GIVE a man a fish and you feed him for a day. TEACH a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
SADLY, most fishermen are afraid to touch the worm.
I wonder how many questions go unanswered simply because they're not questions, not full sentences and don't make any sense.
We have one here that says "Affadavit criminal complaint."
I don't care about spelling or grammar, nor am I "picking" on this particular "question", as we can all mess those up, but I do try to divine the content of the "question."
I see dozens of these types of "questions" every day, and I wonder what their authors think they're going to get in return? Do they not understand that they've not asked a question, or that there's simply not enough data to respond?
How do we educate Yedda Users to ask "real" and answerable questions?
One could presume that the incomplete question as you have placed as an example is simply asking "what is affidavit criminal complaint?" You have a noble view to try answering these type of questions as not all Yedda'ers will. But the issue remains that not all are educated the same and therefore we must allow them their minor lapse. After all, isn't that why Yedda people answer, to help our community?
I have no problem "allowing" the lapse. I can think of many reasons why such might occur. What bothers me is that there are people who are seeking knowledge but not getting it due to the presentation of the question.
Thus, my question was, "How do we help educate Yedda Users so they can get the data they seek" (i.e. present their questions in an effective manner so they can be answered.)
If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong.
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Professor Snotsengabber, a charter member of S.N.O.T.S.
I tried a strategy for a while of going through the oldest unanswered questions and posting a reply that said "This is a generic response to your question from an individual not affiliated with Yedda.com or AOL. Your question has been viewed by (fill in the blank number) people and no one has answered it yet. This usually indicates a problem with the question, and it may be not answerable in its present form. Please delete this question and ask it again."
Of course, this note is outdated since a question can no longer be deleted. In only one or two cases was the person still interested in getting an answer, but these were the oldest unanswered questions, not fresh ones.
Sometimes when a question seems really obtuse, looking at the topics or the reference to the page where they came from or asked the question at provides some clues or context to their question.
Now, as to your question, how do we educate Yedda users (actually over a hundred different sites feed into Yedda, so sometimes these are AOL users, or Querycat, HomeTips, and etc. users) to ask questions in a more understandable fashion? That is a good question.
Other people have been trying to solve this problem, too. Any ideas you have should be sent to the staff through the "feedback" link in the top right corner of your screen. I'm serious about this, they do want to hear about stuff like this.
If you updated my strategy and used it on fresh answers, I'm pretty sure the staff wouldn't have a problem with that. They give us fairly free play to interact with each other. When they see someone doing something strange, unless it is abusive or nasty in some way, they sit back and watch.
As to how to educate them before they even ask a question, that may be close to impossible, and some of it is our own perception, since a lot of the questions come from other countries where English is not normally used. Sometimes translations suck, and sometimes syntax gets really twisted when someone uses it as a second or third language. I give them credit, they can speak and write more languages than I can.
Sometimes I will have several exchanges with a person before we can hammer out their real question. Sometimes, if they mis-ask in a way that allows me to crack a joke I will take advantage of it, but that's a personal failing. Mostly I figure that those who are the least able to express themselves and formulate questions and coherent thoughts are the ones who most need my help. Unfortunately that is very time limited and not everyone (or even a small fraction) can be helped. As it is, a response this long takes me a half-hour, and I have to try and choose where, when and how I'm most effective (in addition to trying to have fun along the way).
This is not an question that has any fixed or pat answer. It deals with Human Nature and thus cannot ever be fully answered.
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Other people asked questions on similar topics, check out the answers they received:
Other people asked questions on various topics, and are still waiting for answer. Would be great if you can take a sec and answer them
