phase where we want to encourage great questions to keep the site headed in the right direction. I for some reason hold the people who committed to this phase to a higher standard. I mean, we all got emails telling us exactly what to do this week!
@cabbey I am not as worried about the SE or SM novice being turned off. I am more worried about the SE or SM EXPERTS being turned off at the super easy and low hanging fruit questions.
I suspect once we get going, the main use for SE will be for support saying "you're asking a question beyond what we can do on support.... here's a great resource you can research your customization at...". The trivial stuff will never get past support
Yea I basically gave up on customizing my own smug site because I got so tired of reading through hours of threads on dgrin. Its just a hobby, and i'd rather shoot photos then fix my website :)
So I understand your point about some of my seeds. But I have a ton of experience with our users and I can promise you that these questions need to be addressed. No matter how simple you may think they are. It was only a couple anyway that immediately popped into my mind while I was coming up with a list of the more complex ones. Most of the folks that will be coming here are not stack exchange users and will demand answers.
Ok, I 100% agree those questions need to be addressed
For example, how do I add music to my site? Since you are just seeding an example question, you have no real problem to address. The help file at the SmugMug site already gives the basic info, and since you are not truely a user asking the question, what problem will we solve above what is already in the existing docs?
You mentioned being a grump earlier. No, we are all trying to do what is right. I am a former medic and my training was being a patient advocate. So I use the same philosophy for our users.
The problem is that the help is not complete. There are many other ways to do it and we point folks to dgrin for that support. Dgrin is not good for this type of support either.
Don't put music on your site... :-) Cabbey would agree with that one.
I have this new George Straight song that I bought on iTunes that I want to play on my homepage. I also have another song that I want to play in my galleries. How do I do it?
Do you get what I am getting at? The "how do i add music question" can be drilled into from 100's of different directions. It literally could fill a book! So asking a generic question like that, that the FAQ already solves, I do not think is adding value.
@ChrisWalker That is exactly it! That is a perfect question!
@ChrisWalker I see a few options. We can continue the discussion at this thread: meta.smugmug.stackexchange.com/questions/29/… Based on those voted upon answers we can either move forward with recreating the FAQ or not.
You could also edit your questions to ask specific real world questions, and even answer them yourself if you know the answers and would like to do that.
Or, they can be left open and the community itself will decide to leave them as is, and answer them. or vote to close them.
I can edit. I am focusing right now on getting the questions lined up. Instead of voting something down (I dont care about the points), work with me on making them useful. I know what will be asked. I just don't know exactly what you expect in all of these cases.
I even copied some questions word for word how customers ask them. :-)
that is fine that customers ask in that way. but when you open up a dialog with them, you find out more information. I am just suggesting that you add detail such as that so it is a "real world" question.
Do not worry so much about seeding the top 10 questions
They will come automatically as the users come in.
That is a great example, because I'm sure he really had that question, it is hard to find info by google results, no FAQ will tell you that already, etc.
I'm not sure the current answer is the best, but its a start.
@rebecca Yes, I have read it. But, You guys are focused on attracting experts and I have no problem with that. I am focused on keeping our (inexperienced) users from being driven away from this site.
@dpollitt I don't mean anything negative towards anyone. Most of our users are NOT your typical stackexchange users. Given the programming community background, most SE users are very well educated in computers etc. Our users have very different backgrounds.
@dpollitt it happens all the time on the original trinity, and on several of the other stacks... cooking has had some spectacular flame outs, so has parenting. I bet there's a metric that could be run about users that signup, ask a question or two and then never come back after a week or so
I have participated on some of the other non-tech stacks. I have seen how easy it is for folks to decide that something is a bad question and close it. That user in a lot of cases never posts again. Our users are used to a much more gentle hand. Yes, I know we are developing the site now but that is why I am here. I want to make sure we approach this correctly.
I am willing to say that I am wrong on things and willing to learn. But please listen to me when it comes to our users. I think I have my finger on the pulse of that group :-) I was a medic after all. They call me Doc at SmugMug for many reasons.
in cooking, questions get closed FAST, and usually by a mod. in photo, you're more likely to see the question stay open for an edit or such, and more likely that the community give it some time before they close it
in that respect yes, but cooking.SE also does a lot better not taking things that are shopping questions for example. Photo.se takes a lot of questions that have very, very little long term value
@dpollitt btw, in general, an easy answer to that is "If we need more details and/or we think the question can be salvaged somewhat, we should try to encourage a standard waiting window after its requested."
if its a new user, their first time and they ask a bad question - before the sledge hammer comes down, you ask for some details and then wait 24 hours or such
if they don't respond, its closed. If they respond, then we know there is some room to work with them. If they're a 5k user and they ask something clearly bad, then there's less window.
As rfusca brings up, I think the important thing to note chris, is that we will be gentle, with people who response to inquires and add additional detail as necessary. Does that make sense?
OK, We going to head out do eat. If you see anything else of mine that needs editing, or improvement. Let me know or make recommendations. I am more than willing to do what is needed to get this thing going.
I need assistance over the phone. What number can I call for SmugMug support?
