Q&A section not an improvement
Hi,
I thought I'd just say what I have on my mind. I don't like the new Q&A section. Not at all. If it's at all possible, please go back to the old forums, or break it up into sections about 'Mobile', 'Desktop', 'Developer', 'Documentation' and 'Other'. The whole tagging of questions requires people to cooperate and "know" the right tags to add.
It's extremely hard to find already asked questions, I see mostly 'mobile' questions not tagged as such (and the subjectline doesn't reveal that most of the time).
In other words, it's not an improvement…
Jouke
4 Answers
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we will not be going back to the old forums so if you'd like to suggest some improvements, we'll listen.
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The problem is that it is not possible for this new forum to be effective unless everything is tagged and tagged accurately.
So, here are some suggestions:
Allow users who are giving answers to add tags to the original question. If they are taking the time to help someone, they're probably the kind of person who will be willing to fix tags.
When the original poster confirms an answer as correct by marking it with a gold star, ask them to add any relevant but missing tags and give them an opportunity to do so.
Automatically add API tags when a question refers to a Titanium API (so that e.g. all of the posts referring to Ti.Database/Titanium.Database are tagged together) and then show these questions at the bottom of the relevant API doc page.
Generate a list of suggested tags during the question-asking process, which can be presented to the question-asker during the preview of their question and edited if necessary.
Finally, I think you should swap the 'most recent', 'most viewed' etc links along the top with the tag cloud on the right-hand side. The accessibility of this forum is driven by the tags but users are directed towards these unhelpful global categories instead. It should be possible to view 'most recent' and 'most viewed' within the most popular tags (i.e. iphone, android, tableview).
Edit: It should also be possible to reply to a comment, so that your reply stays with the comment in the timeline. Replies directly to the original question can be juggled and prioritised as is currently done. Here it looks like I posted before Jeff, but I'm responding to him.
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I would suggest to let someone select a category-like tag first before they enter the question and let them optionally add extra tags later. That way someone can choose from 'Mobile', 'Desktop', 'Documentation' or whatever "main tag" first.
If the reading part of the Q&A section also lets people choose the main category first, it's much easier to find questions and answers that are relevant to the individual user.
Just my €0.02
Jouke
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I'm not so keen on this Q&A thing either, its very difficult to find the most relevant question and the ordering of the answers is impossible to follow! Sorry Jeff and Co. Producing great desktop based tools are definitely your strong point ;-)
If you are interested I have just launched http://www.talktitanium.com a forum for the discussion of all things Ti related. Pop-by if you have a minute, it's extremely new so we need plenty of help to get it off the ground :-)
Thanks
Sam