launchpad-users team mailing list archive

["Charlie Poole" <charlie@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martin,
> > 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.

No, that's not it. I'd like to answer questions about the 
software through Answers.
 
> - 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...

In part, yes. In part, because the question was not really
very substantive. Of course, there's no algorithm to 
determine substantivity of a question.
 
> - 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.

Well, what attracted my attention was the amount, for sure. It
seemed unreasonably large but based on what you say it may be
because we haven't used answers before.

I suppose I was also influenced by the fact that the guy
had asked the same question on my mailing list and by direct
mail. However, we all know that happens from time to time
when folks don't get an answer in the first five minutes. :-)

> 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.

OK. I'm concluding it's not such a big deal and I won't worry
about it till it becomes one.

Followup question: in what circumstances would you reject a question?

Charlie


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