I don't think it's the tagging and voting. It's the ease of finding and tracking unanswered questions.
When someone posts a message to one of the busy user(s)@ lists, they have only so much chance of snagging the attention of someone qualified to answer. If they get lost in the wash, the question is probably lost for good. Some very lightweight system for allowing users to open 'tickets' asking for some sort of specific assistance might help here. Or it, too, might wash away in the tide. On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 8:47 PM, David Blevins <david.blev...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On May 12, 2011, at 3:54 PM, Benson Margulies wrote: > >> The QA format, in my opinion, is a very powerful tool for some kinds >> of collaborative assistance, and a completely useless tool for others. >> It's much easier to find a question with answers than to find a >> mailing list thread. It's on the other hand pretty silly to engage in >> any sort of extended interactive assistance on it. > > That's been my experience as well. The QA format is pretty great for some > stuff, but breaks down fast when I have to ask for log files and things of > that nature. > > Another thought. Sometimes I wonder how hard it would be to just allow > tagging and voting on top of a plain mailing list emails. A simple DB with > the messageId as the key for tags and vote count then a slightly fancier > archive view than we have now. And hey, markdown happens to look nice as > plain email. I've actually been indenting code snippets for years. > > I admit I like getting SO points and badges but they do not factor in at all > when looking for the right answer. > > The tags and votes though are definitely the two critical tools that help me > find what i'm looking for. > > > -David > >
