UNITY ANSWERS is DYING - Clean IT!

The Problem
Unity Answers is Trashed. There are so many users who don't know what they're doing. If they have questions, that is perfectly understandable. But I've seen so many questions on how to use Answers when there is a FAQ 100 pixels to the right. I don't have too much Karma (about 1500 at the moment), but I take pride in it. It frustrates me that I have a 24% Acceptance Rate when at least a third of my answers are detailed, including code and explanations. I also try to mention to users they can always leave comments if they still have questions. I try my best to get back to them.

The Solution
I posted a suggestion under Feedback. Please read it. There's more I want to add below, but it's the foundation for it.

Allow me to explain:

1. A user asks a question
2. If no answer is accepted after 1 week, the Asker gets a banner notification (similar to this) such as:
   
3. If no answer is accepted after 3 weeks, the question is closed under a new reason such as:
   
4. If there are no answers after 3 weeks, the question is closed under a new reason ^
5. Throughout this 3 week period, the user has every option to close the answer themselves, delete the question, or select an answer.

In the end:

1. If the question was closed automatically (after 3 weeks) and no answer was selected, the user loses 10-15 Karma.
2. If the question was closed automatically (after 3 weeks) but there was no answer, they do not lose Karma (This would simply get the question out of the way).
3. If the question is Wikified, the question can remain open past 3 weeks, but other users can make changes (which is implied; that's what Wikify does). This can provide a better use for the Wikify option (considering it's practically non-existent today) as questions that are Wikified are most likely reasonable/decent questions that await a correct answer. If the question is Wikified in an attempt to simply leave the question opened (despite choices in #2 directly above) and a moderator closes/reports this question, the user still loses their 10-15 Karma.

Keep in mind a few of these ideas (such as #3 directly above) are more of 'suggestions'. Please post other ideas below, as well as changes that could/should be done to the idea.


In Practice

If this is put to use, this is what can happen:

• After 1 week, all new questions that match the criteria (as in being warned for unsolved questions) will be marked, and users will begin seeing notification banners in red at the top of their screen.
• Users who log into the Unity Answers will have 2 weeks to make changes. This gives them 2 weeks to log in, depending on their activity frequency.
• I would predict that at least 50% of the questions matching the criteria would be corrected based off of #5 above.
• After 3 weeks, approximately 100 superfluous could be freed from Answers
• A large majority of users have between 1-200 Karma. If they keep asking questions that take Karma away, they will get below the minimum of 15 Karma and be put in the Moderation Queue. This can work as a helpful reminder that they need to be active when using the forums.

Why This Can Help

• Redundant, useless or old questions will be closed, not deleted, letting users ask again if they must
• One of the key "issues" you may see with this is that users who don't get an answer after the 3 week deadline and are forced to close, delete or Wikify their question may not ever get an answer, ever. I believe the opposite. If more of the redundant, useless or old questions are taken off of the Answers page, then Moderators and "Answerers" will be much more available and willing to answer questions. Therefore, this problem would be nearly nonexistent.
• By solving (closing, deleting, selecting answer, Wikifying) questions between Weeks 1-3, users are being more active. New users (between 1-200 Karma) will learn to get a feel for the activity they must contribute if they want help.

I spend time answering questions. I look up answers for questions people already ask, and I even learn stuff some of the time. However, some of the time, I spend probably 10-20 minutes on a single question, trying to give examples and to explain. It's a shame when it's wasted when the Asker doesn't do anything! I don't even know if they read my answer! It makes me frustrated. I take pride in my small 1500 Karma. But to be fair, I could have 4,000+ Karma Alone, just from users accepting my answers. I think it's time this is done. If not, at least I spent about 30 minutes thinking this forum post through and typing it out.

Let me know if I'm sounding like a communist; taking Karma away from users for being irresponsible. Again, please leave comments on what you think, and what kind of revisions/additions could be made if you like the idea. You don't even have to like the whole logistics I made: just the idea of punishing users when they Ask and Forget!

Thank you.


Update

I'm pretty shocked I actually got some people to like the idea. It's rare that anyone actually supports anything I say in life.
Here's some key things I thought would be nice to add:
The Answers seems too much like the Forums. Questions are asked, and they are there forever. Don't get me wrong, there's hundreds of questions that are terrific, but if they apply to a specific version of Unity (like 80% or so of them do), then in 2 years, it doesn't matter to someone who Google searches for a solution to a similar problem. If the issue was patched/fixed, or is deprecated and doesn't apply to a feature that isn't available anymore, then it's just wasted time. Here's my even crazier idea: This whole fiasco I ranted about above may be that solution: Split Answers from Forums. As questions are answered, they aren't as relevant. You can still google search for them, but the beauty could be that I could ask the same question that has already been answered, and it might just not be annoying. It can give me "1 on 1" time with a user for a minute to teach them. Sure, I don't necessarily have to write a book, but it could be a great opportunity to answer more specific questions without writing code for them. If they want answers to common questions, then the forum should be their place. I think Answers should be more Current. If I'm mostly answering questions, I should see unanswered questions within the past 3 weeks. If I'm looking for answers, I can see answered questions. If I don't find an answer, I can go back to the forums, or even the Wiki.

I'm liking a lot of the replies you guys are putting! The forums would be a great place for me to migrate to. However, I like answering questions for users. I'm not an expert at coding, but I have a great feel for how things work, and putting it in simpler terms and giving real world examples for these users can help them.

 

I just think it's cool you're airing your thoughts. @aliceingameland will hopefully pop by.

 

You put an awful lot of stock into the value of karma....

I mean, you do you, but man, it almost sounds like an obsession

I dunno, maybe thats just a Answers section thing, and/or the forum equivilant has less clout with users here than karma does over there.

 

I mean it would be nice if people actually marked questions as answered, but could careless about Karma.
That's my only pet-peeve is actually people marking as answered lol.

 

Yeah, that is irritating when you find a question that has been dead for years with no answer

I'm just wondering how many people actually give a damn about their Karma. I mean what is this, 2006?

 

Well I could be wrong, so don't quote me on this, but I think when you get tons of Karma you become some kind of super-member or something where you can moderate the Answers section or something like that, I read something along them lines a while back.

But as said, I could be wrong completely though.
Maybe @hippocoder can give light onto that.

 

I checked my calendar. It isn't. I also looked for signs of this being a school or kindergarten. No such signs.

But the points you get in these answer systems are what let you do more in them, and when people don't mark questions as solved nobody gets points, and no new people will be able to help moderate the system. The old moderators will burn out eventually, so you need new ones.

I just gave up. It's their own damn fault if they don't get answers, because the n00bs don't bother clicking a damn button upon reading the answers they already got. They can bugger off to the forums, where people actually read and post. It's not like they're going to use the search system or learn how to use a search engine to not create the 510813th post about how to use Unity in either system.

Also, a week is too short. There should be an e-mail when they get an answer, encouraging them to click the "solved" button on the answer. Then they should get one at the end of the day, and every day after AND NEVER BE ABLE TO DISABLE IT! Because it just might make some of them click that bloody button.

 

Come join us on the dark side. Likes on the forum are much easier to get. And the scripting forum has much the same type of work as the answers forum.

A year or so ago several of the high karma mods got together with the community manager to improve the site. We tried A bunch of different strategies. Not much seemed to change the behaviour of the one shot users.

If unanswered questions do bother you, use your mod powers for good. I spent a lot of time deleting questions with no answers, accepting questions once correctly answered, and simply closing duplicate questions.

 

One of the aims of lithium was to unify answers with the forum, so you would get a better range of data. So there's that. As for if answers is working or not, it's completely outside what I focus on. I don't participate in the format nor do I like it. I think it's kind of broken vs stack overflow.

Forums are back and forth and I would rather use that.

 

You're absolutely right. This is 2016. We're supposed to receive badges now.

 

Ugh, I dry heaved a little when I saw the name in the URL

I think badges make Karma look significant

 

I just love how Lithium is focused on "gamification" as if that's a real benefit.

 

Yeah, it's obvious that all of their time and energy went into gameification, because it obviously didn't go into the practical elements of the user experience

 

A better system would just give people a set number of votes on answers every day, non-accumulative. Good answerers get more votes and moderation rights. No karma, badges, coins, points or anything like that. Moderator status should be hidden, and questions to moderators go to a queue they can handle. Fill in the missing bits where any of this has room for abuse

 

Lets face it, if you seek answers from someone impressed by badges, there is probably something warped with that picture.

 

From that link:

No comment...

 

Lithium. Made by marketers for marketers.

 

Or perhaps their target audience is children.

 

If anyone can recognize the benefits of having collectible items it should be game devs..

 

Yeah, I can see their benefits easily.

In a game, not forum and answer software.

 

That's how I learned most of Unity, collecting karma on answers. Its not for everyone, but it does work.

Its like XBox live achievements. The players that love achievement like the system more then the players that hate achievements dislike the system.

 

And it's an extra pay package to add these "gamification" features. They've gone the extra step and are adding forum DLC. Soon you'll have to pay to remove the ads.

 

So what's happening with Unity Answers? Because it is a mess and rather pointless. Questions like, "please give me the perfect code solution so I don't have to do any work," don't belong there, and most of the content is from people who don't even grasp the basics of coding AFAICS. The new Help Room isn't being used by noobs, and I actually thought it was where I should ask a question asking for help with rendertexture alpha-blending code as I didn't realise 'Default' was a forum selection. Clearly asking people to pick the noob forum is asking too much - they aren't reading the instructions and are just wanting quick fixes a lot of the time - so how's about putting questions in the Help Room by default and only post stuff in the Veteran Forum when explicitly selected? And calling the Default forum something other than Default so it's clear it's a forum?

As for Karma, it's as described a year ago in that without getting accreditation, you don't get the powers that'll help with running the thing.

Is Unity going to do anything to turn UA into a meaningful resource, or should it be abandoned by those of us with enough experience to know better who can all hang out in stackOverflow? Serious question. How does Unity Tech want to advance and extend support among users to help advance the art*? I'm happy to help noobs with my time, but could do with places to get serious answers to difficult challenges (rendertextures and alpha blending in HLSL shaders isn't explained anywhere I can find after several days looking) to help me and others progress. And most users really aren't going to have lots of time to be charitable helping other users especially if that requires sifting through pages of beginner stuff looking for something meaningful to contribute to.

* Change that even from 'how does' to 'do they', because it might not even be a consideration on their radar.

 

I don't think my questions there were ever approved by a mod, so I just ask around the forum. Strange since I see 'noob questions' all too often there, and if I google something most probably a few results from Answers will pop up. ಠ_ಠ

 

I'll say it: It's time to kill Unity Answers.

There may actually be a valuable answer that actually addresses the question, but more often than not, these forums are more useful for getting actual replies or even just get more eyeballs on your question.

However, I've seen a few mods complain that by posting the same question on both answers and forums, you're draining a mod's energy by making them answer in both places.

If it's karma you wanted, go post on stackoverflow.

 

I kinda have to agree. Unity Answers should be archived for search result purposes but people should generally be referred to the scripting and beginners forums, as that's where the majority of the questions on UA would find a home on the forums. There are some outliers, to be sure, but even they should be able to better find answers on the for