Room for ColleenV and P. E. Dant

ColleenV

19:24

Howdy - There's been some concerns about some of your comments asking for learners to do more research for their questions, for example, this one:

> Our expectation is that you will have done some research on your own, and found the result unenlightening, before asking a question here. Please use the edit link to tell us what research you did to learn about the position of the possessive pronoun my in the phrase All my hope.

That sort of thing is really really difficult for someone not fluent in English to research

I appreciate all you do to help ELL and I would support you in demanding that standard for answers, but I think for questions we need to focus on good context or explanation of the question rather than what searches they've done themselves

Sometimes they can't even phrase the exact question in English

This is just an FYI that some of those comments haven't been received well

because they're perceived as being too harsh

P. E. Dant

Okay, I can see that, I suppose. "Our expectation is that you will have done some research on your own..." was lifted nearly verbatim from an ELU thing

ColleenV

@P.E.Dant Yeah, and the standard here is far different because of the language barrier

It's appropriate for ELU where folks are expected to be very fluent

P. E. Dant

Doesn't sound harsh to me, but I'm symathetic. My objective is always to teach to fish, not give a fish.

I think we sometimes trend toward being an "answer line." Go look at the questions from the user "aircraft" e.g.

ColleenV

I don't disagree with you about fishes and fisherman, but sometimes the translations make comments go a little south

I'm fine with pushing for more context and effort, but the tone might have to shift

P. E. Dant

And sometimes it really is necessary to be what might be perceived as a little harsh.

I want these questioners to come away saying: "Wow! I can figure this out myself!"

ColleenV

19:33

I can understand that

P. E. Dant

Sometimes the best way to accomplish that is NOT to answer the question.

ColleenV

The language barrier can make that hard to do in comments as well as we might be able to do it in chat or a different sort of forum

P. E. Dant

Agree ref. the difference in venue

ColleenV

Absolutely - you may not have noticed, but I have been deleting answer-comments pretty ruthlessly

for some of those exact reasons

P. E. Dant

I'll try to be more jocular, but I don't want to stop what J.R. sees as "pestering"

I have noticed indeed and good on you

ColleenV

19:36

I just think it's more of a tone thing, and I think a lot of us have a sensitivity to the "ELU" tone asking for research because of baggage from conflicts past ;)

P. E. Dant

Along with deleting answercomments, we need a way to emphasize that "show your research" prerequisite.

ColleenV

So I think it gets under people's skin a little more easily if it sounds like the same ELU standard instead of pushing a student to excel

P. E. Dant

hmm. never considered ELU fatigue :)

ColleenV

But we don't have an explicit "show your research" - it's more about "Details, please"

if you're familiar with that meta post

It's OK if we just have enough context and enough understanding of why they're asking the question to make it answerable

Once they're comfortable with the format we can "help" (aka push) them learn to do their own searches

Anyhow, I appreciate you being open to feedback

P. E. Dant

I know, and I think we will benefit everyone if we are a little stronger on the show your research point. If we are just an "answer line" we don't build the database and we only help one individual at a time.

ColleenV

19:39

and everyone on the mod team does recognize that you're trying to help

P. E. Dant

not a problem ColleenV

sure I am, hope it's obvious

ColleenV

I really think we need to stop answering the low-effort questions

P. E. Dant

Exactly, but the reputation vampires like Peter are too fast with the keyboard

ColleenV

46

Q: DO NOT FEED THE BEARS

A question was just asked on ELL, and it needs a lot of work. Here's a screen shot. There are two problems with this question: first, the way the initial question was asked; second, the way a follow-on question was asked in a comment. Error Identification I'll start by addressing the ques...

discussion

I don't know what to do about Peter

P. E. Dant

there must be some administrative way to deal with that phenomenon

there are several

ColleenV

19:41

He's also just trying to help

and he has responded to feedback in the past

P. E. Dant

mmm, well, maybe. I think he's eyeing that 49K or whatever it is, too

ColleenV

he's gotten a lot better believe it or not

Oh, no doubt he loves the reputation and is good at getting it

P. E. Dant

some of his quickie ansdwer are flat wring

er, answers

er, wrong

ColleenV

Yep, and the best thing to do in that situation is down-vote and explain

P. E. Dant

heh

ColleenV

19:43

He does remove them

P. E. Dant

haven't looked, but good if so

ColleenV

I've also had success with ignoring the answer and pushing the learner to improve their question

and then it attracts better answers

P. E. Dant

yup, I've done the same

how do we get FF to write more answers and fewer brilliant comments? likewise BillJ?

that one bedevils me, too

ColleenV

Well everyone is a volunteer, so we can't really push folks to spend more time than they have

P. E. Dant

problem is, FF writes a perfect commentanswer but then doesn't answer!

ColleenV

19:47

What I'd like to do is get more experts engaged with ELL so we don't have to rely so heavily on so few

P. E. Dant

heh. first look, i read "enraged"

ColleenV

Yep, and it will stay there until I see an answer that captures some of what he's said

Lol, anger can be a good motivator

but I don't know that it makes a good teacher

P. E. Dant

true dat

ok tnx ColleenV

duty calls

ColleenV

Thanks - catch ya' later

P. E. Dant

ciao

Transcript for

Room for ColleenV and P. E. Dant