Standing in the street trying to hear yourself think

[Onno Benschop]

On 03/07/09 08:00, Tim Hawkins wrote:
> Would the production of a system similar to the "Yahoo Answers"
> approach help with some of this, Yahoo Answers
> awards points to answers that are chosen as top answers for various
> questions, and in essence becomes a "living FAQ". Its more
> task orientated than the wiki, as its based on a question/answer
> form.  Its less intimidating than the forums as its not a discussion
> space.
>
> The points system encourages people to contribute to increase their
> "karma" or their peer status, particular participants's points
> levels could for example be used to award "emblems" for particular
> levels of engagement, such as "expert", "guru" etc. Potentially
> points could be used to award resources on the upcoming Ubuntu One
> system, or other ubuntu related resources.
>
> It would be in Canonical's interest to encourage participation to make
> product adoption more widespread.
>
> Any thoughts?.

I have seen Yahoo! Answer posts where two answers were supplied by two
different people. The wrong answer was voted as the "best" answer. Just
because the masses think the answer is right, doesn't make it so.

"karma" can be a useful indication of activity, but in my experience
it's no indication of expertise.

And typically, using launchpad as an example, experts don't seem to get
a lot of karma, since most of their activity is in the preparation of a
single launchpad action, a patch, or an answer, or whatever.

-- 
Onno Benschop

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