Reorder AskMe by answers

June 15, 2006 2:58 AM

What if the most recent posts on AskMe were displayed on the front page according to how many answers they had already received in ascending order, i.e. with those having the fewest answers remaining near the top for longer than they currently do?
posted by xanthippe to Feature Requests at 2:58 AM (13 comments total)

This could only be used for, say, questions from the past 72 hours or the most recent 100 questions, to ensure that fresh material is still continuously rotated onto the front page while avoiding having more difficult or obscure questions slip out of view before the right person happens to see them.

Drawback: the questions that generate tons of responses right off the bat because they're interesting to everyone wouldn't be displayed as prominently, and would therefore be slightly harder to find. Those who come to the site mainly to read that kind of stuff might also be better served as it would also become easier to find: they could simply scroll down to find the more highly-trafficked questions rather than searching through the current randomly-organized list. Slight improvement for everyone?
posted by xanthippe at 2:59 AM on June 15, 2006

Fucking hell. Please delete one of them, please?
posted by xanthippe at 3:19 AM on June 15, 2006

That system punishes askers who recieve answers with *spelling corrections, "I have this problem, too . . . but no advice" and all the separate "oh! johndoe beat me to that answer" type answers.
posted by necessitas at 4:16 AM on June 15, 2006

Yeah... unfortunately, necessitas is right. # of answers does not necessarily correlate to # of *good* answers. At the very least, you would have to limit it to sorting by answers marked "best"... but then, a lot of people don't use that functionality any way.
posted by antifuse at 4:41 AM on June 15, 2006

Hmmm, I like this idea, although I understand the problem. What if, say, the questions were divided into two columns—one for the most recent 100 questions with the fewest answers, and the other for "other recent questions." Best of both worlds?
posted by grouse at 4:52 AM on June 15, 2006

Maybe that could be a way to sort the page? Sort by "recent" "least comments" "most comments" "my comments"
posted by madamjujujive at 5:30 AM on June 15, 2006

madamjujujive's is a good suggestion - a sort similar to the Mefi front page. Categories of "no best answer marked", and "flagged fantastic" might be worth adding, too. None of the sort criteria are necessarily completely accurate indicators of anything, for all the reasons previously given. At least it gives readers a choice to decide what to look at for themselves, without having to mess with the current default view. It also keeps the interface consistent across the site.
posted by normy at 5:51 AM on June 15, 2006

I've asked a couple of times before about AskMe having the same dropdown that the Blue has, but Matt's never responded. Not a big deal, I guess.
posted by Gator at 5:54 AM on June 15, 2006

Does anyone use the dropdown on the blue? Cause I don't. And I probably wouldn't use it on the green either. One should strive for optimum usability, not just the highest level of customization.
posted by grouse at 6:21 AM on June 15, 2006

grouse : "Does anyone use the dropdown on the blue?"

All the time. Specifically, I use the "Sort by 'my comments'" option to show me the threads in which I've been discussing things (it shows them in chronological order by last comment, so if I am on MeFi one day, then go back to MeFi the next day, I can easily see which discussions I was in continued, and which have stalled out. Also, this way I don't miss new comments in a thread I participated in, even if a week or two has passed.)
posted by Bugbread at 8:22 AM on June 15, 2006

Instead of using the number of answers, or best answers, why not questions either flagged as being great, or with those frequently favourited?
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:31 AM on June 15, 2006

bugbread, mathowie said in another thread that that is going away as it slams the DB too hard. And besides you get the same thing from My Comments.
posted by Rhomboid at 5:14 PM on June 15, 2006

Rhomboid: Ah, wasn't aware of that. I'll try to start getting used to the My Comments page. No big deal.
posted by Bugbread at 8:39 PM on June 15, 2006