launchpad-users team mailing list archive

[Martin Pool <mbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

2009/6/29 Charlie Poole <charlie@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Hi,
>
> I was curious about why a guy had earned 145 karma points on
> my nunit-3.0 project, so I looked at his karma page and figured
> out it's because he asked a question and accepted my answer.
>
> https://answers.launchpad.net/nunit-3.0/+question/75090
>
> It does seem odd that using Answers for team communication
> would earn points, since it's not a behavior I'd like to
> encourage.

I'd like to understand precise why...

- If it's that you don't want to use the Answers interface at all
therefore don't want to use it -- well, again I'd be interested in
why, but also Launchpad should probably have a way for projects to
specify how they want to do user support, whether through Answers or
otherwise.

- If it's that you like karma and like answers but don't think asking
a question counts as "really participating" in the project in the same
way that say proposing a merge to fix a bug does, then I kind of
agree...

- If it's that you think it should earn karma but not too much then I
also agree, and would say that it's probably because Launchpad
normalizes across karma so that you get more points for
less-frequently used apps, like answers compared to bugs.  (I think.)
This to me seems wrong; I think it should be roughly proportional to
the amount of value the action contributes, though machines will never
get it quite right.

I do think in this case the answer app served some value by giving the
person useful information, though maybe it was not the best question
ever.

> What's a good way to handle such questions?

I think you did the right thing by answering his question as you did,
and by asking here.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>