Why no vote on solution?

[rodarmor]

It would be really great to be able to up-vote solutions. I see a lot of posts by programmers that aren't sure why some solutions are better than others, and it might really help with learning if the really great solutions were easy to find. I know that if I solve something sub-optimally, and then I see a solution which is better, I almost never forget it.

Thanks for the sweet site!

[ed_r]

I agree!

[stijn263]

yup, that'd be cool. would also encourage people to explain their approach better

[daniel.is.fischer]

Indeed, but would probably a PITA to implement

[topman]

About a year ago, rodarmor has already post this same topic but no reply responsed. So I STRONGLY recommend such feature again! Thanks for your hardworking.
Topman
Oct. 3 2008
p.s. The orginal topic link: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=667&start=0&st=0&sk ... hilit=vote

[hk]

Why did you start a new topic?
To make things clearer I merged the two topics, with the result that your link is obsolete now, but we have everything in one topic now.

As daniel remarked: that would be rather a problem to implement.

[euler]

First of all I am sorry for not replying to this request the first time round. I don't know how I missed it as I normally respond to every reasonable request.

Having said that, I'm not quite sure if I am properly understanding the request. Are we asking for the possibility to give "kudos" to posts and then have a filter for that particular problem that sorts the posts in the thread by kudos points?

Whereas I think this is a good idea in principle I see two particular problems...

(1) Many posts make reference to preceding posts and it might make sections of a particular post seem a little abstract when read in isolation.
(2) To avoid some members giving themselves multiple kudos it would be necessary to keep track of which post they have already given kudos to.

Problem (1) could be resolved by using the system to identify particularly elegant solutions and maybe creating a subteam responsible for extracting the methodologies/exemplar programs that most inspire members in a separate page.
Problem (2) is more of an issue. If members can give kudos to every post they see then it would be necessary to create a massive binary string for every post that has ever been made for every member that has the capability of growing as the number of posts increases. This issue could be dealt with in part if members were only able to give kudos to one post in a thread, but then do we allow them to change their vote? If so it would be necessary to keep track of which post in each thread they gave kudos to so that the original post can be decremented and the new post score can be incremented. It might be possible to create an extra field for every post that contains the ID of members that have given kudos. This seems a reasonable idea as not every post is going to receive kudos and would circumvent the redundancy issue of the previous method. However, if 10000 members give kudos to a particular post then that field value is going to get rather large.

If anyone has any suggestions on how these problems could be tackled, or if I have misunderstood the request in some way, then please let me know.

[stijn263]

(2) To avoid some members giving themselves multiple kudos it would be necessary to keep track of which post they have already given kudos to.

just don't allow members to give kudos to themselves..

[hk]

Regarding problem (1) and Eulers solution to that: creating a subteam responsible for extracting the methodologies/exemplar programs that most inspire members in a separate page.

That reminds me strongly of the overviews we started producing.
We already have a system to display them when produced.
A number of those overviews are already produced by the problem development team as an example how the team thinks they should look like.

The request seems mainly aimed at those problems that have an unreasonable number of posts in the forum.
How about reviving the overview idea?
That system does not stress the database and does not have the disadvantages of voting.
As mentioned earlier the problem development team has the task of producing the weekly problems, which is quite a lot of work I can assure you. That's the reason we are not advancing with the producing of such overviews.
From experience I know that producing an overview is a rewarding task when the job is done. Nevertheless it is not a simple task but I think it widens the experience. The best way is to start writing one for a particular problem and let it review by someone else.
If anyone feels like writing an overview for some problem where such an overview is not yet produced let someone of the team know so that we can check whether or not such an overview is already in the pipeline.
Someone of the team will be found that will be reviewing the proposed overview.

[euler]

just don't allow members to give kudos to themselves..

Maybe I've become too cynical, but I could imagine some less honest people setting up an additional account to award kudos points to posts from their main account.

I think your observation is spot on, Hans. I had completely forgotten about the "overview" documents. Of course, the objective of the "overview" documents was to focus on method rather than specific code and as you pointed out we all spent some time writing exemplar documents that I believe achieve this. Rather than leaving it open for anyone, I think it would be more wise to recruit a subteam of experienced members who would be responsible for writing overviews and they could work in conjunction with the main team to refine the final document. As you pointed out, Hans, it is not easy to write one of these documents, especially given the objective of writing a generic, accessible summary that synthesises the best of the ideas shared in the threads. An ideal candidate would be completely impartial and capable of identifying the best approaches without the need for voting.

So if anyone feels up to the task of working with a team of other members to help write and/or comment on overview documents then please contact one of the team.