@JM J.M. I have a question about the logistics. Imagine that all of us agreed on a particular proposal: either zyx's or Gerry's/yours. Could MSE then implement that independently of the main SE site?
@JM How would you do that technically? Who could see the answers? Would you install a rep-threshold? Wouldn't that be a strong incentive to grow sock-puppets?
@JM So is the concern that if the OP is not allowed to accept answers for 24hrs, then the number of questions with no accepted answers will go up? Or is it something else?
I could imagine a similar lock as the one that's already installed for people posting their own answers (I think they have to wait a day or two before they can accept them) and that might not be too bad. On the other hand, I think the withholding of answers from the OP is strongly against the spirit of "getting answers quickly".
Technically I don't see a big obstacle of implementing it. What's displayed to you depends already on your account, so that should be rather easy.
I think the instant gratification of earning a lot of spiffy new privileges fast is an important factor in roping in new answerers into the site. If one had to wait 24h or whatever on getting feedback on one's work, how many new users would stick around?
The proposal seems to be animated mostly by a desire for "fairness": let everyone have a chance to write an answer and only then let the world find out which of them is better.
@JM I'm not sure which problem we're solving? That askers are too sloppy with how they award their special upvote-and-a-half? I don't think those checkmarks are important enough to degrade the quality of service for everyone.
@JM To be clear, the idea is this: Non-OPs can see the answers and upvote. The OP can see the answers if they are above some pre-determined rep threshold. Is my understanding right?
As an answerer, I don't like this proposal. I would rather be get done with the question asap if it is simple enough (modulo which answer the OP is going to accept, but I don't have to worry about this anyway). If the OP can see the answer only after a day, then this is certainly not going to be the case.
I always ignored this discouragement of discussions in comments. The pedagogical aspect of my participation here is much more important to me than keeping the site with as little noise as possible.
@tb On that note, here's my point (3.) Many users answer homework questions with hints and not with actual answers. Here's one place where discussion should be encouraged, rather than discouraged.
I guess... there aren't any problems! Is there anything wrong with people not answering questions in their sleep (the implied problem from P.2 in the OP) ??
@TheChaz I disagree: I find one problem. Some users comment on the posts claiming that the answer has been accepted too soon.
They refuse to post their answers just because the OP accepted an answer before giving enough time to post other answers. That means that the OP, as well as the site, lose out on an answer; considering that even experienced users do this, I would say we run the risk of losing out on a better answer.
@Srivatsan Well, those users' problems is predicated by the theory that once the asker has accepted an answer, he isn't going to check for better answers later, so it would be futile to write one. However, if that is true (and I believe sometimes it is), technically preventing the asker from announcing that he up and gone still won't prevent him from doing it anyway.
@HenningMakholm Technically no. But what if the user refuses to write a better answer?
This has happened before, and happened to me. If the OP accepts my answer too soon, I have to end up requesting the OP to disaccept my answer and accept it later.
If the accept button were blocked, woundn't users just refuse to write a better answer if the OP has commented "Thank you, that helped" to another answer?
If would be nice if all askers stuck around for some time to see more answers. But merely require them to pretend they are doing so will not actually make them do it. It'll be a purely symptomatic treatment.
@HenningMakholm I often write answers to questions with accepted answers. If people are worried about points, acceptance is only 15 points, whereas upvotes can total in the hundreds.
Then we need to weigh the risk of losing out on answers because people don't want to answer something that the OP considers already solved, or losing out on answers because the guy who could have written them instead wasted his time on answering already-solved problems (which the OP was not allowed to mark as already solved).
@robjohn Er, you're misunderstanding. I am not saying I do such a thing (=refuse to write an answer). I have been the "victim" of having my answer accepted too soon.
And, to be frank, I am no fan of having to ask my answer to be unaccepted and accepted later.
And that disaccept-wait for a couple of days-accept routine also means more work for the OP.
Assuming that the OP is nice enough to heed to my request.
I am very surprised that this point has not been represented in the meta post yet. I might as well write an answer highlighting it. (Sometime today...)
In fact, this is the main reason why I support a minimum delay in accepts.
The better answers that are posted usually garner attention through votes; I am not worried about them. It's the ones that are never posted that bother me.
@tb In fact, if I remember correctly, you refused to post an answer once because of the same reason. Both J.M. and I requested you in chat to post it. Is my memory right? (Again, not intended to offend. =))
@Srivatsan If a user feels strongly enough about a particular topic that he wants to contribute something, the check-mark will not be enough to prevent him from doing so. On the other hand, if it is, then, well, then he probably didn't feel strongly enough about it in the first place, so I'm not sure that the "lost post" is a truly valuable thing to miss.
@Srivatsan Is what you're remembering this answer of mine? (Which I initially deleted because the OP accepted a more advanced answer and I was afraid my more dumbed-down approach would offend him).
@Srivatsan And yes, in that instance I didn't feel strongly enough to overcome the inertia and to clear up quite a few misconceptions to finish that work (which would have cost me about an hour more of work).
@HenningMakholm No, I wasn't speaking of your answer. I didn't know that it was deleted and brought alive. But I do think there was no need to delete the answer; the OP's not the only one for whom the answer is written, is my logic.
My .02 cents. I upvoted zyx's question on Meta. Mostly because the "problem" is somewhat frustrating, and threads like that serve as useful outlets. After blowing off some esteem I, for one, am willing to just carry on as before. So while I have a lot of sympathy for zyx, I mostly agree with the reasoning in Henning's response. Implementing a forced delay before accepting would be allowed is unlikely to help the site.
@t.b.: Regarding your comment about giving full answers to homework questions: you wrote "...those are usually intended and designed to make the askers think on their own by the teachers or professors...". That's not the case most of the time. Most of the time the homework is far too difficult to benefit from at least at the place where I'm doing my undergrad studies. It's frustrating, it sucks and I hate it.
(cont'd) Frustration is not what makes people think and deadline panic isn't either so calling it "designed to make people think" is not quite right.
Also, I think it's people's own responsibility whether they want to understand something or just copy the solution. I haven't looked at the answer I got because I'm still trying to understand things.
@t.b.: I'm not complaining about you, mind you, I'm grateful for all the time you spent today helping me but in general this is not what it's like here.
Homework should repeat things that were taught in class to help solidify those ideas. However, I think there should always be some advanced problems that take the willing student off the beaten track and into exploration.
@Matt: I worked at that place for about a decade and I strongly disagree that the exercises there are far too hard in general. Also, I find it more than unfair that you suggest that the people designing those exercises don't intend them for making you think, that's just your frustration speaking.
If you are taking a survey course, then easy problems are fine. You are not being taught to do these problems after leaving the class, but to get an idea of what the subject is about.
But if you are taking a course so that you will be able to do similar problems after you are finished with the class, then the problems should be more challenging.
You haven't offended me. Yes, you're at a university that aspires to be a top-level (in their words "elite") place. Exercises are supposed to be challenging, the courses are supposed to be challenging and are usually aimed a bit above the average level of the class, but that's the way it is.
Even those who can follow the current pace (and surely there must be some, or the courses would be adjusted) would suffer no ill effects of having the level of their education dumbed-down?
@Matt Spoon-feeding happens in high school; later on, I think one should assume that one faces adults. I don't understand why some people tend to think that sitting in the classes and doing the exercise only should be sufficient to make real progress. Courses should give you a big picture what there is, the work you have to do on your own.
How would they know which additional work to do, if you forbid the university from giving them suggestions for things that would be useful to consider?
@robjohn: Yes just the same. And because I didn't have enough time I've got some big holes of things that I should know by now but don't because I didn't really have time to understand them.
@Srivatsan: this is not a random offender. This guy hasn't shown the least effort in any of his questions and he started to accept answers only yesterday.
oh, yes, comments flags are no longer displayed there.
Why don't you flag the question itself and describe the problem with line breaks (and the problem w/o follow up)? The flag will then appear in your summary and you'll see if anything was done.
It could also be that it wasn't deemed important enough, but usually Willie did take care of such things and he was around half a day ago.
I have to go groceries shopping at 8:00am, then I am meeting with one of my teachers at 10, then I have class (alg. top.) at 12, then I have another class at 16 and then I have office hours and two students said they will come... so I will finish this day only at 20:00 or later.
Then I have to prepare the class I'm giving on Wednesday about induction and whatnot.
