Launchpad itself

karma for solving problems not from original poster

Asked by Jim Hutchinson

I've noticed that some people, rather than posting a new question, reopen or post to an existing question with a similar issue. That's probably a good thing as it shows users are using launchpad to find answers. However, there doesn't seem to be any way to receive karma for helping anyone other than the OP (original poster). If you are a newer launchpad member trying to build a reputation this seems a deterrent to helping anyone who uses launchpad this way rather than posting a new question.

This seems counter-intuitive. Is reopening a question discouraged? Should we refrain from helping people who reopen questions? If not, it seems there should be a way to reward karma in this scenario too.

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Raúl González Duque
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Best Raúl González Duque (zootropo) said : 		#1

Maybe you should write this as a blueprint.

Anyway, I think something like digg's comment karma system would be an improvement to the current implementation. I mean, being allowed to vote to anybody you want (but yourself, of course) and adding more or less karma to a person depending on the karma you have.

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#2

Thanks Raúl González Duque, that solved my question.

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#3

Thanks for your suggestion. I have done just that.

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/launchpad-answers/+spec/distributed-karma

That was my first blueprint and to be honest I didn't really know what I was doing. Hopefully, it's okay. Feel free to make changes, comments, etc. if possible.

Thanks.

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Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) said : 		#4

I think we should instead discourage people from posting different questions on the same page. One way of doing that would be to provide a link for asking a new question from the bottom of the question page, near the comment field.

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Francis J. Lacoste (flacoste) said : 		#5

I agree with Matthew, the proper thing to do here is to create a new question. Only the person submitting a question is in position to evaluate if the answer works for them or not. That assumption is designed in the system and I don't think changing that is a good idea.

So reopening somebody else works against the grain here, adding a note and link to create a new question will help reduce that problem.

The problem of "duplicate effort" will be handled by the addition of FAQ management to the Answer Tracker. It will be possible to create a document explaining how to solve a particular issue (or link to an existing document). It will be easy to answer a question with such a FAQ. Deviation from the common solution can be addressed in the individual's question.

I recognise the problem that sometime more than one answers is needed to solve a question (that's somewhat documented in bug 107810). So the idea of allowing rating indivual answers (instead of selecting only the best one) is a good idea that we'll consider.

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#6

Well, you guys are the experts and I see your point. I was only thinking that we might not want a lot of people asking the same question over and over. Of course, if a current solution doesn't answer their problem then I guess it's not the same question.

"I recognise the problem that sometime more than one answers is needed to solve a question (that's somewhat documented in bug 107810). So the idea of allowing rating indivual answers (instead of selecting only the best one) is a good idea that we'll consider."

Thanks. I think that is a different issue and should probably be addressed separately.

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Curtis Hovey (sinzui) said : 		#7

There are two issues here. If someone is having a problem that is not solved by an answer to a question, then he or she is asking a different question.

As for frequently answered question, or solutions to a general problem there will be a feature to address that: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/launchpad-answers/+spec/faq-base

As for a the matter of changing in how the answer is determined, that is being discussed in bug 107810.