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Answerbag news, notes, and announcements.

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Lex Friedman	February 8th, 2010 at 1:43 pm Answers with images and videos Today, we rolled out a fix so that answers with images now show those images again. We'll be making some continued tweaks to this over the next few days, but the biggest change is that images which had been missing from answers are now back again. Of course, we still need to reintroduce the ability for members to include images with their answers. That's on our to-do list! We also made a fix for answers that incorporate videos. Answers with multiple videos weren't displaying properly, but now they are. As with images, we know we still need to create a way for you to include videos with your answers — and we're on it. More to come! 5 comments \| Post one Comments At one point, at least, and I haven't tried recently, you could simply paste the embed code into the answer. If the embedding still works in answers, there IS still a way to include them, with spaces and comments between them, actually - MUCH nicer than before when they were ... simply "tacked on" to the answer, one after another. This also worked for images, but that meant that they had to reside on the internet, somewhere, whereas before, we could upload images from our computers, again, "tacking the thumbnails" at the end of the answer. Would there be a way to allow the upload of images to AB servers, and then put each one where we wished, or will it be like the old way (which is better than not having them at all!)? And when you do either or both, can you also do it for questions (in the description, I assume)? ;-) Thank you for bringing back the images and videos in the pre-format-change answers. And thanks for the hard work you guys are doing. (Been a few blogs since I said thanks for the work you're doing. Sorry about that.) Report by BigDaddyBS 20 hours ago BTW: The pasting of the embed code DOES still work, or did at the end of last month: http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/8656387 ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS 19 hours ago the ability to insert comments after and in between videos is very useful, and I hope it will be retained and extended to still images as well. Report by borasalama 17 hours ago Perhaps I am mentioning something which is obvious to everyone but me but I will take that chance. Given some of the really offensive posts which came through on the Home page a while ago, if that is an example of some of the people who use AB, aren't you asking for trouble allowing pictures to be posted? Is there some way of monitoring, other than flagging which can take a little while for action to take place. I hate to think what some will post while claiming it is art. Then again, some may not even bother making the art claim, they just want to offend and be sensational. Report by CatLover- The Original Original 14 hours ago Lex Friedman: I already addressed this issue of the posting of videos and other things with HTML code in the comments to this Blog: old Blog For some reason, my questions have never been answered. It seems now that a solution is in development... Report by iwnit 4 hours ago
Lex Friedman	February 5th, 2010 at 1:49 pm Points system change, plus other good stuff Happy Friday! Changes big and small today: 1. A change to the points system. In response to community feedback, we've changed the award for approved moderation flags. From this point on, accepted flags of moderated content is worth 1 point, and not 3. We appreciate your insights on this. Note that this change is not retroactive; you won't lose any points you've already earned. 2. Speed is good. We've made some optimizations that should improve load times for Answerbag in your browser, possibly quite noticeably. (For those interested, our speed boost was made through "CSS minification." For those less interested, the speed boost was made through "being nerdy.") 3. Nuking. When AB-Rich and his team need to nuke the bad guys, it now wipes out their forum posts as well. That's a must-have, sadly, because of nefarious spammers who aim to ruin everything. But our crack team of Mods and CLs won't let them! 4. Friends' Questions and Answers. Those two new pages, linked from your profile, went live yesterday. Today, we optimized them a bit more to ensure that they truly limit to your friends list, and not to people who've asked you to be their friend whose requests you haven't accepted yet. Niche bug! Have a great weekend, everybody! 21 comments \| Post one Comments I'm a little confused as to the reason behind the point system change... I could understand if you got the points regardless of whether the flag was accepted or not. The reduction in points would reduce the incentive to try to game the system. As I understand it though, the flag must be accepted for you to get points, and you lose points for inaccurate flags. Surely you want people to accurately flag spam, nonsense, offensive content, and questions posted in the wrong category? It seems like this just gives people less reason to do something that benefits the community as a whole. Report by srosa on February 5th, 2010 Good points (no pun intended). However, if moderation is worth triple a liked answer, people interested in points will rationally focus on flagging, sometimes frivolously, which creates a lot of extra work for our moderators. That's one of the reasons we made the change. More importantly, a like is granted by members of the community, while moderation points must be granted by staff. You guys create and evaluate Q&A here, so the points you award via likes should be every bit as important--probably more ;). Report by AB-Rich on February 5th, 2010 3. Like the nuking, far too much spam. 1. My points and achievement level still show no change. When do the points we receive actually start showing up again? Report by Halliburton Shill on February 5th, 2010 I currently have some 20,004 total points, which includes points for Questions, Answers and moderations. Even at ONE POINT PER, I should have no less than 20,975 points for past approved spam moderaftions alone! And, yes, I cleaned out some 20,975 SPAM garbage over a period of several months! Anyway, add that to those I garnered for points applied for Questions and Answers, and I would be FAR ahead of the 20,004 that you have assigned to me. The so-called "rejiggering" is, IMO, somehow inequitable and afowl...and certainly has not appropriately rewarded all the work that I, and others, put helping to develop a Clean AB Site for the benefit of the Members, its investors and advertisers. Of course, I may be wrong....but it would be the first time. :-) [That's an LOL] Report by ChuckExAnon on February 5th, 2010 I admit that I don't even bother with points anymore. I do not like this "like" system as I don't always like a question or answer, but in the past I did give points to those questions I answered and to everyone who answered one of my questions as a matter of courtesy. Now I don't as I do not want to say I like somethign that I do not like. Sadly a whole big part of the fun I had here has gone for me now. Report by Gingerminx on February 5th, 2010 The main reason behind the change in the points system seems to have been to stop whingeing about downrates, and doing away with them altogether has certainly had that effect. Unfortunately the change in the number of points awarded has provided something else to complain about. I agree that moderation shouldn't earn a higher reward than a good answer, I also agree that the opinion of long time users is no more valuable than that of a brand new user. However, a lot of people seem to have liked the idea that they could award more than one point, whether just because they had reached a higher level or to differentiate between a good answer and a better answer. The original system of points awards was based on whether a question or answer was perceived as 'Helpful' or 'Not Helpful' - a very clear-cut definition, although I never understood how a question could be helpful. Whether a person likes something or not is very much more subjective than whether or not he likes it, which probably goes some way toward accounting for the fact that the 'Like' button isn't being clicked on as much as the original ratings buttons were. Another reason is probably that the size of the old ratings buttons made them pretty hard to miss, whereas the 'Like' button is a tiny thing - giving the impression that it is unimportant. I have also read a lot in the blogs and forums about people wanting to experience a greater feeling of involvement with others. The fact that we no longer get informed when our contributions receive points in the shape of a 'Like' probably adds to their feelings of isolation. I suggest: 1. Replace the 'Like' button with a more obvious graphic to encourage clicking on it. 2. Re-introduce the direct awarding of points, allowing any user - veteran or novice - to award either 1, 2 or 3 points to a question or answer. 3. Include on the feedback page whenever any contribution receives a 'Like'. Report by Brian I 3 days ago I second all that Brian says above. Report by Arisztid in a COAT of Rromani awareness 3 days ago Me too. Totally agree with brian Report by Always Ready - COAT of courage 3 days ago For the above Brian approval rating, I do NOT definitely agree with Brian. However, I do agree with one item of the 3. The third one is one I totally agree with him on...the rest I definitely agree with the AB team on(SORRY FELLOW AB MEMBERS). Although I was hurt a few times in the old system, it didn't make me any more of a person, and it didn't make me achieve any higher, but this is ridiculous, what you ALL have strived for. Report by byankno1 3 days ago Not sure I agree with Brian's point #2 -- on the other hand -- AB could use some kind of 5 star rating system which is also common on social websites -- that way a 1 star could be used as a kind of downrate, without causing negative points. I'm also "missing" the feedback... it used to be, I'd look at my profile, and I'd know "something happened" with content related to me since I was last on the site -- I'm not that active a user, so I'm actually more interested in the change in # of points, then points -- but I don't keep track of my points, now I have no clue if I've received points since my last visit. Report by Persky Bunkermeister 3 days ago Lately I am often getting two alerts for the same post. They come up as two separate entries to the same question by the same person, and when I click on them there is only one new entry. Report by buster 3 days ago That's been happening to me ever since I started seeing comments again - one of them says so-and-so joined the comments and the other one says that so-and-so commented. Report by Brian I 3 days ago Gracias, merci, danke schoen and thank you. Awarding triple points to moderators and only one to the questions was illlogical. Moderating is necessary..but without questions it would be gone. How can you value a critic/cop/file clerk/indexer more than someone who creates the very thing the moderator works on? Right. You can't. So thank you for understanding that some things are unacceptable and that was certainly one. Happy Saturday! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker 3 days ago Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm happy with all of the above. Thanks for your work - Moderation at 1 point. That's more like it, makes sense. - Speed: Good. - No Nukes: Good in other areas, bad for AB. Good job fixing that. - Friends Q's & A's: I'm really glad to see this feature up and running and almost having the ease of use of the previous version. Up next: Leaderboards! Report by Barcaluv 3 days ago Can I suggest that you move the My Friends Questions \| Answers down into the friends "section" on our profiles, AND include it on the Friends List page? These areas seem much more logical and intuitive than under our own. ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS 3 days ago I agree with Brian up to a point. Let us grant more points at higher levels. There should be some concrete reward for achieving a high level, and having more point power is a good way to express it. Also, if you allow n00bs to give a lot of points straight away, you open the door to gaming the ratings system..that's one of the reasons why the variable points system was implemented a long time ago. Report by HungryGuy 3 days ago Oh, and as for speed improvement, how about some "advertising minification?" :-/ Report by HungryGuy 3 days ago I agree with Brian about the distinction between something being 'helpful' and 'liking' something. That's a very different thing. Whereas in the past I would give points (usually all 6) to show my appreciation for their contribution if it added to the pool of answers, I just can't always agree with 'liking' every answer as a thank you to people responding. I do like the idea of a star system, like Youtube has or IMBD has. We could still give one star or rating to things as a thank you, but it wouldn't necessarily add to it's value like giving it 3 points. If you were ready to give 3 points or likes, basically) to moderating, why not be ready to give them to answers? I don't think that questions should be rated more than a like. And it really would be a good thing if we could see that our answers here have gotten responses. I rem3ember being excited that someone had found an older answer and liked it enough to give it points, but didn't really have anything to add as a comment. Now I don't know if anything I wrote in the past is liked or not, if it's useful to someone unless they take the time to write a comment. Report by Galeanda 3 days ago Existing problem. Seems the filters don't work past the first page in questions.You have to re-apply them for each new page viewed. Is there a way to implement the filters to stay on the ones you want as a personal setting?(each individual has the option and it is permanent,only to be changed when they want to) Report by mtndewman40 3 days ago I agree with Brian, but I am not interested in any star system, it would make it even more like a social networking site than it has already become, and I tend avoid those. Report by Gingerminx 3 days ago I like the like button as is, but I also like the ability to award differing amounts of points. How about keeping the like button, adding a heart button (awards 2 points) and keeping the mark as great (which is 3 IIRC). This is idea is copyright 2010, Halliburton Shill, all rights and spilled offshore oil reserved. Report by Halliburton Shill 3 days ago
Lex Friedman	February 4th, 2010 at 1:18 pm Friends questions and answers, categorization improvement, and more It's Thursday, and where I live they're anticipating a foot of snow starting tomorrow afternoon. I'm aiming to keep warm with some fun new Answerbag improvements! 1. Two brand new pages! The Friends' Questions and Friends' Answers pages give you a glimpse of the most recent Q&A from folks you connected with as friends on Answerbag. It's a bit like the "Friends' Activity page," but with a bit more context, and able to break out the questions and answers separately. Take a look! Update: At first, there was an issue with this feature, but it's now been resolved. 2. Improved category suggester. When you add a question, you get to use that cool auto-suggester to help find the right category. Of course, it can still take a few tries to find the right category, and now we've made that a bit easier, by smartening up the whole system. Now, we'll even let you search with words/terms that might not be in the category name itself. Here's an example: Neat! Some bigger features (cough, leaderboards, cough) are just a week or so away... Stay tuned! 15 comments \| Post one Comments mtndewman40..what you have to do is go to one of the questions and copy the number...then bring up the identical question and paste in the other number....time consuming:( Report by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi COAT on February 4th, 2010 eeeek!!! who are those people in my friends questions/answers? did they change faces/avatars? who is dan_rahmel? who is AB_James? who is Slick? who is byankno1? who is TheVeryBest? ohhhhhhhhhhh Lucy!!! you gos some splaining to do!!! Lex Friedman, can you explain? Report by malavase on February 4th, 2010 Ugh. That's a bug, malavase! We'll get it fixed shortly. Report by Lex Friedman on February 4th, 2010 Just to let you know, Lex, I have NEVER been friends with malavese, although she HAS answered a few of questions. You are right about that being a bug. Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 Btw, these members are also popping up, when I click on the new links for friends QnA's from my profile, even though they are not listed on my Friends page(from the Friends tab-link) Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 This link is even popping in my own questions and answers so that I become an invisble "FRIEND" from this link. BIG BUG I GUESS!!!! Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 The new friend's "answers" link from my profile page for my "friends", is working, however. It's only displaying my correct friends. Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 @Lex, i know, after writing those who showed up on the bug like byankno 1 upstairs. @byankno 1, got your message, loud and clear!!! both on here and in your message that you sent me back. Report by malavase on February 4th, 2010 By the way Lex, the problem with Questions linking back to the homepage, is still around. More uestions are popping up this way, again. Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 Malavese, please read prior blog comments, 2 previous to your copy. Report by byankno1 on February 4th, 2010 i have byankno 1 and thank you very much, you have my reply. No hard feelings. Report by malavase on February 4th, 2010 Thanks Lex. Just spent half an hour answering some of my friends' questions without having to wade through anything else. I missed that feature that we used to have before and am really happy to have it back! Happy Friday! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on February 5th, 2010 I'd like to ask for a way to choose a time zone (not shown to others) and preferably a 24 hour clock for my profile. That would make it easier to know when were all those posts/questions /answers written. Report by Anonymous T on February 5th, 2010 Thanks in advance. Report by Anonymous T on February 5th, 2010 Categorization isn't quite as good as described. For example, typing in climate gets no results. Typing in temperature gets some results, but typing in the plural temperatures gets no results. Report by Halliburton Shill One day ago
Lex Friedman	February 3rd, 2010 at 1:21 pm Miscellaneous fixes Greetings! Today, we rolled out some smaller cleanup, including: 1. Fix for a rare issue with editing your display name "tagline" (from your preferences page) 2. A minor layout tweak on the Questions page 3. A fix for issues where certain answers could mess up the rendering of some question pages 4. Finally, we laid the internal groundwork for leaderboards, which should be launching before the month is out! 9 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on February 3rd, 2010 thanks..but I am still a little confused. Is this the only way we can contact AB staff (by posting a comment on here/)...other than a CL? tnx Report by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi COAT on February 3rd, 2010 No Da Ben, if you scroll to the bottom of the page at the left you will see a Contact Us link. Report by Gingerminx on February 3rd, 2010 Tnx Gingerminx....I just didn't see it at first:) Report by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi COAT on February 3rd, 2010 You're welcome :) Report by Gingerminx on February 3rd, 2010 The filters on the question pages are still not working correctly,I have no interest in getting into debates over religions,yet the god/religion/faith,etc,questions still appear on the question pages. If I understood how to report a multiple(duplicate) posting,I would do so more often...anyone? Report by mtndewman40 on February 4th, 2010 Okay a new problem for me...I am getting alerts but when I click on them I get the home page for AB..not the comments on my answers.... Report by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi COAT on February 4th, 2010 The description box didn't come on the firt time around when I tried to post a question, about 3 minutes ago. Report by answerbagy on February 4th, 2010 Add an edit capability to our comments. Report by Brian on February 4th, 2010
Lex Friedman	February 2nd, 2010 at 1:25 pm Fixes for 'Load more answers,' forum posting, and more Happy Tuesday! Today, we upgraded the site with numerous under-the-hood improvements to performance on every page. If you notice anything weird, which can happen with big internal changes like this one, please let us know, and we'll get them fixed as fast as we can. Under-the-hood stuff is important, but it's not as fun as visible fixes and improvements. To that end, we also fixed the "Load more answers" link on question pages with more than 50 answers. They worked for some members, but not others; now they should be working for everybody! We also rolled out a fix so that forum posts stop wrapping so painfully short like this, so your message board posts should soon stop looking like e. e. cummings's poetry ;) We also rolled out a quick survey; you should only be prompted to take the survey once, and if you don't want to respond, that's no problem at all. As always, thanks for your support! 25 comments \| Post one Comments I just became an "instant survey": "Does this page answer your question?" with two buttons (Yes / No) as far as I remember. This was on a page where I was giving an answer, so I did not know to which question it was referring and I did not click any of both buttons... What does that mean? Report by iwnit on February 2nd, 2010 Was it maybe a new kind of advertisement? Report by iwnit on February 2nd, 2010 I find it happens quite often that the Forum link disappears and I have to type "Forum" into the "Find Your Answer" box. Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 wow, awesome!!! thank you, now i can get off and quit moping around here and making everyone miserable :) Report by malavase on February 2nd, 2010 wow, awesome!!! thank you, now i can get off and quit moping around here and making everyone miserable :) ok, this is not directed at anyone, in case you're mind is wandering, wondering, so no hate mail, no stick-out-your-tongue routines, no rolling of the eyes, no gossiping, no "be quiets", etc, etc, etc, :) Report by malavase on February 2nd, 2010 Is there any chance of having profiles fixed so I can finally display my gender? Report by Gingerminx on February 2nd, 2010 How old were you the first time you shaved your pubic hair? This question was asked on the home page, I thought this wasn't happening anymore? I would link to it but the link takes me back to the home page suggesting the question was flagged? If it has been flagged wouldn't it be better to remove the question all together? Report by Gingerminx on February 2nd, 2010 @Skeeter: When you have stuff (messages, alerts, friends requests), the Member Nav Bar expands over the main NavBar. And if you are slightly zoomed in, the effect is even more pronounced. (At least this happens in Firefox. I had another problem when zooming in IE8... The right side showed white and overlaid the member Navbar - If zoomed in enough, completely covering it.) So, if you have anything in the member navar but the default, take care of it, first. THEN you may be able to see the Forums. Or, if you are in FF, you can zoom OUT (Control-minus), and should be able to. If the member navbar disappears for you in IE as described, Select All (Control-A), and you should be able to see it. BOTH of these are "workarounds", I know, but they will help. I also hope my descriptions are enough that they can recreate this at AB, so they can figure out what to do. ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS on February 2nd, 2010 Thanks BD. Well if AB keeps getting more difficult for my little pea brain I will at least have learned a few more basics regarding using the computer. I had no idea about this zoom thing. Thanks again. Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 Oooooh! Ginger! Can I see your gender???? Report by HungryGuy on February 2nd, 2010 @Skeeter - You're welcome. Hope it helps you and others with the same problem. @HungryGuy - Down boy! Report by BigDaddyBS on February 2nd, 2010 Laughs, according to AB no you can't :P Report by Gingerminx on February 2nd, 2010 [url=http://www.fodey.com/generators/animated/ninjatext.asp][img]http://r9.fodey.com/2091/ac1f63fc150e409096f91e0e037ac59a.0.gif[/img][/url] Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 Oh damn. Didn't work. Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 Thanks. I can now load more answers and see more then a blue and white pole twirl :) Report by Booknight on February 2nd, 2010 Comment to my questions are disappearing. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1907004 http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/8657056 I know for a fact that I have responded to most if not all of these answers but they are not showing up. Report by buster on February 2nd, 2010 Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on February 2nd, 2010 @ Skeeter Report by Brian I on February 3rd, 2010 Good to know Lex. Thank you. One question...what's wrong with having it look like e.e. cummings? "...saharas have their centuries; ten thousand of which are smaller than a rose's moment...." "but more than all (as all your more than eyes tell me) there is a time for timelessness". Good stuff there! Happy Wednesday to you! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on February 3rd, 2010 testing video Report by PresleyScott on February 3rd, 2010 There is a large advert for facebook covering the words in the blog, how am I suppose to read them? Report by Gingerminx on February 3rd, 2010 @Gingerminx, Try re-loading the page in your browser. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm getting a lot of pages not displaying properly because of errors on the page. I don't know if it's my connection, my ISP or Answerbag. Report by Brian I on February 3rd, 2010 Ahhhh yes, I have been getting a lot of errors as well, pages not loading correctly. I will give it a try, thanks Brian. Report by Gingerminx on February 3rd, 2010 Thanks Brian, but it just reloads every time and covers half of the blog message at the top. Just another reason I dislike facebook and other networking sites, everyone seems to feel the need to have links to them that interfere with the enjoyment of their site. Report by Gingerminx on February 3rd, 2010 I tried the zoom thing (even though I knew it wouldn't work) but I haven't been able to see the forum link for a while. It's just not on my page for some reason??? Report by Reptar on February 3rd, 2010
Rachel Globus	January 29th, 2010 at 2:50 pm Getting your poll on the home page How does a poll get featured on the home page? Glad you asked. We love putting great polls you’ve written on the home page, but we confess to being a bit picky. Whence our pickiness? Well, we know we’d hear from you—rightly—if we featured polls that were unfair, biased or confusing, so we endeavor to highlight only those that spark discussion about a topic, not about how the poll was written. Keep in mind, of course, that regardless of whether you follow our criteria to home page glory, your polls will still show up in the Happening Now section of the home page and the Polls landing page. For those of you gunning for home page fame, here are a few tips we’ve put together on what makes a great poll: 1. Be clear precisely what you’re asking. For example, a question like “Do you like the design and functionality of the iPhone?” is really better off as two separate questions, one about design and one about functionality. Also, try to make it clear what the poll is about from the title, so instead of phrasing your question, “Do you prefer…?” for a poll about popcorn brand preferences and then listing the brands in the options, ask, “Which brand of popcorn do you prefer?” Since polls don’t always show up with their options (on the Polls landing page, for example), you’ll get more people clicking on your poll if they can tell what it is in advance. 2. Be concise. Aside from the fact that keeping it short and sweet makes it easier for others to read, polls with titles longer than 140 characters won’t fit in the home page module and unfortunately can’t be featured, awesome as they may be. 3. Check your bias at the door. Write the question without implying that the answer is one way or the other. For example, a poll like “Why are the Yankees the lamest team ever?” implies that they are lame, which is certainly not an established fact (outside of Red Sox Nation, that is). 4. Include all possible options. Always try to cover the full spectrum of possible responses, including “Don’t know/Not applicable,” etc., where appropriate. Excluding those options will encourage people to skip your poll, pick an answer they don’t really agree with—or call you out! 5. Make sure options don’t overlap. Users can only pick one answer, so make sure they’re mutually exclusive. For example, for the poll question, “Why should people eat peanut butter?” don’t include the options “Because it’s healthy” and “Because it’s high in dietary fiber and protein,” since food with high dietary fiber and protein can be healthy. 6. Use ranges that make sense. One of the great member-submitted polls we featured on the home page asked you how much you would donate to Haiti earthquake relief. While I loved this poll, if I could have changed one thing, it would have been to spread out the options more evenly. There’s a big jump between $10 and $100, which makes it hard for people to pick an option that represents them. Also remember not to use overlapping ranges. For example, in the set of options below, you wouldn’t know which option to pick if your answer was 10: 0-10 10-25 25-50 50-100 100-500 Better: 0-9 10-24 25-49 50-99 100-500 7. Be timely, useful or entertaining! This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but polls are about sparking discussion and providing people with a useful sample of public opinion, so we have a strong preference for polls that are one (or all!) of the following: Timely: It’s not that we think you should be sitting there watching “American Idol,” fingers poised above your laptop in case something poll-worthy happens. OK, we wouldn’t mind. But short of that, we love to see what the AB community thinks about all the interesting stuff going on in the world. Here are some places we check for inspiration when we feel like crawling out from under our rock: - Google Trends - Yahoo! Buzz - What the Trend (for all the tweeters in the house) - The “most emailed” list of [your favorite content destination here] Useful: We loved Melanie22’s poll, “What is the best lip balm for healing chapped lips?” Not only was it timely (who doesn’t have chapped lips in winter), this is really useful information about a common question. Entertaining: While the range of options could have been more balanced, Old School’s poll “What do you think about Sarah Palin joining Fox News as a commentator?” was heading in the right direction when it came to the entertainment factor. Don’t be afraid to add a little humor into your question. Extra brownie points to users who achieve the ultimate trifecta of a timely, useful and entertaining poll. Looking forward to seeing more great polls! 20 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Rachel. Report by XT. on January 29th, 2010 I don't find a question on lip balm timely because it is the middle of summer where I live. Does that mean if I asked a question about BBQ's it would not see the front page as it would not be considered timely by you? Report by Gingerminx on January 29th, 2010 Gingerminx, I suspect that a poll about barbecues during the northern hemisphere winter wouldn't be considered at all timely. Those of us in the rest of the northern hemisphere outside the USA are a minority and those of you in the southern hemisphere are a tiny minority. You only have to look at some of the "Professionally Researched" answers to realise that Answerbag is becoming increasingly US-centric. Report by Brian I on January 30th, 2010 It seems answerbag forgot its international. Its "www.answerbag.com": www stands for world wide web and ".com" is international. Use ".US" if you want to become US centric. Report by Always Ready - COAT of courage on January 30th, 2010 I'm not actually sure what AB is being attacked for here. Rachel did cite "lip balm" as a topical issue, which it is for hundreds of millions of people right now, even where it isn't winter — though especially where it is. But if you post about a topical issue that's not US-centric, it still has a very nice chance of being featured. There's a lot more that connects us than divides us. Report by Lex Friedman on January 30th, 2010 Thanks Lex for clarifying. But for your information AB is and was being attacked for being so US centric. First, debates are based on the us. Examples: Should the US legalize marijuana?/ Is China a Threat to the U.S.?/ Is the U.S. a Christian Nation?....... Second, Professionally researchers: to become one of the researchers you need to be an american citizen and work through demand media. Third, Rachael mentioned being timely as a factor. That must not be a factor as the site is "INTERNATIONAL". Different parts of the world have different weather condition, climate, geography...... I meant no offense to any race nor person. Report by Always Ready - COAT of courage on January 30th, 2010 No attack Lex, just an observation that those of us outside the USA constitute a minority and that many of the "professional researchers" seem unaware that people from around the world use Answerbag. I confess to a strong dislike for so-called professionally researched answers, which probably explains my readiness to criticise them. Report by Brian I on January 30th, 2010 Lex. Off the topic here but I just wanted you to be aware. The question I had asked you regarding a members profile with the fact that they are in the Penalty Box written in their profile is still there. Report by skeeter on January 30th, 2010 I did not attack anyone, I merely posed a question. Rachel classed it as timely due to it being winter, well where I live it is summer and so therefore not timely. I saw nothign wrong with asking if I posed a question about BBQ's, which for me is timely and one or her criteria, would it be afforded the same consideration. Report by Gingerminx on January 30th, 2010 Just a friendly suggestion here... Maybe find a way to make selecting the home page poll, debate, and other things, more democratic, or random, or programmed/automatic based on ratings (and not hand-picked by AB staff) would disarm accusations of being country-specific or based on favoritism... Just sayin' :-) Report by HungryGuy on January 30th, 2010 The issue of topicality is a great point. We post many questions that are relevant all over the world (and even some that aren't big in the U.S.! How is Boxing Day celebrated? was featured on Dec. 26). Just to name a few examples, we've featured questions and polls on the Winter Olympics, Haiti earthquake relief, H1N1 and online gaming--all of which are relevant all over the world. Debates such as Should You Let Your Child Cry It Out?, Are Generic Drugs as Effective as Name Brands? and Does Islam Promote Violence?, among others, are also worthwhile topics, regardless of where you live. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, and keep the great questions and polls coming! Report by Rachel Globus on February 1st, 2010 Rachel, This is not a complaint - just a set of observations. Perhaps topicality is also affected by time of day and a different set of questions could be featured, depending on what part of the world is most likely to see them, just as you do it now for about 16 hours, and a more general set during the US night - yes, I know that the USA is a big country and you don't all have night at exactly the same time. Today, while most of the USA was asleep and the majority of users on the site were from anywhere between Australia and Europe these were some of the featured questions on the home page (another 3 were not specific to the USA): How can I throw a kid-friendly Super Bowl party? - US specific How do you organize a Super Bowl party pool? - US specific to the extent that I haven't got a clue what a Super Bowl party pool is. If Sarah Palin ran for president, would you vote for her? - US specific Do We Still Need Affirmative Action? - US specific Black History Month - US specific Budget - US specific Your debates don't seem to be initiated by rank and file members and they often fall into the trap of addressing us all as though we are Americans. One of the debates you mention contains this, "Americans spend more than 150 billion dollars per year on pharmaceuticals. The debate about Islam and violence contains this, "For most Americans, Islam was a religion that lived on the periphery of their lives". It then goes on to say that "Then came the tragic events of 9/11, and suddenly the Western World was desperately grasping to understand a religion they knew precious little about." Apparently it is only in the USA that it took a terrorist atrocity to realise that Islam was a growing factor in world affairs. Report by Brian I on February 1st, 2010 A side line to what Brian said, which I agree with, you mentioned the Generic Drug debate, if you look at all of the info given it is American based. Report by Gingerminx on February 1st, 2010 Answers are disappearing again. Even clicking on the link to the question at the bottom of the page doesn't bring them back. Report by skeeter on February 1st, 2010 http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1907514#ans8658092 There is the link. I know I had a couple more answers. It's only showing one and it's beginning to piss me off. Report by skeeter on February 1st, 2010 @Skeeter - That link is the Answer View (answer #8658092) of the question. I DID click on the link at the bottom of the question and got the question view (which shows all answers for the question #190751 in your link). There are three answers, there. ( http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1907514 ) If your link is showing "q_view", it's the Question View. If it shows "a_view", it's the Answer View. If it;s the question view, but has the "#ans0000000" after the link, it's another way of looking at that individual answer. Do you have more than three answers? (And were they real answers, or spam/offensive/nonsense/duplicate answers)? Report by BigDaddyBS on February 1st, 2010 I believe I had a total of 3 answers and 2 had disappeared. Maybe when you clicked on it they had reappeared buy then. Glitch. And they were legit, not spam. I will have another look today. Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 Ok. It's working now but it had to have been a glitch as one answer was there yesterday and the 2 others were nowhere to be found. As for all this "q-view" and "a-view" I don't see how that should be a concern to the regular user. There is no links to any q view/a view. I hope they get these glitches sorted. Who knows how many of us have answers or comments floating around. And yes. I did click on the question link at the bottom of the page and it didn't work for me yesterday. Report by skeeter on February 2nd, 2010 It's just another way to tell you are in question view or answer view. Question View is what you see when there are NO answers to a questions, and when all show. This is what you get in Questions, and, I believe, from your own Questions page. And, it appears, at the bottom of the page, the "You are reading..." link. It should also be the link above a single answer when there are more (the bar that says, "See all ## answers..."). Answer View is what you see from many other links - If there are more than one answers, you will (read SHOULD) see the "See all ## answers" bar above the answer showing. It also appears that another way to show this view is with the question view link, followed by "#ans#######". AND, to confuse the issue even more, there are some questions and answers that include some of the words of the question. And, no. Not all users should or need to know this, but some do pay attention. ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS on February 2nd, 2010 Thanks Ms. Rachel for posting this article. I've been searching on the Internet a good topic for my research paper and glad I found your posted article here. Thanks again! :) Report by PresleyScott on February 3rd, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 29th, 2010 at 12:00 pm New Featured Member module and more fixes New module alert! New module alert! On the homepage, you should now notice a new module in the bottom center: The Featured Member. This will be a staff pick, updated occasionally, just to highlight some of our best and most-valued contributors. You won't be surprised a lick to see the first member we've selected! Also rolled out today: - a fix for blank questions, or questions that didn't save properly - showing the category a question is in on the Questions page - optimizing load times on the homepage and profile pages We'll have another post later today about polls. Have a great weekend everyone! 3 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 29th, 2010 I like the new featured member slot and very much agree that Firebrand should be the first. Thank you all for the category listings in the questions page,that was real confusing and tired my eyes out.:) Report by mtndewman40 on January 29th, 2010 Oh Lex, what a great idea. I hope Firebrand will be thrilled. Maybe you could do a Rogues Gallery album of some kind and add to it every month or so with a new member. That way they would be a featured member (in the album) for infinity :) Report by CatLover-The Original on January 29th, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 28th, 2010 at 12:06 pm Categorically simpler We just made it easier to categorize your questions here on the 'Bag. Previously, when you wanted to categorize questions, you needed to choose your category by browsing from the top down. If you didn't know where "Cosmetics" was buried (Health & Fitness > Beauty & Skincare), this could be an exercise in frustration. No longer! Now, you can just start typing the name of the category you're looking for, and suggestions will appear almost instantly. Click the one you want, and you're good to go! No matches? Just try another term. Of course, if you have a special passion for the old system, you can still use that, too. Other fixes that went live today included some layout tweaks, the addition of the Facebook module here on the blog for those who wish to "become a fan" of us over there, and some fixes to datestamps across the site. 13 comments \| Post one Comments cool, thanks. Report by Always Ready - COAT of courage on January 28th, 2010 Thank you Lex. Report by XT. on January 28th, 2010 Okay. That's nifty :-) Report by HungryGuy on January 28th, 2010 NEW PROBLEM. Category/page says turn off some filters,,I had none placed,,,after applying some first page was fine,go to second page and same response,turn off some filters,upon doing this a second time,no responses were available. Report by mtndewman40 on January 28th, 2010 Sorry,,should be QUESTIONS tab. Report by mtndewman40 on January 28th, 2010 I know I went to the Questions tab and the page was unavailable. Report by XT. on January 28th, 2010 Questions page should be working better now. Report by Lex Friedman on January 28th, 2010 Lex, remember when I posted a link on the forums that was talking about the questions with an id of 0 and the link on the Happening Now redirects back to AB homepage. Well, that problem is back again. Watch the page for a while, and you'll know what I mean. It's easy to spot. As the Happening Now bar shows, the Category shows up completely blank, and when you click the link that SHOULD bring you to the question page, it results into the link redirecting back to AB homepage. Please fix this problem. It's awful annoying, and please reinstate my forum board posting from 1mo. ago. Report by byankno1 on January 28th, 2010 NEW problem...I ask questions but then they just disappear into the system and never show anywhere....am I the only one? specifically...my question was: "jacques brel once sang that we forget how to save memories: we save photographs instead". Do you agree?...the question went into the system but I can't seem to find it anywhere...thanks for looking into this.... Report by DA BEN DAN yanggui zi COAT on January 28th, 2010 We're investigating the issues listed here. Thanks for bringing them to our attention! Report by Lex Friedman on January 29th, 2010 The question issue you both encountered seems related to the new categorization approach — when you use the old approach instead. A fix should go live later today. Report by Lex Friedman on January 29th, 2010 This issue is still there. I saw one just a second ago, that had this problem. So, it's still around! Report by byankno1 on January 30th, 2010 Thank you, Lex. You're an honorary shill today. Report by Halliburton Shill on January 31st, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 27th, 2010 at 11:39 am Extra clean-up and enhancements Hot on the heels of yesterday's barrage of fixes and upgrades, the team just rolled out a few more enhancements: 1. We re-fixed the issue where you received alerts for your own comments. 2. We also put in a fix for some layout issues on the user questions page linked from your profile, plus added the ability to sort your questions by the number of answers they've received. 3. We cleaned up the profile answers page as well. 4. We made quoting in the forum work even better. More to come! 17 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 27th, 2010 so all of the thousands of points that i used to have, are lost forever, since monday has passed? Report by Baba on January 27th, 2010 When does this fix become activated Lex? As of 3:30am in California on Thursday morning January 28, 2010 I am still being alerted to my own comments which takes up room on the "alerts" page and doesn't provide me with anything useful. Happy Thursday! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 28th, 2010 Baba, check our earlier blog posts explaining the new points system. There are fewer total points in the system, and the levels have been adjusted accordingly: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1894872 Rosie: Should be live now, but wasn't retroactive. Are you still getting new alerts for your own comments? Report by Lex Friedman on January 28th, 2010 Oh...okey dokey Lex. There are four there but they are from Wednesday early am. Many thanks! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 28th, 2010 I still get alerted for my own comments. Worse, it's still a major pain in Larry Craig's restroom stall to find a category for a question. Have you actually tried asking a question and aSSigning a category to it? Report by Halliburton Shill on January 28th, 2010 Have you tried flagging a question to another category, HS? I mean, last blog, Lex posted this: 4. Easier to find proper categories for content when you report bad ones. You'll know it when you see it. If you do interact with the new category finder when reporting content, let us know what you think of it. Do you like it? Would you prefer to categorize questions this way when you add them? If you have, and liked it, you could answer, "Yes" instead of being so negative about the situation. Report by BigDaddyBS on January 28th, 2010 I was just checking out someones Profile and this is what was written. "You can't currently do whatever it is you just tried to do, because you're in the Answerbag Penalty Box.We put members in the Penalty Box when they've seriously violated our rules or terms of service. You are in the penalty box until February 26th at 4:08 pm for the following reason:Attacking other users" Is this a new AB thing or was it written by the person? Report by skeeter on January 28th, 2010 Skeeter - The :"Attacking other users" would be the reason given by whomever PBed the person. The complete message, itself, is standardized, is appears, except for that. Only that person would see it, unless they copy/paste it into their profile. Report by BigDaddyBS on January 28th, 2010 Skeeter -- can you tell me where you saw that? I'm not sure what's happening there and would like to see it first hand. Report by Lex Friedman on January 28th, 2010 Lex. I will send you a private message. Report by skeeter on January 28th, 2010 @BD and Lex.I am now assuming the user must have written that himself. Isn't it so that if you are in the PBox you can't use answerbag? You can view I believe but you can't even use your profile page? Report by skeeter on January 28th, 2010 I am not being alerted to my own posts any longer, but, I am now, for some comments or answers, reciveing four alerts for the same persons comment. It makes for a lot of scrolling. I am assuming it is a glitch. Report by Gingerminx on January 28th, 2010 Right. If you're in the box, you shouldn't be able to update your profile, send messages, post comments, write on the forums, or submit questions or answers. We'll investigate what happened with the user in question seemingly able to post to his profile. Report by Lex Friedman on January 28th, 2010 Hi Lex...just saw an alert for this morning's comments about 45 minutes ago ...one of my comments is included there. So the 'fix" isn't really totally fixed. Just FYI. Happy Friday! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 29th, 2010 Is it possible to kind of repost/resubmit a question that you want answered but hasn't still been answered? it would be helpful Report by borasalama on January 29th, 2010 I tend to post these things as a forum posting in the "Answerbag Chit-Chat" room from the Forum page. Just create a good title, and submit. Submit both the question title and the URL of the question id to the exact question, and see if you get any answers then. All question url's start with www.answerbag.com/q_view/(then a bunch of numbers). If the link replaces a_view into the q_view section, please find the question it references in your profile's "YouQuestion link", copy the URl and off you should be. Report by byankno1 on February 1st, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 26th, 2010 at 11:55 am Oodles of fixes: Remember me, alert muting, and more We just rolled out another batch of fixes and enhancements. Here they are: 1. A probable fix for the "remember me" bug. This issue can be hard to recreate sometimes, but we think we've nicked it. If you'd like to test, log out, log back in (checking the "Remember me" box, and see if you get logged out! 2. Comment alert muting. Now, if you no longer want updates about replies to comments on your Alerts screen or your profile, you can mute them, and you won't get further updates. This is similar to the old "unsubscribe" functionality. 3. A new, more prominent way to post questions. We may tweak this some more, especially since we've heard early reports that it looks funny in some browsers. But we're trying to make it easier to submit new questions, wherever you are on the site. 4. Easier to find proper categories for content when you report bad ones. You'll know it when you see it. If you do interact with the new category finder when reporting content, let us know what you think of it. Do you like it? Would you prefer to categorize questions this way when you add them? 5. Some fixes for quoting forum posts. We still have a few more tweaks to come on this, but we improved things a bit. 6. Improvements to member questions page. Sort by date or likes, show answer count under the questions, etc. This is the questions page linked from each member's profile. 7. Saner pagination. On question lists and category lists with more than 20 pages, if you're on the 21st page or further, we automatically expand all the page numbers instead of keeping them hidden. 8. IE7 issues fixed. We addressed some IE7 layout issues. If you're still using IE7, we'd love for you to upgrade to IE8, Firefox, or Safari :) More soon! 17 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 26th, 2010 Glad you called it a probable fix I've logged out, clicked 'Remember Me' and logged in again several times on IE 8. Unfortunately I have never been remembered. Perhaps I'm just not a very memorable character. Report by Brian I on January 26th, 2010 Brian, What do you in between? That is, you log in, having checked remember me -- and then what actions do you take before you discover that you're logged out? Report by Lex Friedman on January 26th, 2010 Could we have a button under the report area for, "This is not a question"? I have seen more statements on here in the last few weeks than ever before. Report by Gingerminx on January 26th, 2010 For me, it still has the problem. I'm able to answer questions and stuff while signed in, but, if I CLOSE MY BROWSER SEVERAL MINUTES FROM LOGIN TIME, I get logged out, the next time I visit the site. ex.) Day 1 9:53am: 1st time sign in Day 1 9:56am: write questions/answer questions OK. Day 1 9:58 am: finished, close box day 1 9:59am: decide that I'm not finished yet, open box..badda bing, badda boom, have to re-sign in. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 If I would have closed it seconds after sign-in, at about 9:54 am, the box still would have held my sign-in info and I would have been able to continue to write questions/answer questions as always. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 Maybe others have different problems, but that's mine, in example only. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 Love the idea of finding categories in the new style. Please instate that version for finding categories originally. It virtually replicates the old AB browser finding-category feature. It takes a split second longer, however, but I'd rather have this one, than have as much trouble as I currently have, for finding categories currently. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 Hunt and peck on finding categories is totally ineffective, but this method, makes it MUCH easier, and, as most people would be, they would ALL thank you for this method, if you choose to instate that version, when originally submitting a question with the categories. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 It's a compromise, at least, as most people would agree. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 First of all thanks for listening to us, I really appreciate all the hard work you guys are doing. The changes are great, and I am very glad to see them. There are still a few bugs that I have found in them though. -Easier to find proper categories for content when you report bad ones. I am so happy this is back! One thing though. In the past, after you have typed in your option, it would show the full trail of breadcrumbs origin of your category. This was helpful as some of the category names can be ambiguous. For example there is a panties category under clothing, as well as in the adult section. without the Trail of breadcrumbs it is mot immediately obvious which one you are choosing. -Improvements to member questions page: Also looks good. Are we going to eventually get the same thing for our answers page as well? That would be nice. Plus we used to be able to sort by number of answers as well. I would like to see that brought back. -Saner pagination: Works great, very happy to see it! my one complaint is that when you are on page 20 you still have to click "see all pages" it seems that if you had the full list pop up on 20 or greater as opposed to 21 or greater this could be avoided. But all in all great work! Keep it up :-D Report by buster on January 26th, 2010 Also I just received "Alerts" that I had commented on answers to my questions. I thought you had fixed that bug and that we were not supposed to receive alerts on our own activity. You might want to check it out. And I just a strange issue with text formatting in the forums. I explain it in detail on my forum post: http://www.answerbag.com/forums/topic.php?t=476#476 Report by buster on January 26th, 2010 I almost forgot. -Easier to find proper categories for content when you report bad ones. could we also get this feature when asking a new question? Report by buster on January 26th, 2010 My comments are showing up under my alerts again. Report by SoulFire on January 26th, 2010 The 'Remember Me' seems to be working. I closed down my browser last night and when I opened AB this morning I was still logged in, so my earlier comment can be ignored. Report by Brian I on January 27th, 2010 We'll fix the comment alerts this afternoon. Report by Lex Friedman on January 27th, 2010 The remember me is no longer an issue on my one computer. Thanks Lex for fixing this. Report by byankno1 on January 27th, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 25th, 2010 at 10:39 am New points system live, plus other niceties Hello everyone! Some new features went live today, but by far the biggest change of all is our launch of the new points system! The rejiggering, indeed, has come to a close. The first thing to know is, no one's level dropped. Everyone either stayed exactly where you were before, or got a small boost. If you're wondering just how the heck the new system works, perhaps I can interest you in the following question (and answer!): How does Answerbag's new points and ratings system work? We're very excited about the new ratings system, which is a direct result of member feedback regarding the old ratings system on the site and its issues. Let us know your questions and thoughts on the new points system, and we'll do our best to help you out! Additionally, you might notice we just launched the ability to reply to individual forum posts, which should make conversing just a bit easier over there. More soon! 39 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks, i like the new system. And i like the boost you gave me: i was a professor im now a sage. LOL Report by Always Ready - COAT of courage on January 25th, 2010 A few "points" about the new points system. I commented on your answer, so just to hit the highlight... Seems that those in the higher levels have to do a LOT more work to get to the next level than we would have before. For me, I was on level 87 or 88 of Swamidom. Now, if numbered levels were still in place, I would be at level 85 or so. I noted that Firebrand is at the BOTTOM of Illuminati, when she was near the next NAMED level, and now has to make 420K points. I think I would have "rejiggered" to the NUMBERED levels, rather than the NAMED ones. Report by BigDaddyBS on January 25th, 2010 Oh... And what of points earned for LIKES and flagging SINCE the change? That's SIX WEEKS PLUS of points. They may not be a lot in the final scheme of things for high-level people, but for low- to mid-level, they would be. Seems they were ignored? Report by BigDaddyBS on January 25th, 2010 BigDaddyBS: They were not ignored. Our calculations for the current points level includes likes from both before and after launch. Firebrand is among the list of ten grandfathered members; had we not done the grandfathering, she'd be one level lower, but close to crossing the threshold Illuminati. It's impossible with a system revamp of this scope to please everyone, and we love Firebrand and her contributions to the site, and certainly if anyone can reach the next level, she's it! Report by Lex Friedman on January 25th, 2010 How come I am a Swami now? I was only a Guru before... ;-) Report by iwnit on January 25th, 2010 Odd. I was a Maestro. Level 68 or 69 with 59,983. Yeah, I wrote it down for fun. I am now Guru with 11,169. I guess that's rejiggering for you. A word that never made sense anyway. No biggie. I don't give a crap really. Report by skeeter on January 25th, 2010 Would somebody like to tell me how I havebeen #1 on the site for nearly 3 years and had nearly 700,000 Report by Firebrand on January 25th, 2010 I was a sage I believe and now a maestro?Is that a step up or down...lol,,it really make me no difference anyway,,it's more for the fun of answering things than a ratings game. Report by mtndewman40 on January 25th, 2010 Oh. My last comment was written before I read Lex's link. Please ignore. I tend to jump the gun. Report by skeeter on January 25th, 2010 Points, now I am ranked exactly the same as Galeanda who made Illuminati a year after I did and am 15,000 points lower than Keith who I had over 200,000 points more than . You say that nobody has lost a level or anything . As far as I am concerned that is a kick in the guts. and a total insult. Especially since the teo people you have put ahead of mehave ran off to other sites. Maybe it is a ploy to get them back I was an Illuminati Ranked Number 1 with 690 + thousand points and you have screwed me with your lies and promises I now have no rank although with one point per answer I could of course never catch Keithold What a bloody joke you all are. Everyone else seems to have gone up the ladder, Muggins here seems to have gone down.. YOU may be excited LEX , well my contribution may be a little different to all those that have been elevated instead of demoted. I think your new points system is CRAP. How could you be so devious and such liars.. Report by Firebrand on January 25th, 2010 Ok I should not be rude and I apologise but since you have with your new points system seen fit to reward moderation more than Asking or Answering questions , How come I seem to be being penalised for moderating.> Report by Firebrand on January 25th, 2010 What happened?? I became a Sage just before the AB makeover, with over 15,000 points, and it's been shown as that way until yesterday (and was told it's just a glitch) and now I only have 3,120 points! THAT'S A 12,000 POINT DROP!!!! I just hope this hasn't happened to many other people! I think Ab should've focused on fixing the bug completely before they launched the new points system. This is so frustrating! Report by Qwertymuffin411 Loves Being a Sage on January 25th, 2010 I like the new system -- I think it does a better job of motivating great answers, and getting the worst noise off the site. Report by Persky Bunkermeister on January 25th, 2010 Firebrand -- no apology necessary. I know how important levels/points are to our active members, and we don't take making such a change lightly. And believe me, you're to be forgiven for feeling some extra passion with the new system, given your rank and role on the site to date. I'm not sure what you mean about being penalized for moderating -- can you elucidate? I don't think we've been devious or deceitful. It's hard to revamp an entire system like this, and as we have been for as long as I've been on Answerbag's team, we're here to listen, learn, and improve as needed. Your score (and Galeanda's) had to be grandfathered to make sure you didn't lose a level; we definitely didn't want to see you lose your previous level status. The new system rewards the number of individuals who "like" content; the old system weighted the individuals by their ranks, as you know. The old system also included downratings, and the new system doesn't. Some of the folks who've seen themselves move up may have been victims of abusive downrating on the old system. And in your case, you were the recipient of many upvotes in the past from other high-ranked users, whose previous +6's or +8's and the like now just contribute as binary "likes." I know understanding that approach won't necessarily make it any more palatable, but I at least wanted to explain what's happening here. All that said, we'll continue to monitor things and shifts over these first few days as the new system kicks in, and we'll make adjustments as needed. Report by Lex Friedman on January 25th, 2010 Qwerty -- you're still a Sage. Read the explanation in my question (and answer!) linked in the blog post for an explanation. Report by Lex Friedman on January 25th, 2010 I'm still a Maestro, which I became right before the makeover, I had 32,632 points, and only 6,403 points, so that means I lost like 26,000 points, where did those points go???? Report by Slick on January 25th, 2010 Never mind, saw the explanation, in the link. Thanks Report by Slick on January 25th, 2010 what does "grandfathered" mean? Report by dea_ex_machina on January 25th, 2010 Grandfathered(verb)=to grandfather (third-person singular simple present grandfathers, present participle grandfathering, simple past and past participle grandfathered) To retain existing laws or rules only for those people or organisations that were previously affected by them, and apply new laws or rules to the unaffected people or organisations. Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grandfather#Verb Report by byankno1 on January 25th, 2010 Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 25th, 2010 Lex: thanks for the report. I haven't been logged in much today to get a fuller picture of the new system but a question jumps to mind: In your answer that explains the new system ( http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1894872 ) you say: "...the old system... also led to some nefarious users maliciously downrating others to negatively impact their ranks." I thought that negative ratings received in the past DIDN'T affect your overall score but only your positive approval percentage? So did the rejiggering actually took in account those negatives received? I know the rejiggering as a whole was far from an easy task, but it would have seem logical to me that the "grandfathering" or boost should have been a scaled affair as well. I mean, putting Firebrand and Galeanda (to mention the most evident example) in a virtual tie SEEMS like an "easy way out" to handle things. I repeat: it might be more complicated than that, but that's the impression and message you're sending at the moment. Can you clarify this for me? Thanks. Report by Barcaluv on January 25th, 2010 I don't remember what my title was before. I see I'm a Maestro now. I don't think that's what I was, but I'm not sure. I may be mistaken, but I think I was in the low 50,000 range before, and now have 5,700. So it looks to me like you devalued the ratings by an order of magnitude (sort of like a country devaluing its currency), and then gave it a slight boost. But as I said elsewhere, I don't really give a poo-poo about the titles or absolute numbers as long as we're all in the same positions relative to each other. You're probably tired of me saying this, but what really matters to me is that we get the participation in the answer comments back up again to pre-upgrade levels. Bring the FUN back!!! Report by HungryGuy on January 25th, 2010 I really do not care one way or other about the levels and all that. I would like to bring to your attention once more a problem that I foresee: I can easily see this turning into Moderationbag because the way to gain in level is to moderate, not ask and answer. Report by Arisztid in a COAT of Rromani awareness on January 25th, 2010 I just see it as a brand new site. Let it go people. Really. What does it matter in the great big scheme of things.!!?? Report by skeeter on January 25th, 2010 Are the people who were marked as Best answer by the asker, ever going to get any points. You gave US the option. Now validate your opinion, by giving US the points, we gladly earned. Report by byankno1 on January 25th, 2010 why are the forums full of questions and people begging you to check out their questions? Report by Gingerminx on January 25th, 2010 This may not necesarrily be a popular opinion, but I actually think that the new points system is better. In the old system there was so much gratuitous back-slapping among high ranking members that it wasn't necasarrily about how good your Q&A was it was about who you knew. People would jump up a level just for posting a question asking to wish someone a happy birthday. With the binary system now everyone is on a level playing field. Levels will now reflect the work put into the site, rather than the friendships one has made. I am one of the few people who believe that the point-fairies were just as unfair and detrimental to the site as the trolls. It seems that this new points system will go a long way towards limiting their impact. That being said, I do think that with the new points system things are going to move a lot slower around here. I seems like it will take much, much longer to level up. I hope that now that points are finally back in place, people will start to once again regain confidence in this site. There is still a lot of work to do though. Maybe now you will be able to fix some of the major shortcomings that have occurred after the change. I have made a list of some of the most important changes that I would like to see and posted it here: http://www.answerbag.com/forums/topic.php?t=476 (Lex if you could let us know where we stand on these issues I would really appreciate it) Report by buster on January 25th, 2010 Well, my level definitely dropped - what gives? Report by Astrid on January 25th, 2010 I am not sure I follow how you rejiggered, but I do seem to have dropped in the scale. Not just the shocking number difference, but the fact that I now have less points than people I used to have many more points than. Odd. Report by Merfish on January 26th, 2010 Astrid: You used to be an Expert, and now you're a Brain. That means you've actually doubly leveled up. Buster: I'll take a look at that thread shortly. Byankno1: A fair point, regarding Asker's Pick. We just don't want the Asker's Pick to get abused for ratings. That said, we're working on creating some pages devoted to Asker's Pick answers, which would generally lead to those answers getting more likes and exposure, and potentially official "Great Answer" status, too. Report by Lex Friedman on January 26th, 2010 Report by dea_ex_machina on January 26th, 2010 darn... it clicked before i could type! On the Asker's Pick - I too am not entirely happy that the big points are only awarded by mods etc. Do you honestly expect us to believe that the mods read all the answers? Is it as likely to be abused for ratings if the mods choose their one or two favourites as the great answers? Under the old regime, it was interesting to note that some users' questions were regularly featured on the topic of the day, where others were never featured - to me, that smacked of favouritism. I cannot believe that the mods will be unbiased in their choices, and that the truly great answers only will be selected. Report by dea_ex_machina on January 26th, 2010 and thanks byankno1 - I cannot believe that people make up words like that! Oh.. it irritates me! Grandfather is a noun, not a verb! Report by dea_ex_machina on January 26th, 2010 "Mods" are MUCH more unbiased on this site than any user (they seldom interact, except for the mods reading, accepting and rejecting flags), and Rich, I think, is about as unbiased as they come, here. And CLs were asked to volunteer partially because they have proven their ... "unbiased-ness". (Sorry... I think I made up a word. Kinda like "rejiggered". LOL) The ONLY place I have seen "Great Answers" have any type of "bias" is when a "professionally researched" answer is generated (or Lex's own answer to his question in the link, above. The idea THERE is to KEEP that answer at the top, where it SHOULD remain.) This doesn't mean no one else can answer, and I believe there are a possibility of more than one Great Answers (not sure if or what that limit is, yet). And "Grandfathered" has been used in numerous places for years. New York "grandfathers" rents (rent control) - Once you're in the apartment, it's much harder for the landlord to raise your rent (maybe a small percentage?) and those who have been there for years pay significantly less than new renters. It's used in contracts and leases (those "grandfathered" are under the old rules. Those not, the new ones - For example, pets - Sometimes a landlord no longer wishes to deal with pets, but they have people on older leases who have them, so, they are "grandfathered", allowing them to keep the pet, while new leasers cannot have them, or pay exorbitant deposits and additional to their rent). By "grandfathered", here, AB is saying that based on the new point scales, certain people would NOT have been the level name they were before, so they "grandfathered" the level name. Seems strange they should have to do that, but... Report by BigDaddyBS on January 26th, 2010 also, well before the new system changed over, I submitted MULTIPLE instances of flagging quesitons and answers. it seems that these points haven't navigated themselves over to the new system. I don't remember exactly how many questions I was positively monitored for, but I had a whole LOT of questions, from "wrong-category flags for other questions" to just general duplicate question flags. The current flag postings since the break, I see, have been awarded(I hope)...nothing here states if this is really the case...hope they come out with some chart of some sort, showing this information and how the breakdown of points was awarded. Please instate that feature in future updates. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 I agree, Lex. Just position the Asker's Pick as the first question on the page so it gets more exposure, but let people's ratings of it be egalitarian! I saw the value in the old system that higher rated members had more power in the ratings that they gave. That disarmed the effect of n00bs and trolls and sock puppets and "drive by" ratings. But I also saw the effect in recent years that people would ask nonsensical questions (I've got nothing against nonsensical questions...I'm famous for 'em :-) and get a gazillion points, while serious questions hardly got any. So I think you're on the right track. But you may want to consider some sort of "probationary" period (not long...just a day or two) before new members can rate, otherwise those old problems will slowly return. Just sayin'... Report by HungryGuy on January 26th, 2010 I forgot to mention that the points for flagged questions DURING The rejigger weren't awarded either. Sorry, just came to mind. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 @ HungryGuy transitioning over to Lex, or maybe the transition point is based on level of membership, maybe after the person becomes a certain level, a verification can be sent to the staff, to see if this answer sounds reasonable to be given the "great answer" badge, and so, the points can be awarded. If it doesn't seem reasonable, the staff can still have their say, in which case, the askers pick gets vetoed and the person won't receive the points. Report by byankno1 on January 26th, 2010 I'm not sure what you mean about the points. It appears you've applied it a question/answer level, but as far as points and levels, nothing is changing. Is there an ETA on when points and levels are going to be active/meaningful again? Report by Halliburton Shill on February 3rd, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 23rd, 2010 at 4:57 pm Did your rating drop? Some of you are encountering a bug where it appears your current rating on Answerbag has dropped. I repeat, your dropped level on Answerbag is a bug. No data has been lost. In the new ratings system, going live Monday, no one's Answerbag level has dropped. The new system will go live sometime Monday, but it's not quite there yet. I apologize immensely for the confusion. -Lex 21 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 23rd, 2010 Question for you.... I know you guys didn't post the points required to acheive levels under the last system. But it had been in place long enough for people to figure it out and get at least a ball park idea from various postings. This new system is not only gonna be something to get used to in terms of the rejiggered points we're all gonna end up with...but we're all going to be high and dry with respect to knowing what to expect to acheive the next level. I don't suppose we'll be getting any clues as to what that's going to involve? Report by The Chief on January 23rd, 2010 Please tell me that my Level is not now a WIZ I passed that in my first few days on AB. Also how can my 690,+ thousand points become 80,000 Identical to Galeandas whom i believe iwas nearly 200,000 points behind me. I appreciate it is a glitch and am not too worried, yet. I never kept track of others points but i know Galeanda has just made Illuminati and I have been there for a year and am eight points ahead at 108 or at least I was.. I know you say it is a Glitch but for Petes sake A Wiz, you could have at least made the glitch a professor that sounds a little better You are quite right Chief, is the fact that those of us on higher levels and have had to put in so many more points as we rise . Is that going to be taken into consideration or are we to move over to make way for the sensitivities of the new users which it all seems to be geered toward. Also I would very much like to know if you are going to give us back our type- in for the moderation flags. It is much quicker and more accurate than the new method ,which is helpful but since you have moved so many things to new categories it makes it very difficult to put things in the correct category because with your pre typed categories it gives us no idea where a lot of sub categories are. This means many things will never ever be back where they should be and as such people will start dumping stuff anywhere again. # Since from what I can gather Answerbag now is much more about moderating than asking and Answering questions PLEASE give us the tools to do the job properly or there are going to be so many refused flags that people are going to be constantly upset. Why are we to be given more points for Moderation than Questions and Answers. Is this because our opinions are not valued in the same way as the Experts opinions which on the whole are pretty pathetic. A few lines pasted from Wiki does not in my opinion constitute an Expert opinion worthy of a Staffs Great Answer badge. It would also be rather nice since it is now going to be so difficult to get points for questions and answers if you could let people know OFFICIALLY that they should be clicking on the THUMBS. LIKES hardly anyone is bothering Lastly for the moment. Could you PLEASE give us an EDIT on the Blog.for people like me who are dreadful typists it is an embarrassment to look back on our posts. Not being able to see the complete thing without rolling back and forth makes it impossible to edit properly. Report by Firebrand on January 23rd, 2010 Thanks for letting us know, you had me scared for a minute. Also I was wondering, when the points system is back in place, are you planning on reinstituting the leader board? And I was wondering if we will eventually have category experts again, or is that something that has been phased out? Lastly, I just posted a few suggestions in the forums that I think would be a great asset to the site, and I would really appreciate it if you could take a look and let me know if you are working on any of these things. Here is the link: http://www.answerbag.com/forums/topic.php?t=476 Report by buster on January 23rd, 2010 Thanks Lex, for letting us know, you had me worried there. Report by Slick is actually a Maestro not a Wiz. on January 23rd, 2010 My goodness.... ok, so it is irritating to find that I am now wiz, but it is hardly the end of the world, is it? Not worth getting worked up over Report by dea_ex_machina on January 24th, 2010 In the new system I do not know where I am. If fact I have dropped from "brain" to "contributor" ! ! Report by Brahmanyan on January 24th, 2010 Why would you allow a question like this to be posted, then keep it up for so many days? http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1806024 What if he asked if "Jews were a brainwashed cult" ? Would that question have been removed more quickly? Just who is running this website? Report by Perryman on January 24th, 2010 I just want to say "Thanks!" for getting the comments system working again! At least it seems to be... I haven't been on the bag as often as I used to because participation dropped way off after the upgrade. So after several days away, today I have a bunch of alerts to new answers, alerts to new comments to my answers, and alerts to new comments in threads that I've commented on. Yay!!!! Report by HungryGuy on January 24th, 2010 Of course, it would be nice if you could restore the separate My Activity, My Answers, and My Comments pages like it used to be that showed these items in reverse chronological order (with the new activity identifed with NEW) that we could page back to the Beginning Of Time... But you got the essential functionality back for now. Report by HungryGuy on January 24th, 2010 Hello all you baggers out there. I just stopped by to tell the staff that they totally ruined this site and you may as well call it crap-bag, because thats what it is now. . Im sure Rich will still be able to conduct his experiments on all of you, probably collecting some great data right now, toying with your minds and taking all your points away . His students will have lots to discuss about all of you for years to come. Yes, my 1 year "self-ban" is over and I have come to delete everything from my profile And you took away the blue bag ? WTF people? Is it because it was so full of shit ? Yes , I believe so . Fuck you all and have a bad year. Chris Report by Chris on January 24th, 2010 Was that really necessary? Report by skeeter on January 24th, 2010 Not in the least. Totally un-called for. Report by byankno1 on January 24th, 2010 I agree, totally un-called for, and uncool. Report by Slick on January 24th, 2010 Chris you are absolutely correct. I can't imagine anything more offensive then initiating you into an experiment which included humans with brains. It doesn't say much for the rest of us. There is however one which you are more suited for and to which you might consider volunteering for. You can find a description of it here: http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/77/3/1431 Let us know how you make out. Report by CatLover-The Original on January 24th, 2010 lol....excellent CatLover. It never ceases to amaze me how people would rather look foolish, classless and tacky rather than just accept that something wasn't to their liking and leave with dignity. They just have to get the last word in, once again proving the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln when he said: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." That sad little performance certainly confirmed that;) Report by gtravels loves her life penguin on January 24th, 2010 Report by skeeter on January 24th, 2010 Oh GT I love that saying but I didn't know it was attributed to Abe Lincoln. See that you never know what you might learn on AB. There is another one which I love that is also appropriate here I think: Great minds discuss ideas Average minds discuss events Small minds discuss people Report by CatLover-The Original on January 24th, 2010 I've actually seen it attributed to different people depending on exactly how it's said and probably has its roots in the Bible. But I'll still take Abe. And as you've quoted here, the ideas are the thing and no matter who said it or how it's said, it sure applies in this case!!;) Report by gtravels loves her life penguin on January 24th, 2010 yeah, it did, thanks for explaining Report by Marasa on January 24th, 2010 Well, thanks for the post, but the site still sucks Report by qwerty on January 26th, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 21st, 2010 at 5:50 pm Nearing the end of a certain rejiggering... You may have noticed a message on the profile pages across the site referencing an ongoing rejiggering of the points and ratings system. I have it on very good authority that the rejiggering will soon come to a close. As in, "Monday" soon. Also, earlier today we had about 20 minutes of hiccups that resulted in people getting logged out, encountering weird errors, and other general unpleasantness. That issue was due to human error, and we corrected it as quickly as possible. 29 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks fot the updates Lex it's good to see someone's on the ball,points and ratings system would be nice to see again! Thanks,M Report by king of pain is serious but Sexy on January 21st, 2010 Thank you Lex. Report by XT. on January 21st, 2010 Thanks Lex to you and AB Staff and everyone/anyone who keeps fighting the good fight on our behalf. We who remain on AB appreciate you all a great deal. Happy Friday to all! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 22nd, 2010 As for me everything seems to be going fine. The only thing I can still think of is the "unsubscribe from comments" option. That would be quite useful. Report by Anonymous T on January 22nd, 2010 I totally agree with AT. I do miss that unsubscribe button as well! :) Report by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 22nd, 2010 I look forward to getting rejiggy with it. ; ) Report by Barcaluv on January 22nd, 2010 Thanks Lex, looking forward too it. Report by Slick- on January 22nd, 2010 Thanks for letting us all know, Lex. There've been a lot of questions about it. ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS on January 22nd, 2010 ahhhh.. I wondered what that business was where I kept being logged out... I wanted to make a comment about it, but was logged out every time I hit any link! :L So I just gave up Report by dea_ex_machina on January 23rd, 2010 Ty but why i'm demoted from brain to contributor ???? Report by Nemesis on January 23rd, 2010 Will the accumulated points from the questions and answers we've done be fixed with this update? Or as when other people "liked" our answer, or even selected our answer as "Great Answer", or even ( I know this was on the old system) moderated a question(such as a spam question-such as the use of the "Report" button for the question/answer? This is really bugging me? I've gotten a question in my account, don't have the link handy. It's been quite a while, since I last wrote it. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 Finally had the link handy. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 I am replying to this comment because there is no guarantee that any comment i send via the "contact us" box is ever read! I cannot use the private message function at the moment. Every time I "select recipient", the recipient remains unselected, so I am not able to send any private messages. Please sort this out! (another glitch) Thanks Report by dea_ex_machina on January 23rd, 2010 Dea_ex_ please see my workaround via the Forums page I created, about this issue: please read Forums Page: Unselected Member Glitch Workaround Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 It should be located as the last comment on the page. Please read it entirely, before using it. It takes a moment to understand. Take it sentence by sentence, as I wrote this as I was attempting to show others how to write these messages, 'til they fix the issue. Staff has been notified of this issue. I told them.(Or, Lex, I think I told you, maybe? Lost track.) Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 Sorry. Second to last is the workaround. Had to add something to it. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 I've got a super minor and super easy to implent function to ask for. Could You make the username/e-mail field get focus on entering the login page? Report by Anonymous T on January 23rd, 2010 How come my Achievement Level got demoted from a Maestro(32,632), to a Wiz(6,403)? Does not make any sense. Report by Slick- on January 23rd, 2010 How come I haven't seen this issue just yet? I still have the same points status as when the site went down on Dec. 8, 2009. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 Correction. Now I did! Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 From about 3,000 points down to a little more than 1000. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 I thought you guys said it wasn't supposed to affect our current levels, just to start off? Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 Any updated levels that you're seeing are in error. The new system isn't meant to go live until Monday, and something has clearly slipped through. We're investigating. In the new ratings system, not one person's rating will drop from where it was. Anything that you're seeing now is a bug that will be corrected by Monday. Report by Lex Friedman on January 23rd, 2010 All this took, was due to caching. I changed my tagline, then changed it right back. It was fine the first time. But then, all of a sudden, after changing it back, the points info changed to this new level. Report by byankno1 on January 23rd, 2010 I don't care that the layout of answerbag changed. Give the same points system back and it will nearly be the same as it was before. Report by Goulash on January 23rd, 2010 Personally, I'm not that concerned about the points system. As long as we're all relative to each other, relative to what we were before, even if the absolute numbers have changed, I don't see it as a big problem. Maybe Lex or Rich will chime in, but my hunch is that too many people were approaching Immuminati and they were running out of fancy names to call levels even higher than that... Report by HungryGuy on January 24th, 2010 They'll think up something, I guess. But, whatever! I wasn't too far into it. But, at last count, I was about a level 20. And I've only been an AB member since 10/1/2009. Report by byankno1 on January 24th, 2010 Report by Rejiggering A Fat Babys Ass on January 25th, 2010 Keep up the good work man. Report by Rejiggering A Fat Babys Ass on January 25th, 2010
Lex Friedman	January 19th, 2010 at 10:36 am Avatars on comments, Happening Now, white bar, and other fine improvements A new presentation today. First, I'll tell you what we fixed, and then I'll tell you what else we're working on: NEW FIXES: 1. Avatars on comments should now be working better. They won't update for all comments right away because of some caching, but within a few days, commenter avatars should be working properly everywhere. 2. That annoying white bar that sometimes appears on the top of the question page? I'm optimistic that it's gone now. If you do see it again, let us know the URL you were on when it appeared. 3. We've taken more steps to ensure that not just adult-categorized questions, but also questions in other categories that use adult language, won't appear on the homepage. 4. We've fixed the Happening Now page to ensure that it keeps updating as new questions and answers come in. WHAT WE'RE WORKING ON: 1. The "remember me" bug for auto-login 2. Slimmer/cleaner category-tree (with oodles of help from our Mods) 3. Enhancements for the forums ... and much more! 29 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 19th, 2010 Thanks and thanks for keeping us informed, Lex. Anyone looking at that Category Search (like the prior version)? It would be extremely helpful on asking quesitons and flagging Wrong Category... Report by BigDaddyBS on January 19th, 2010 Thank you for the information. I don't want to be annoying, but: - Is the enter field "Reference URL" going to be implemented again in the future? (see question http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1889753 ) - Is the use of HTML tags in question descriptions, answers and comments a bug or a feature? (see question http://www.answerbag.com/polls/html-tags-question-descriptions,-answers-comments-bug-feature-see-description_1889752 ) Report by iwnit on January 19th, 2010 2. Slimmer/cleaner category-tree (with oodles of help from our Mods) What does this mean? Report by skeeter on January 19th, 2010 (sigh) mumble.....mumble......no head bopper mentioned (sigh) mumble..........................mumble.... Report by CatLover-The Original on January 19th, 2010 I am again experiencing problems with my alerts not taking me to the questions. When I search for the question it says it can not find it. Report by Gingerminx on January 19th, 2010 2. Slimmer/cleaner category-tree (with oodles of help from our Mods) What does this mean? Report by skeeter on January 20th, 2010 And I still don't understand how to flag for duplicates. Do I have to go search for the question it is a dupe of? Report by skeeter on January 20th, 2010 So the answer to killdrphil's comment was to delete it? Report by carpe manana on January 20th, 2010 Skeeter - Yes. At this moment, you must search the older question out and grab the URL. Open the new dupe question, flag it as a dupe, submit it, and it will ask you for the URL of the older one. It's not quite as easy as before, but it's not that hard. ;-) Report by BigDaddyBS on January 20th, 2010 Thanks, Lex! I know you don't hear that too much, so I wanted to let you know some of us appreciate your efforts. NOTE: Though it's not nearly so prevalent, I'm still having some problems with "Likes" not posting. I always wait after clicking "Like" until it not only changes to "Unlike", but "(You and X others like this question/answer". Even so, when I go back to check these postings later, I find that some of them still didn't take and have to "Like" it again. Report by The Chief on January 20th, 2010 Carpe Manana: KDP asked if nepotism were at work at Answerbag, asserting that our site's staffs' collective incompetence must be mean we scored our jobs via family members. The answer to the question is no, we weren't hired by family members. Of course, we don't accept the question's stipulation that the new Answerbag is a failure; the key metrics we track on the business side of things are moving in the right direction. I have a thick skin, which you need in my position. I removed KDP's comment because it was needlessly insulting to our team, for all of whom this is an important, full-time job. If he (or anyone) is interested in providing fair, constructive, or useful criticisms, we're always interested, and that's what the Contact Us link is for at the bottom of the page. Empty attacks on the staff don't add to the conversation. Report by Lex Friedman on January 20th, 2010 The Chief: We're investigating that Like issue. I haven't seen it firsthand, but we'll do some digging! Report by Lex Friedman on January 20th, 2010 So the answer to this question is when? Report by Halliburton Shill on January 20th, 2010 I have another request that I had not seen. I had a comment to one of my old answers that had been merged. On it it no longer has any way to show that it was merged... no link to the original question. Also there is no way to edit past the 10 minute deadline. Often questions that are not exact duplicates are merged and the answers from the merged question do not answer the question they are merged into. This is going to result in merged answers that 1) do not answer the question, 2) you cannot tell that they were to a different question, 3) cannot be edited to answer the question. Here is an example: link Report by Arisztid in a COAT of Rromani awareness on January 20th, 2010 When is the new point system going to be up, it has been a month and a half! Also I keep getting 2 alerts for one comment. Report by SoulFire on January 20th, 2010 Comments and when they were posted: instead of telling us how long ago each comment was made, a value that obviously needs continuous updating, why not just put a date and time stamp on it. This will tie in better with the date/time stamps in the profiles and alerts lists. Report by borasalama on January 21st, 2010 Instead of "Friends Activity" can we please have "Friends Questions",after all thats why most of us chose our friends, to keep in touch with their questions.The only way to do that now is to go to their profiles which is far to time consuming when you have 200+ of them. I really dont need to know what their comments are to questions. Report by Tel UK-fishing for clues on January 21st, 2010 @SoulFire ~ "it has been a month and a half!" According to Lex, "Of course, we don't accept the question's stipulation that the new Answerbag is a failure; the key metrics we track on the business side of things are moving in the right direction." There you have it .. the business side of things is all that matters. Report by carpe manana on January 21st, 2010 I would really really appreciate the unsubscribe button back. Report by Gingerminx on January 21st, 2010 Not only does it not keep me signed in anymore, but now, every time I try to answer a question, post a comment, change the page, I am sent to sign in again as it says invalid password or email. I am really unable to use the site like this. It has taken several tries for me to get this posted so if it shows to you more times I apologise. Report by Gingerminx on January 21st, 2010 I do not know if I am going to be able to post this and I am only trying once. Today I am experiencing what Gingerminx is experiencing and am sent back to the login screen when I try to do, well, just about anything. Report by Arisztid in a COAT of Rromani awareness on January 21st, 2010 Yep, we had a big issue early today for about 30 minutes. Should be resolved now. Report by Lex Friedman on January 21st, 2010 How can you get comments to show when you know that there are comments. I think I saw something a while ago about sending a link to staff or something. I know I can comment and get it to come up but don't really want to reply that way. Report by Texasescimo on January 23rd, 2010 When you go to a friends profile under "Activity" it is on show "all" but it does not show all. If you click "questions" there is nothing there. If you click answers, all answers appear to be there. Can they fix those glitches too? Report by Texasescimo on January 23rd, 2010 If either of my questions get answered and someone notices that I have not responded with a thank you or something, will someone please copy the answer and put it under this question? http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1893609 Report by Texasescimo on January 23rd, 2010 I would like to offer one more suggestion which I have not seen addressed yet. Is there any way you can give Anonymous members a number or something so we can differentiate between them i.e. Anonymous 1001, Anonymous 1005, etc.? That would be very helpful in my opinion. When one addresses any of what must be hundreds of Anonymous members you are never sure you are addressing the correct one. Nothing earth shattering just a little niggling irritation. Report by CatLover-The Original on January 23rd, 2010 Hey CatLover! You know...that's been on the back of my mind, too, for the longest timne. All the users with the same scren name: Anonymous. That's a great idea, you came up with! If you choose to be anonymous, you get a number attached to your Anonymous... Meow! Report by HungryGuy on January 24th, 2010 A new daily glitch! Maybe that should be a new category.. Glitch of the day! Report by Legend In Your Own Mind 23 hours ago
Lex Friedman	January 15th, 2010 at 1:23 pm Questions with links now working better Questions that referenced URLs — like this one — weren't properly showing those URLs, rendering the questions a bit confusing sometimes. That should now be fixed! Read our earlier blog post to learn more about helping Haiti. 16 comments \| Post one Comments Thanks Lex. Report by XT. on January 15th, 2010 Avatars are not showing on any comments, instead all I see is your new logo. When I have a comment to an answer on a debate, instead of takign me to that comment, I have to scroll all the way through the whole debate, find that answer, then scroll through all the comments to find the new one. This is all becoming more and more frustrating. I check the blog often and see all this little things being fixed which don't mean squat to me, but these things, which are big when trying to use the site, continue to go unfixed for me. Report by Gingerminx on January 15th, 2010 Exactly, Gingerminx ~ "see all this little things being fixed which don't mean squat to me, but these things, which are big when trying to use the site, continue to go unfixed for me." Day after day with the announcements of little fixes and more fixes of the same little fixes, and of course, the same handful of thankful users. I've been waiting along with so many for anything that brings the fun back to AB .. how about addressing that, Lex? Report by carpe manana on January 15th, 2010 Comments are disappearing again. Report by skeeter on January 15th, 2010 I am trying to keep a conversation going in a comment thread but it is bloody impossible when they keep disappearing. Report by skeeter on January 15th, 2010 When I click on the question button it is once again telling me there are none. Report by Gingerminx on January 15th, 2010 I am not sure where to ask so I have opted for this in the hopes someone will pay attention to it. Could someone in authority please tell me what to do or where to report an AB member stalking another AB member. I would appreciate a response from one of the Admins please as it appears the Cls are powerless to do anything on their own. Thank you. Report by CatLover-The Original on January 16th, 2010 Bless you my son! (coming from someone who used that feature a LOT on the old board) Report by Mister IT has a Liahona equipped COAT on January 16th, 2010 CatLover: send those reports via the Contact Us link, or directly to admin@answerbag.com Report by AB-Rich on January 16th, 2010 Thanks Rich. I did send one to Contact Us and didn't receive any response but I don't know if I am supposed to expect one anyway. Admins must still be very busy working on the technical stuff. Thanks I will try the email you gave me. Report by CatLover-The Original on January 16th, 2010 We can't always respond individually, but everything submitted both places is reviewed in the order received. Report by AB-Rich on January 16th, 2010 Have followed up as suggested. Thanks again Rich. Report by CatLover-The Original on January 16th, 2010 Lex Friedman: as usual, a big thank you to everybody for the improvements. I have a few questions, but I preferred to ask them directly in Answerbag, could you please have a look: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1889753 http://www.answerbag.com/polls/html-tags-question-descriptions,-answers-comments-bug-feature-see-description_1889752 Report by iwnit on January 17th, 2010 Will the unsubscribe button be returning? Report by Gingerminx on January 18th, 2010 "I've been waiting along with so many for anything that brings the fun back to AB" Ditto, carpe manana! Report by HungryGuy on January 18th, 2010 Yep. Me too. It is just one big snore now. Report by skeeter on January 18th, 2010

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