ACTION: ...to start a discussion on TJC about "spring-cleaning" [answered]

asked 2014-12-09 12:00:17 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2014-12-09 12:00:17 +0300

simo

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http://reviewjolla.blogsp...

In a mer meeting (action 3. g) I was asked to start a discussion about spring cleaning of TJC. Now after almost a year, and in the current situation with huge amount of unanswered questions, it's great time to execute this action.

The idea presented in the meeting was that Jolla would inform their customers via a Newsletter, and kindly ask them to visit their TJC profile, possibly checking if there are older questions which could be closed / updated / deleted. I'm not exactly sure about what kind of discussion is expected, but probably about the need of this action and maybe the form of the information posted in a Newsletter - so please, let's just start :)

This is a wiki posts, and all answers are to be marked as wikis as well. Here's a few facts and links to give this discussion a nice kick:

TJC STATISTICS AFTER ALMOST A FULL YEAR:

Average question rate: 24 new questions per day

Average answering rate by Jolla employees: 3.13 per day (or 4.89 per working day)

Average answering rate by customers/3rd parties: 26 answers per day (including polls)

Related posts:

https://together.jolla.com/question/17364/cleaning-up-together-please-join/

https://together.jolla.com/question/54310/tjc-the-frequent-duplicates-situation/

https://together.jolla.com/question/66457/together-get-feedback-from-jolla/

https://together.jolla.com/question/64655/please-consider-before-posting-about-jolla-tablet/

https://together.jolla.com/question/36891/prioritizing-questions-in-together/

https://together.jolla.com/question/31300/code-of-conduct-deleting-entries-here-on-together/

other posts tagged with together

Posts tagged as guidelines

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The question has been closed for the following reason "the question is answered, an answer was accepted" by simo
close date 2015-04-26 00:04:53.385940

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When you say "answers", did you only count real answers that were accepted so that the question was closed? Or just any arbitrary string that was submitted using the answer-field in the form? If it's the latter: Is there a way to count real answers (=accepted as such) plus questions closed as duplicates? I'd personally subtract the duplicates from the overall questions asked before going any further. Very interesting to see these figures. I love statistics! ;)

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-09 12:24:08 +0300 )edit

@ossi1967 That includes all the answers, calculated by Together app in Jolla Store. As you were interested, I've added a separate answer for the statistics used. The closed questions are filtered using ignored tags (me and others have been active in adding a "reason tag" to each one). But no comments for the cleaning idea from you? ;)

simo ( 2014-12-09 13:32:59 +0300 )edit

It would be very useful to help cleaning to be able to display open questions only. Thanks for doing something about it if you can.

Nicolas ( 2014-12-09 14:03:21 +0300 )edit

@Nicolas Check my comment below the answer with the statistics - there's a perfect way to achieve that

simo ( 2014-12-09 17:15:55 +0300 )edit

Wasn't there a mail from Jolla a while ago that suggested to check your own questions on TJC? I'm almist certain there was. At least I read a suggestion somewhere to do so and acted accordingly.

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-11 13:37:26 +0300 )edit

7 Answers

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answered 2014-12-11 14:08:19 +0300

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updated 2014-12-11 14:08:19 +0300

ossi1967

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A completely different approach would be to change the default view/filter of TJC. Right now it shows all questions. Wouldn't it look ckeaner if there'd be filters like 'unanswered', 'answered' and 'archive'? Answered is for, well, answered questions. Unanswered is for open questions. Archive is for duplicates, released by updates, not relevant, not a question etc.

The default view would either be unanswered or unanswered+answered.

This way, new users could more easily hunt for known answers.

I don't know if askbot is flexible enough for this.

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@ossi1967: FYI, we have a story about this to bring improvements on the scopes and adding more. It's quite a lot of work and refactoring so unfortunately no ETA, but be sure we will prioritize this accordingly, thanks!

eric ( 2014-12-12 15:27:04 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-12-11 13:57:27 +0300

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updated 2014-12-11 13:57:27 +0300

ossi1967

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I suggest that before actions are taken, there's a consensus on what the outcome should be. "Reduce the number of open questions" is not a good goal. Questions are there for a reason, and the real goal must be to answer them.

IMHO, a better goal would be to reduce the number of questions that are technically open, but either answered, solved by an update, duplicates or "not a question" (grumpy cat links and such). I assume that a lot of potential is in the "duplicate" and "solved (by an update)" categories.

This leads to the question on how to best address these. I think you need two approaches: Duplicates will best be closed by a joint effort of qualified members wo know how to use search functions on TJC. Those who posted a duplicate in the first place won't find out themselves it is one a few months later. On the other hand, questions that are solved are best closed by those who asked them. Others will not have the time to check if they can even reproduce a certain bug in an old version of Sailfish OS and then investigate if it's still there in Uitukka.

So I'm pretty certain we must do both: ask all users to check old questions in their own profiles and tell them exactly what to do if the question is no longer relevant. Then, send another invitation to users with karma > x and registration date before y and ask them to hunt for duplicates and non-questions.

In both cases, clear instructions should be given both about the policy (when is a question really answered? what's a question and what isn't?) and about measures to be taken.

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Very good points. For the goals you suggest, totally agree - answering, and getting answers accepted, should be the primary goal, inviting people to delete/close their question a secondary. Latter might seem more efficient and faster, but as you shared, there's a reason for each q.

For (1) only technically open questions, inviting people to check if they could accept any answer given to their q would be nice.

For (2) duplicates & other closed, almost all are tagged nicely, already easy to filter, but maybe these could be also deleted at some point? For example after some long enough time of inactivity - leaving the person asking enough time to react. Edit: adding that mods and active members have done great work in hunting these down - but new ones are coming in all the time. A bigger cleaning of all q's might reduce them as the search would probably be easier after one.

For (3) Solved, shouldn't each one have an accepted answer as well? @eric's idea of some team work on this might be great, but is there an option to list only these questions, to make the contributing efficient for the team?

For (4) telling people exactly what to do, maybe we could edit one guideline in advance, and include a direct link to this when (possibly) inviting everybody to contribute.

Just my 2 cent, looking forward for other opinions.

simo ( 2014-12-11 14:20:22 +0300 )edit

As for "solved" (answered) questions: I never quite understood when questions were marked answered when no answer was given or no one was accepted by the person who asked the question. In many of these cases, a relevant hint is hidden in one of the comments. In others, the person who closed the question misunderstood either the question or the answer. In all cases, it's a pain for those who come afterwards looking for solutions to the same problem. It should at least be mandatory to convert a comment to an answer if it actually is the answer and then mark it as accepted. (Can people other than the OPs do this? I never tried...) In fact, askbot shouldn't allow closing a question as answered before there is an accepted answer.

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-11 14:43:43 +0300 )edit

As for "telling people what to do": It is a good idea to have these guidelines on TJC in a fool-proof way, too. I'd still vote to include them directly into the mail, though. It's only copy and paste, abd experience shows that each level of indirection reduces that chance things are being read. People just don't click on links in mails. ;)

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-11 14:47:40 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-12-09 13:24:59 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2014-12-09 13:24:59 +0300

simo

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http://reviewjolla.blogsp...

Outside the cleaning discussion, an answer to a comment by @ossi1967 (used statistics)

QUESTIONS, Filters used ; Amount ; Percentage ; Average per day

(no filters) ; 8556 ; 100,00% ; 24
unanswered ; 5306 ; 62,01% ; 15
answered ; 3250 ; 37,99% ; 9
not closed ; 7405 ; 100,00% ; 21
not closed, unanswered ; 5288 ; 71,41% ; 15
not closed, answered ; 2117 ; 28,59% ; 6

ANSWERS

All answers ; 10510 ; 100,00%
Jolla answers ; 1116 ; 10,62% ; 3,13
Other answers ; 9394 ; 89,38% ; 26

NOTES REGARDING CALCULATIONS

Amount of days used in calc: 356
Answers by Jolla are manually calculated. TJC doesn't show more than 100 answers per member, so there is an error which could be fixed by adding all the answers above 100 by Jolla members. Maybe mods/admins have a deeper view on user statistics? Also, if there are answers from employees without "Jolla" logo, those must be added to the amount. I'm happy to fix these with more accurate info, if provided

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If you want to filter the closed questions too, here's a string you can copypaste to your ignored tags. After paste + enter, just select "Show only questions from:" "exclude ignored tags":

duplicate not-relevant not-a-question off-topic subjective too-localized outdated

simo ( 2014-12-09 13:40:20 +0300 )edit

Thanks! :)

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-11 13:33:27 +0300 )edit

Please, automate and graph these stats. If it is not available at a glance it is no good to me and just distracts my limited attentiveness to potentially more pressing matters.

rdmo ( 2015-04-26 09:50:55 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-12-10 15:38:35 +0300

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updated 2014-12-10 15:38:35 +0300

simo

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http://reviewjolla.blogsp...

Newsletter from Jolla, inviting people to visit their own profiles and cleaning up posts there would be a nice idea.

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@simo: TBH, I don't really see much value in reaching users that way for this specific activity. I'd rather see a squad of the most active users, who know guidelines and policies, tackle the low hanging fruits all together in a virtual meeting, for example, schedule a date & time with volunteers to go through the not closed answered topics and actually close accordingly. This should be fairly simple to organize and splitting the work done with tags...

eric ( 2014-12-10 16:17:01 +0300 )edit

@eric Squad of what size? With 7400 q's here, it would be great to start this with users going through their own content first, or some other idea, then go on with for example your idea (please suggest as an answer)

simo ( 2014-12-11 08:03:27 +0300 )edit

@simo: Start with 3 to 5? Have a specific goal, timebox execution, maybe 1 hour, and see what you have achieved. Rinse & repeat. Your expectation of everyone nicely following your good proposal is ok, but I'm just thinking it will unlikely happen fast. I'd love to be proven wrong though ;)

eric ( 2014-12-11 13:54:55 +0300 )edit

could you write an answer suggesting a teamwork, please - it's a great idea IMO. Let's have this comment thread for a possible newsletter and it's content?

simo ( 2014-12-11 14:29:46 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-12-12 11:52:15 +0300

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updated 2014-12-12 11:58:32 +0300

Pistol
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I would like to take a step forward from "spring cleaning" to more permanent solutions. This post is a wiki, please feel free to add.

The tag/label system using "[Bug report], [Request], [irrelevant], [answered], [not a question], etc" relies heavily on the discipline and knowledge of the rules on the side of the users. It is also very much broken.

Proposition: discussing a new way of organising and/or enforcing better and uniform labelling on all posts

Also, I feel that the discussion of technical issues (bug reports, feature requests, etc.) - which to me is one of, if not THE most important and immediate contribution of the community to the development process - lacks in structure and exposure. Structure wise, many posts lack proper labels and consistent formatting. When it comes to exposure, since posts are only bumped by answering, not commenting or voting, they get buried under - in my opinion - less pressing issues (like off topic musings about design or potential future products).

Proposition: Better separation of technical issues (bug reports, feature requests, ...) from other topics.
Proposition: If possible, maybe even dividing TJC into categories similar to a forum

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Thanks for some great propositions - they expand the topic here quite a lot, so these might actually work better as an answer to another question (see the topics linked in this question)

simo ( 2014-12-12 22:23:18 +0300 )edit

answered 2014-12-11 13:29:23 +0300

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updated 2014-12-11 14:55:06 +0300

simo

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http://reviewjolla.blogsp...

@eric hoped for actions too, leading to results much faster than any discussion, so...

Let's start with closing up our own questions and hunting some Disciplined -badges then :) Currently there are 28 users with at least one of those, 34 granted in total. These can only be gained by deleting your own questions. Visit your profile and consider closing:

questions with an answer that you might accept
old, outdated, irrelevant etc... questions

And editing or deleting

questions with high view rate and low voting rate
ones that might as well be asked later
those you don't expect anyone could ever answer anyway

Deleting a question does not delete them permanently, they are just dropped out of the questions lists

PLEASE: if you find any closed questions in your profile, please check that a tag including the closing reason is added to those and retag if needed. These tags are used for filtering. For example: If your question is closed as "duplicate", it should be tagged with duplicate as well

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To be honest, I'd not delete my iwn question -except I asked something stupid I feel ashamed of later. Closing it should be enough.

ossi1967 ( 2014-12-11 13:39:28 +0300 )edit

good point, I've now edited this idea with closing before deleting. Thanks!

simo ( 2014-12-11 14:42:31 +0300 )edit

answered 2015-02-26 10:21:36 +0300

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updated 2015-04-26 00:07:47 +0300

simo

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http://reviewjolla.blogsp...

Closing up this discussion, as no more comments have been posted. Action for starting the discussion is done, let's see if this leads to further actions. Here's a short wrap up from the answers and comments from below:

Cleaning goal should be set. Best suggested one: "goal would be to reduce the number of questions that are technically open, but either answered, solved by an update, duplicates or "not a question" (grumpy cat links and such)" (answer by @ossi1967 )
There will be improvements on listings at some point (comment by @eric )
Emailing customers didn't gather support. Smaller group of active members suggested (comment by @eric )
Cleaning needed also for "Some questions are closed because an answer was accepted, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem has been resolved." (comment by @bilgy_no1 )

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ACTION: ...to start a discussion on TJC about "spring-cleaning" [answered]

The question has been closed for the following reason "the question is answered, an answer was accepted" by simo
close date 2015-04-26 00:04:53.385940

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ACTION: ...to start a discussion on TJC about "spring-cleaning" [answered]

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The question has been closed for the following reason "the question is answered, an answer was accepted" by simo
close date 2015-04-26 00:04:53.385940