Timeline for Should users be shown some basic information before posting the first question? [duplicate]
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Jan 8, 2022 at 19:42 | history | edited | Tim CampionMod |
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| Jan 11, 2021 at 13:49 | history | closed |
Martin Sleziak CommunityBot |
Duplicate of Customize the modal window for the first-time askers [duplicate] | |
| Jan 11, 2021 at 10:17 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 11, 2021 at 14:02 | |||||
| Jan 11, 2021 at 9:46 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | I have posted a new feature request here: Customize the modal window for the first-time askers. It is not really a duplicate, but since this no longer can be used, I would suggest to close it as such. | |
| Mar 21, 2020 at 18:58 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak |
So it seems that /questions/ask/advice is no longer shown on any site. But the replacement is also customizable: The new ask page is now live on the network!
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| Jun 18, 2019 at 8:12 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | I will add that an answer by a community manager has been posted to the question on Mathematics Meta about stats connected with this change. | |
| May 15, 2019 at 4:47 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | When a similar feature was implement on ServerFault, Shog9 collected some stats on whether there was some visible change: Should folks have to click through an interstitial page to ask questions on Server Fault? I have asked about the same data on Mathematics: How much did “advice for first-time askers” help? I'll mention it here when some actual data are available, some data excluding deleted posts have been posted in this chatroom. | |
| Jul 13, 2018 at 11:37 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | In case somebody stumbles upon this post, it is probably worth mentioning that Todd Trimble promised in chat that moderators will look into this. (This comment is kind of "status udpdate".) | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 20:13 | answer | added | j.c. | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 16, 2018 at 13:05 | answer | added | Mark L. Stone | timeline score: 4 | |
| May 30, 2018 at 8:09 | answer | added | Martin Sleziak | timeline score: 5 | |
| May 30, 2018 at 7:40 | answer | added | Federico Poloni | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 25, 2017 at 8:53 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | There is also this older suggestion: Explicitly pointing out math.stackexchange when (new?) users ask a question, So maybe information about Mathematics StackExchange could be also included in the text displayed to the new users. | |
| Sep 27, 2017 at 9:46 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | I would consider also answers pointing out how this suggestion can be improved as very useful - definitely more than answer simply saying yes or no. (For example, what should be added to "How to ask" if that is the page which will be shown. Or what are possible alternatives and why they are better. In fact, several of the comments posted so far could possibly be expanded to answers.) | |
| Sep 27, 2017 at 9:44 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | @silvascientist The faq page What is "meta"? explicitly says: "On posts tagged feature-request, voting indicates agreement or disagreement with the proposed change rather than just the quality or usefulness of the post itself." So voting on yes/no answer is precisely the same thing as upvoting/downvoting question (assuming that users actually vote according to this rule). Much better than simply posting yes/no answer would be posting an answer saying yes or no but explaining the reasons why the poster thinks that implementing this would be good/bad. | |
| Sep 25, 2017 at 22:11 | comment | added | j.c. | Here's an independent thought: perhaps we should suggest and link to math.SE on this "basic information" page, or even on the "ask page" for math questions that are not research level. It seems that some portion of the off-topic questions are asked by people who aren't aware of math.SE and there don't seem to be any suggestions about math.SE on the current ask page or on-topic pages. I vaguely remember that there was some discussion (here? or on tea?) about the appropriateness of directing askers to another site but I can't recall when it occurred. | |
| Sep 25, 2017 at 22:10 | comment | added | j.c. | I appreciate Stefan Kohl's point about the old advice page being long, though I still believe that it should be more accessible than it is now. | |
| Sep 23, 2017 at 12:45 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 23, 2017 at 5:56 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 21, 2017 at 3:58 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | @LSpice At the moment, I do not have time to create a new account just to test this. But I think that the way it works on the site where this is implemented (like SO and math.SE) that this page is shown to users before they enter the first question. (I.e., a user clicks on the "ask question" button, they are shown the page with advice "How to ask". If they still think the question belongs to the site, they check the checkbox and then proceed to writing the question.) | |
| Sep 21, 2017 at 2:04 | comment | added | silvascientist | Shouldn't we have two answers for and against so that users can upvote at their discretion? I'd go ahead and do it, if not for slight fear of presumptuousness. Btw, I like this idea and would upvote a yes answer. | |
| Sep 21, 2017 at 1:13 | comment | added | LSpice | @StefanKohl, indeed, the latter is what I meant. I have definitely seen questions that I thought were good, and that seemed well received, that the poster explicitly described as not research-level. One of my first questions was about an exercise in a text that arose in connection with an (undergraduate) course I was teaching; it is decidedly not research-level, but it seemed to provoke no dissatisfaction. | |
| Sep 20, 2017 at 22:58 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @LSpice: If people give an honest answer yes to the question "Is this homework?", then likely making this trigger rejection is the right thing to do. Though "Is this research-level mathematics?" is different in that mathematicians will likely often hesitate to claim yes, even for quite interesting questions. So it depends. | |
| Sep 18, 2017 at 21:33 | comment | added | LSpice | @MattF., that seems like a great idea. The only concern I'd raise is: would the 'wrong' answer automatically trigger rejection of the post, or just a warning that it might not be appropriate? If the latter, then people might just ignore it as they would ToS. If the former, then good questions could be lost to people giving overly honest answers. | |
| Sep 17, 2017 at 14:06 | comment | added | user44143 | I'd remove the checkbox but ask them to answer 3 or 4 questions, e.g.: "Is this homework?" "Is this research-level mathematics?" "Have you looked for an answer on Google or Wikipedia?" That way, if the list requires both a yes and a no as answers, they will at least end up reading all the questions. | |
| Sep 16, 2017 at 21:50 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | @j.c.: I think Scott Morrison's text is much too long. To me it seems unlikely that many new users will bother to read it, regardless of how prominently it is displayed. Rather it would just be dismissed like the common lengthy Terms of Service of any other website. This already by native speakers of English, but even more of course by others. | |
| Sep 16, 2017 at 18:56 | comment | added | j.c. | While there is a link to this answer on the help/on-topic page, meta.mathoverflow.net/a/883 , I think including a link to it (or perhaps most of the advice) on a page shown to new askers would be a start in making it more prominent and accessible. If I remember correctly, this answer was the old MO 1.0 "how to ask" page and there was a link to it at the top of the site design. | |
| Sep 16, 2017 at 15:31 | comment | added | Stefan Kohl Mod | As to a proposal for such an info text, see here. | |
| Sep 16, 2017 at 12:15 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 16, 2017 at 11:38 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 16, 2017 at 11:30 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 16, 2017 at 11:14 | history | asked | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 3.0 |