Timeline for answer to What opinion-based questions and answers have you come across from this alpha experiment that you liked or didn't like? by Roddy of the Frozen Peas
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 14, 2025 at 13:49 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | People were worried that the new opinion-based Q&A would be more like discussions, but ironically they're much worse for it than traditional Q&A, with not even 1 level of threading, and no notifications! Now all you can do is broadcast your "opinion" into the void. (Or your answer in the majority of cases when the question isn't actually opinion-based.) | |
| Nov 14, 2025 at 13:46 | comment | added | Peter Cordes | @Hoid: If there was a tried-and-tested way to change question type that I knew was going to work, and was confident that sufficient votes would be coming soon (within a day) to change the type (if I couldn't unilaterally do it myself with a gold badge and/or 20+k rep in a tag), then I might answer right away. But I still might prefer to hold off primarily because people couldn't comment on my answer in the worse UI / layout, and secondarily I wouldn't get notifications from people voting on my answer (which is a signal I use to have a second look at answers I've posted new or old.) | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 17:13 | comment | added | GammaGames | Agreeing with Roddy, and unwelcomly adding that sometimes (especially on niche tags) curation falls through the cracks. I don't think adding the ability to transfer between discussion and qa would fully fix the issue with the format. Currently, someone could come in and say "the sky is blue because god is a boy, otherwise it would be pink" and the only difference between the two answers would be that one might have a larger number next to a thumb. The problem is worse if that bad answer was the fastest gun since they'd always be the first response. | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 16:33 | comment | added | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | I would wait to answer. The two types of questions are different enough I wouldn't want to accidentally mess something up so that when it gets migrated, it doesn't go cleanly. Plus, in an advice question, the standards for an answer are looser. "You should do X" is a perfectly fine advice answer that would get downvoted on a proper Q&A because it's not useful. I'd rather wait for the question to be categorized correctly, then write a good answer based on the criteria for that question type. (My "migrate to Q&A" flag might be declined, and I wouldn't want to have a 'bad' advice answer.) | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 16:27 | comment | added | Hoid StaffMod | Assume there was a way for you to signal that this should be changed to a regular Q&A. Would you wait to answer it until after it had been changed to a regular Q&A, or would you be more comfortable doing it right away? Assuming that meant that your answer passed through with the type change? | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 16:20 | comment | added | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | At the end of the day I want to answer a technical question in a Q&A format. Here's the question. Here's the answer. For this experiment, the format of the answers is so unstructured and disorganized, without distinctions between comments and answers, that I really don't want to post anything in there. I don't "do" discussions, I can't remember the last time I posted in a forum, and at the end of the day I think we should be emulating Quora (yuck) and not Reddit. | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 16:01 | comment | added | Hoid StaffMod | Understood, but just cause I am curious. You mentioned it has a technical answer and that it's not really an advice question. Is it just because at the end of the day, you want the credit for the accepted answer? And in this format, you can't get it? | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 15:58 | comment | added | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | It's like this. If you came up to me and said, "Hey, friend, I need some advice. Why is the sky blue?" It's a weird cognitive dissonance -- I can tell you about rayleigh scattering and how it makes you perceive the sky as being blue, but what kind of advice am I supposed to be giving you about this fact? Personally it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, though I can't articulate why. I only really noticed it now because a question finally got asked in the very small niche tag that I care most about. | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 15:56 | comment | added | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | I don't know how to "give advice" about a technical question. I can't formulate the answer like "you should X" -- there is a factual answer, there's no "shoulds". (Heck in this case, the asker is just trying to understand what's going on, which is cool.) Plus at the end of the day there's no way to mark it as a correct answer to help future readers. | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 15:51 | comment | added | Hoid StaffMod | Agreed that we need a mechanism to move between types, or better types. We are discussing all of that. But putting all of that aside, you mentioned you don't want to answer the question. Is it because there isn't an opportunity to earn rep, or don't you want to support the experiment this way? Something else? | |
| Nov 13, 2025 at 15:33 | history | answered | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | CC BY-SA 4.0 |