Community Wiki to handle common off topic questions

Journeyman Geek

Sep 28, 2018 14:41

The idea behind a CW is sort of to build collaborative answers

AndyD273

@JourneymanGeek That's what I said

Journeyman Geek

Well more that stuff for people to build on

what you're talking about is a bikeshed question and frowned upon

AndyD273

Hmm, I'm pretty sure I've seen a question like that which was a community wiki

which is why I thought that's what it was

Antonio Amaral Braga

TIL: bikeshed question

AndyD273

Sep 28, 2018 15:11

Maybe with more detail about the world and setting it could be narrowed down? Though I'm really not sure.

@JourneymanGeek Found it!

4252

Q: The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List

This question attempts to collect the few pearls among the dozens of bad C++ books that are published every year. Unlike many other programming languages, which are often picked up on the go from tutorials found on the Internet, few are able to quickly pick up C++ without studying a well-written...

Community wiki, big list of resources

It seems like a similar thing could be done for select WB questions. Ones that have a lot of potential answers, and it might be nice to be able to scan down a long list and find one that fits. Especially if it is the kind of too broad question that gets asked over and over again.

Cort Ammon

Sep 28, 2018 16:12

My opinion on CW's, based on their use in other exchanges, is that they generally permit exploring wider questions that everyone knows should be answered on that site, but are too broad or fuzzy to meet the standards of the site as a normal question.

When I see them, I see that they are not judged by the written rules for the site, but rather by the community opinion regarding the value of the question and answers. Which, given the name "community wiki," seems to make a lot of sense.

AndyD273

@CortAmmon So the question is, could a CW be used in very select circumstances as a form of community brainstorming in regard to questions that are too broad normally but pop up a lot?

Cort Ammon

Makes me ponder now, if we were to go throguh the list of "too broad" questions, I wonder if we could find commonality.

Sounds like we're thinking on the same wavelength, @AndyD273

Do we have a CW post on WB.SE yet?

AndyD273

I think there is a potential benefit, and I don't see any downsides yet.

I don't know? I don't even know how to look for them. They don't get tagged as CW

Cort Ammon

So I haven't thought about this very long, but this discussion right here is making me wonder if we could use CW posts to close questions as "duplicate" rather than "too broad" or "story based." That would let us keep closing the questions, but also let us throw the questioner a bone by pointing them at answers.

I know I've written probably a dozen answers to questions that I knew woudl be closed as "too broad," and written the answer to point out why it was too broad and tools that could be used to narrow it down.

Said answers then get lost to time because the question gets closed.

AndyD273

@CortAmmon That is an interesting idea. I think the idea of having a list of common too broad questions to be used to close as duplicate came up a while back, but not in the context of CW, just normal questions.

IIRC the consensus was that would be flaunting the rules. But it wouldn't be flaunting if it was CW...

Cort Ammon

Sep 28, 2018 16:20

I would agree with that assessment (the challenge woudl be seeing if everyone else agrees as well)

AndyD273

Take it to meta?

Cort Ammon

That seems like a good place for it

Maybe some of the mods are more aware of the exact mechanics of CWs and might know some details that would help

AndyD273

Or mine the broad closed questions first to see if some examples can be dug up

Cort Ammon

4,462 closed questions. Out of 18k. Not a bad ratio!

A Time-Travel CW would be a good one

AndyD273

@Mithrandir24601 Any thoughts on this?

Or @James?

Mithrandir24601

Sep 28, 2018 16:25

@AndyD273 Sort of - I've got some modding to do first (nothing bad or anything), then I'll come back to here

Cort Ammon

Maybe one on The Art of War. I see a lot of war questions which come up from a fundamental lack of understanding of war (and how horrible it is)

A CW on how to work through your own war questions on your own would be valuable, in my mind

You could do one on building magic systems. Lots of questions have come up in the form "I have this magic system that does X. Help me make it balanced." or "I have this one idea about what my magic system should be like, how can I flesh it out into a real system."

Those have always been too story based, but a collection of general principles one could use with regard to the creation of magic systems might fly.

AndyD273

Those all sound good to me

for what that's worth

Cort Ammon

(Some of these might be links to the Universe Factory, where a longer blog post could be dedicated to the topic)

James

@AndyD273 huh, what?

Cort Ammon

I feel like there's somethnig that could be done with trade, ranging from mideival to galactic scale trading, but I haven't quite pinned down what it would be.

AndyD273

Sep 28, 2018 16:31

@James The subject of common brainstorming questions has raised it's head once again, and a new idea has emerged, namely using community wiki questions as a way to create a shield against them. So everyone contrbutes to a solid answer to something like "building a magic system" or "time travel", and then when one of those questions that is too broad shows up, it could be pointed to the CW as a duplicate, helping the asker, and closing the broad question in a helpful manner.

And being a community wiki, it can be expanded and improved as new users find creative ways to ask broad questions, without those answers getting lost once the question is closed.

James

@AndyD273 Interesting idea...

contemplating...

Cort Ammon

Another potential one for the list: AIs and consciousness. We've got a fair number of open and closed questions where a quick primer would have made people's life so much easier

James

are we talking about a meta Q/CW or main?

AndyD273

Probably main

One important bit would be coming up with a way to keep the CW questions from getting out of hand. Maybe have a vote before creating a new CW topic, to make sure there are enough answers to warrant it. Kinda like obscure tags.

James

not sure how I feel about this...part of me likes it, part of me feels dirty for liking it...

AndyD273

Sep 28, 2018 16:38

@James There is precedent on SO, if that helps your conscience:

4252

Q: The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List

This question attempts to collect the few pearls among the dozens of bad C++ books that are published every year. Unlike many other programming languages, which are often picked up on the go from tutorials found on the Internet, few are able to quickly pick up C++ without studying a well-written...

c++ c++-faq

Cort Ammon

@James I justify it to myself as I always feel bad when I see a question that I am obliged to close as too story based, when I know I could write a broad answer that would help more people. (Phrased more accurately, I wont feel bad when I set a bad example by answering these soon-to-be-closed questions, despite the fact that someone with my rep should know better ;-) )

I wonder how many answers I've written that I snuck in 5 minutes before the last VTC came in.

I know I've got one that I put a partial answer in, and then modded to complete the answer after it got closed

James

@CortAmmon Shush, I don't have time to go and downvote all your answers right now.

Cort Ammon

=p

Wait a few weeks first. I need to get enough rep so that if you -2 all my answers, I stay above 100k =p

AndyD273

I may or may not have a friend that had a long answer typed out when the question was closed, and then just went and altered the css to reenable the save button so as not to have wasted all that typing

Cort Ammon

... I may have to forget you told me that, so I don't get in trouble in the future. I love my Web Developer tools!

James

Sep 28, 2018 16:43

@AndyD273 That should have read: "I may or may not"

AndyD273

snuck it in under the wire

Mithrandir24601

First thing is that I believe this was along the lines of the original purpose of CW posts - one offs for things that wouldn't normally be allowed - however, SE is now heading away from these but I think one offs are still OK, if permission is gained to do so on the site's meta

AndyD273

@Mithrandir24601 Who can grant that kind of permission? The mod team? SE staff?

James

I think the idea is you want community consensus, or at least...you know, grudging acceptance.

Mithrandir24601

We did have a case on QC (If I'm remembering right) where the original idea was something that may or may not have been allowed on the site (we're too new to actually know this sort of thing yet) and we were told that it's fine as long as we get a meta consensus, yeah (but these weren't to be CWs though) - this particular example had to stop for unrelated reasons though

AndyD273

Sep 28, 2018 16:51

I just wonder what the possible objections to it might be? It sounds like it is in the intended spirit of the site, and definitely doesn't break any rules, and would be a really useful resource. I just know I'm not objective, so I'm wondering if that might be why I can't think of a reason not to do it.

Mithrandir24601

However, we've also had a case, nearer the beginning, where someone asked a question and we decided it should be CW, then a CM stepped in and was like 'nope'

27

Q: What are the methods of quantum computation?

It seems that quantum computing is often taken to mean the quantum circuit method of computation, where a register of qubits is acted on by a circuit of quantum gates and measured at the output (and possibly at some intermediate steps). Quantum annealing at least seems to be an altogether differe...

quantum-computing-models architecture

AndyD273

@Mithrandir24601 But that one wasn't closed either

Mithrandir24601

@AndyD273 It wasn't closed, but it's a one-off

AndyD273

Right, but possibly not one off enough to be a CW

Cort Ammon

So it sounds like we may need to form this discussion into a format that the SE staff can consume. Do we know what format that would be?

Mithrandir24601

Sep 28, 2018 16:55

(there are a few, more basic questions in the realm of QC that are essential to get a decent idea of going on, but some of them are list questions, so not great for the SE q/a style)

@CortAmmon We were (still are) a new site - at that time, I don't think we had any mods even, so the CMs were much more involved than they are now

(201 days old, to be precise)

Cort Ammon

I think the argument I would use is that, for WorldBuilding, it is often reasonable to define a general approach to solve your problem, but the general approach itself would be deemed "too broad." Trying to use math as a metaphor, rather than having people ask "what is the 5th Fibonacci number" and "what is the largest Fibonacci number under 1000," you provide a post describing how to calculate Fibonacci numbers

But "How to calculate Fibonacci numbers and some of their cool properties" is way too broad, so it'd get VTC'd rather quickly

Mithrandir24601

Yup

Cort Ammon

Just thinking process (for quality control), it might make sense to demand that any such CW needs to go through the sandbox process (or something equivalent). It would make sense to have a process that no CW question gets posted unless there's a mod already ready and willing to make it CW (mods can do that, right?)

James

...hrm...I am envisioning a world in which every question on WB gets closed and re-directed to an already written CW.

@CortAmmon would never see 200k :'(

AndyD273

So after reading the linked "future of CW" article, I don't think this idea goes against it. It's not using CW as a way to squeeze "just for fun" questions through like "Coolest Server Names". And it's not a “Quick Fix”, as these aren't to replace "on-topic and useful" questions "that would be ok if they didn't give points". It's a way to provide useful answers to questions that are off topic normally.

At least, that's how I read it.

James

Sep 28, 2018 17:07

Right but should we be providing answers to questions that are not on topic?

AndyD273

@James If the answers are "this is how you can answer the question yourself" why not?

If you get 5 questions about time travel that are too broad, and would normally be closed, but you could point them to a CW that is ways to solve that kind of question, instead of typing out how to solve that kind of question 5 seperate times, then it would be a benefit to the community as a whole, that user in particular, and be a time savings.

Like in that list of C++ programming books. That is a question that should be off topic on SO. But it is also something that probably would come up a lot. So by having it be a CW, you can take those questions asking for C++ programming books, point them to the CW, and the user gets what they want without cluttering up the site with off topic questions.

Likewise, someone searching for C++ programming books will probably find that one first, and avoid asking the question in the first place.

James

@AndyD273 But unless you are @CortAmmon you wouldn't write those 5 answers you'd VTC and work with the OP to narrow the question and make it on-topic...so again...should we be answering off-topic questions? I don't know the answer (just to clarify), I ask questions like this to help me decide.

The C++ reference books example is topically off topic though. Those questions aren't allowed on SE but they pop up anyway. Whereas the topics you were considering CW'ing on WB are fine on WB so long as the question is properly asked.

At least...that's what my brain currently thinks

Mithrandir24601

@James Yeah, this - ideally what should happen is that, if a question is too broad, it gets edited to be 'not too broad'

AndyD273

So the question yesterday about stealing the sailing ship. Definitely off topic, and there is no way to really fix it, even though sailing ship questions in general could be on topic. The best case scenario for the person asking that question is what happened; Comments from people giving resources on sailing ships, and things to think about like crew, maintenance and weapons. But say we got a lot of broad sailing ship questions. Having a list with those things to think about would be useful.

Even though sailing ship questions are on topic, there is a lot of possibility for off topic questions, and it is a specialized field, meaning that you can't expect people to have general knowledge of what it takes to sail one.

A CW with information on care and maintenance of sailing ships would be good in that situation, as it has all the important info, and won't get lost when the question is closed and fades away.

A sailing ship CW improves the site by making it a more complete collection of knowledge, and ensures that information doesn't get lost, and helps people who wouldn't normally get help.

And it is the reason that CW exists (at least as I read that "future of CW" article)

James

Sep 28, 2018 17:27

@AndyD273 Like I said I am of two minds about the proposal...probably worth dropping it on meta and seeing what the community thinks

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