What are we trying to build?

Codidact Platform Ideas
144

My understanding of the tag wiki is not to provide an encyclopedic entry for the tag, but to provide more detailed help on when this tag is appropriate to be used. Wikipedia obviously cannot provide that.

For example, consider a tag unicorn-horn, with the tag description

Questions about the horn at the head of the unicorn. Questions about the use of unicorn horns as magical items should use the alicorn tag instead.

The following would IMHO be a good tag wiki:

The unicorn horn is the single horn found at the head of an unicorn.

This tag is about questions that concern the horn of the living unicorn. On-topic topics for this tag include the evolution of the horn, the use of the horn by the unicorn, or what happens with the horn when an unicorn deceases.

This tag should not be used for questions about the use by humans of unicorn horns, of of substances made out of or with the help of unicorn horns. For that purpose, the alicorn tag exists.

Ethical questions on obtaining unicorn horns for human use may be on-topic for this tag, if they focus on the effect on the unicorns. Otherwise, ethical questions about uses of unicorn horns should use the alicorn tag.

Questions usually should use only one of the two tags.

Note that this tag wiki does not tell you much about unicorn horns (just enough for you to decide whether what you are talking about really is the unicorn horn), but a lot about in what cases the tag should and should not be used.

145

I have seen some wikis like that, but I don’t think it’s really a good idea. At least on SE it’s just too convoluted to find your way to the wiki, and new users aren’t going to do that. All it really does is give you something to refer back to if users complain about you changing their tags. I think you can write a better tag description that’s still concise, something like this:

For questions about the horns of living unicorns, including its evolution and function. For questions about the human use of unicorn horns including products made from horns, use the alicorn tag instead.

I think that covers enough of what your longer wiki said.

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146

Yes. I think of “canonical” as wiki; “canonical” is an insider term and we shouldn’t jump to exposing it as a category in the UI to casual visitors.

Sounds like either discussion (if we want to record the results) or just plain article to me (post your draft, collect feedback in comments, edit, iterate, eventually ask or abandon).

Argh, let’s not do that. Post types are an implementation; categories are semantic. We interact with users at the semantic level. They should not have to understand when just using the site what the difference is between “meta Q&A” and “meta discussion” and what to look for where (because those boundaries sure are fuzzy sometimes). They should go to “meta” (or “town hall” or however it’s presented) and see all the stuff that’s about the site. That some of it accepts answers and some of it is more comment-heavy is, at that point, about as relevant as the fact that on SE some posts are protected and some aren’t.

I also want to get away from the “main” idea. I’ve been using that word too, because it’s what we brought over from SE, but I encourage folks to think instead of a community that has Q&A (the lion’s share of the content), a wiki (canonical references of various sorts), a meta area, maybe a blog, maybe a sandbox – to the user, these are all “first-level” things. There’s no “main vs meta” here; it’s just different aspects of the body of knowledge that the community collaboratively maintains and expands.

Q&A is central. It’s not the only kind of content. That’s ok.

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147

See also: A vision for Codidact

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148

Sandbox is a little different. As I understand it (going from Code Golf, which I’ve minimally participated in since I haven’t had the time to do it justice, but which is a pretty incredible site), in Sandbox each Post (currently by way of an Answer to a single “Meta: Sandbox” question) is a Question.

It isn’t an Article (Blog, Wiki, Canonical, etc.) in the sense that it is not “big”. It is supposed to be a Question exactly the same as those in Q&A, the difference being the discussion is about the Question instead of a path towards answering the question.

It isn’t a Discussion in the sense that it does not exist to get people “thinking about a topic” in the Meta mode, nor is it a prompt for opinions in general (just opinions to make the proposed Question better).

So if “Categories” are defined in more of a “content” basis then Sandbox would be paired with Q&A (since both are about the “main” content of a Community), Meta (with whatever components - Q&A, Discussion, etc.) another Category. Things like Articles, Blog, Wiki, Canonical could be “anywhere” - might be paired with “main” (particularly if, as my vision for Canonical or Wiki, the content is to help answer the very same questions as Q&A, just in a different format - building content so that the users don’t actually have to ask the questions). Or they could be separate - e.g., arguably a Blog that is presenting stories or (perhaps) more opinionated content would be not only a different format than “main” Q&A but also a different Category.

149

Worldbuilding has a sandbox. I’m quite familiar with it.

Because of the limitations of SE, the sandbox is implemented as a meta question (“this is the sandbox”), and question drafts are answers. An answer contains the question draft, proposed tags, and any meta-commentary from the author (what you’re having trouble framing, questions for reviewers, etc). People then respond in comments. Iteration happens. Eventually the question gets either posted or abandoned, and deleted from the sandbox either way.

In a Codidact sandbox the post is a “question”, but not a question to be answered in the sandbox. It’s more of a request for critique, really, same as someone in Photography asking for help improving a photo or someone in Graphic Design asking for help with a logo or someone on Writing asking for critique of a poem. These aren’t really questions; they’re requests for help or input. I would implement that as a “discussion” post type.

Which is exactly why a “one post type per category” approach doesn’t work. Communities should have the option to have those canonical wiki posts – which are not Q&A posts but another type – right there with their Q&A if they want. And meta could host Q&A and discussions and announcements. And they might have other wiki posts that don’t belong with their Q&A, and blog posts that do or don’t.

A category defines the content that goes there. Which specific post types implement that is orthogonal.

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150

“These aren’t really questions” My point is that they are questions. Sort of “baby questions, waiting to grow up and join the main Q&A”. The end result is almost, but not exactly, the same as the Discussion post type. Though even if exactly the same as the Discussion post type, but with an actual name “Sandbox” attached, that would still be a vast improvement over the “force it into Answers to a Meta Question, since we have no place else to put it” mode of SE.

But in general, I think I have come around to your vision of Categories as “content areas” where I was thinking of them as “post types but with another name”. I think that from a Navigation standpoint, there are times (for a lot of different functional reasons) that seeing each individual Post Type within a Category separately makes a lot of sense. But especially in the “looking for an answer to my as-yet-unasked question” mode, seeing all the “main” Category Post Types together (e.g., Q&A, Canonical, Wiki) in one place - and searchable by keywords & tags all at the same time - can make for a greatly enhanced user experience.

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151

In one sense they’re draft questions, but, strictly speaking, they are “meta-style” questions where the question is “how can I improve this proposed post?” and not, for example, “how close can the K-class secondary star be in my binary system without frying the habitable planet orbiting the G-class primary?”.

Yes! I want us to be able to support the things that are shoehorned in awkwardly on SE.

Glad to hear it! Thanks for the discussion.

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152

And some sites would only have canonical questions, not wikis. Up to each community to decide for itself.

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153

I just noticed that IanKemp and I both used a double negative. I’m nearly 100% certain that neither of us intended it that way.

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154

Yes, yes, and “vastly” is too small a word.

Incidentally I was recently surprised to find that on https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/ if you start to create a new topic with the critique tag then displays adds site-specific usage guidelines for that tag where one couldn’t help but see it. I didn’t know the software could do that.

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That (little) text is probably edited by a CM after a community reaches consensus.

I’d like them to be comparable to a Meta post – including comments or “answers” where people have a chance to critique a draft.

One way it’s not like an Announcement or a FAQ topic is that the title is very short and unique, and (ok, two ways: there are two ways in which it’s different) it also has some unformatted plain text description (as well as optional rich/markdown) text because of the way the tag usage popup works when you select or hover over a potential tag when you’re wondering whch one to use when you’re editing a new post).

Something else which SE doesn’t do is support tag hierarchies – except possibly by using hyphens like C++-design versus C++-debugging – see also Tags rather than sub-sites.

Perhaps the Wiki (i.e. free-form rich text) can be used to link to related tags and to describe the relation, thus all the hierarchy anyone might want. Viewing a summary of the tag the software might display those (linked) tags as “Related” a bit like it (SE not Discourse) displays related/linked topics.

Designing important new functionality might be “not for the MVP” perhaps though, I don’t know.

155

Perhaps not – on SE they’re used in a space-constrained UI i.e. in the tag editor/selector e.g. like this:

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There’s a fair bit of work/detail in the behaviour of that tag selector – it took me several days to clone, it was easily the most complex part of the UI.

156

One problem with S/O is that there is an over-powerful central group of power-users. This central group frequently uses meta- to coordinate and make changes (eg. question closing, downvoting etc) en-masse.

I think a few, well-chosen site features, widely available to users (even those with a relatively low level of trust), will negate the need for having a central clique like this.

Furthermore, culturally I see no real need for “homework questions”, “duplicates” or “poorly researched” questions to be closed or downvoted off the site.

These labels are often highly subjective.

For those cases where there are real problems with questions (abuse, rights infringement, spam etc) then crowdsourced opinion might get us most of the way there. Or maybe there needs to be a moderator option for these. I’m not dogmatic.

But for “duplicates”, for example, a mechanism to link duplicates will go a long way.

I see no real benefit in letting super-duper users swoop in and downvote or close a question they perceive as duplicate. S/O has attempted this model, and failed terribly. There are endless duplicates. And the so-called “canonicals” frequently have highly-upvoted, wrong answers.

If you can’t beat em’, join 'em.

If a newbie wants to ask what a closure is, then I say, “ask away”. Certainly, I’d, link their question to a dupe. But perhaps another more generous user will engage and answer their question there and then. A win/lose then becomes a win/win.

Similarly for the widely used (and abused) “lack of research” reason for closing questions. Live and let live. As long as people can engage with the user and ask for clarifications and/or improvements to the question, then I don’t see a real problem.

157

That’s partly related to the site’s mission statement.

I think that one of SO’s explicit aims was to become a searchable wiki of good answers to various questions – as such it makes/made sense to have/keep non-duplicate topics.

Another site’s aim might be to give personalised advice – and therefore be more reluctant to close any person’s question.

It may be beneficial, if it really is a duplicate, and if it has already been answered well.

Your question’s being closed is kind of annoying if the so-called duplicate doesn’t already answer it. Maybe it should be, at least, easy or automatic to get your question reopened if you edit it, e.g. if you clarify how the question is different from the previous one.

It may depend on the subject matter too – e.g. SO problems tend to be boolean i.e. fixed or not fixed, answered or not answered – questions and answers on other sites might be more different-shades-of-meaning (and thus less likely to be duplicate).

Even so there are FAQs which lots of beginners ask…

And I personally don’t want people to copy-and-paste existing answers into new topics! That would go against my training.

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158

Maybe I can re-word this better. I think it is a balance of harms. I think a lighter-touch approach to something like a dupe would keep more people happy and lead to more return visits. The person asking a “silly dupe” about setTimeout in JavaScript today, will be answering the tough questions in two years’ time. And I think the annoyance factor for the old-timers on the site can probably be mitigated in other ways (filters?).

Furthermore, initially, often the questioner doesn’t really know what their question is. The S/O model is to quickly downvote and close. It can be a horrible experience for novices.

For someone like you or I, we might either leave the question to someone with more time, or simply paste in a link to a duplicate or two, and leave the questioner to it. A more generous, or more junior user might want to have a go at an answer. And why not? It will be a learning experience for them too.

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159

I don’t find it especially friendly either in that way, and I haven’t posted there regularly in a while – I believe you but I don’t really know what you’re talking about.

That’s quite a good point. I answer a lot of seemingly elementary questions – e.g. more than 1000 answers (on another SE site) – partly in the hope that other users (less junior than me) will answer other more difficult questions that I couldn’t, and partly because the research is good for me, and/or because it’s a good question to which I’d like to understand an answer myself.

Even so if I think a question is a duplicate and already answered, I’ll ask, what’s different about this question … if only to know how to answer it or what to answer.

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160

Question: what is actually improved in the S/O model versus marking as dupe (with a link the the dupe, of course) and leaving it open? In the former a user takes a stab at a question, stumbles into what looks like a dupe to the old-timers, and is unceremoniously shut down. In the latter, the dupe is highlighted to the questioner, and maybe they then delete the question. But perhaps they leave it open and get a tailored answer for their particular problem.

In both cases the old-timers see a dupe flash up on their screens.

Absolutely agree.

161

I think that theoretically the harm is that a reader trying to find an answer using Google now has to find two different SO topics, one of which might not have a good a set of answers as the other.

But one of my recent questions on SO was allowed to remain (and is being upvoted as useful sometimes), though it was duplicate and according to this comment that was only because it was phrased using a different keyword (i.e. “opaque”) which people might be using as a search term:

I don’t think any of the other branded type questions reference opaque so it might be useful to add an answer to improve search-ability

The “SO way” used to be to close the question but leave it as a pointer (a hyperlink) to the topic of which it’s a duplicate.

Also moderators can merge answers from one topic to another – but I think that’s only moderators who do that and I don’t know what moderators (as opposed to just “super-duper users”) on SO mostly do with their time.

I write the above instead of saying, “the harm is just that power users can’t be bothered to answer the same question twice” – because it’s the above that I recall seeing as an explanation/reasoning on Meta for SE’s/SO’s close-as-duplicate functionality.

If it were only the latter then your argument would make sense, i.e. “move over, old-timer, and let somebody else try to answer it.”

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I can’t speak for SO since I was hardly there, but on other SE sites these kind of closures are essential to keeping the place clean.

But, it’s not clear what point you are trying to make. Clearly the software needs to have the ability to close questions. What the criteria are for closing is site specific, so not a matter for software design.

163

Yes that’s right.

Though specifically “close as dup” does have special software support, i.e. to display and edit in the banner a list of the topics of which this one is a duplicate – a UI feature which is enabled only by closing the question.