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Feedback: Using FixBot in Answers

Hi! We've been noodling on using FixBot to help out with Answers, but I'd like to get all of your feedback on it.

Despite everyone's amazing efforts, we still don't have an answers to as many questions as we like. FixBot can help fill in the gaps where we have repetitive questions, low effort questions, or just didn't have the right expert on hand the day the question came in.

We are going to start with a few experiments:

  1. Prompting the user for more detail for their question
  2. Reformatting questions to be more useful
  3. Answering old, stale and unanswered questions. (Like this and this and this.)

When we answer questions as FixBot, we want to be respectful in how we do it. We're initially thinking of having FixBot post like any other community member, with posts that can be voted up and down.

What do you think? How can we make this helpful and additive to the community? What kind of safety checks would you like to see in place?

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Historically I have always marked those weak posts as archive since nobody comes back. That said if I looked at those two I would consider the fridge one an archive and bury, the Xbox has potential. There needs to be sufficient context. The F3 code washer is borderline as it has something helpful, but not a lot of steps done - you'd need to assume no TSing.

As far as where I stand on it... As I have always said: there needs to be an AI disclosure, either if you give it a "profile" or make it standalone but include an AI disclosure stating it's to finalize a legacy answer. Beyond that, no harm no foul. However, I would propose one rule: it has to be old enough any moderator would agree the question is FUBAR aged. It shouldn't be done until the question is so old there's a 0% chance someone will do it organically. How I would approach it is something like this: Instead of automatically doing it at a threshold, we should have the option to do a ping like @fixbot to get it - it should not kick in automatically since a lot of posts with this issue were dead ends to begin.

As far as what I consider too old? 2-3 years in human land (with exceptions for posts with potential, but I will not touch them), but once it hits 4 years old I generally have always sent it to die via archive. If it hasn't been archived or a mod comes across it as a possible FixBot can do this post, I see no issue in bringing it back. HOWEVER I have one concession I want to see: Do not promote them to the top - a bot is filling the gap in. We should not be promoting AI answers as more valuable than a human response. This bot should also not earn reputation points. The results by far outperform anything from Gemini or SlopGPT, even Copilot.

One other point of concern: I have helped with things like BIOS passwords as I can and feel comfortable doing to - the machine has to be old enough I know it's a decommissioned unit. I will not reveal my threshold here, but I will say this much: I look at how many are on eBay. These require a lot of caution for theft assessment.

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Thanks Nick! Yes, I agree that FixBot posts need to be clearly marked that way. We're planning on making a new user and having these posts come directly from the FixBot user.

In terms of not promoting these old posts to the top: that's reasonable, but we may have some system limitations to work through. I'll see what I can do.

I like the idea of tagging the bot to invoke it to weigh in, I'll look into that.

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@kyle if it can’t be avoided that’s a concession I can live with. But ideally we avoid putting them on top because it might encourage bad ChatGPT answers competing with FixBot, as well as spam. Maybe it’s something we can lock right away if it becomes a pattern. Likewise if reputation points can not be avoid keep it off of the leaderboards and hard code it to stay off.

The bot should look at the age before answering to make sure it doesn’t take over something new. If it sees a post from 2018 with no helpful details it should refuse — likewise a 2018 era post with solid info gets an answer. I consider 2-3 years the limit of what is reasonable to fix as a human but if a bot is doing it I see little reason to not allow it to fudge 5+ years. It would save a lot of questions I personally would choose to condemn because it is old and will never see an accepted answer, or feedback.

If it is fresh all human options should be evaluated first. Even if it keeps a list of experts in certain matters that are known.

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@kyle I actually like the idea. Let FixBot loose on the "old, stale and unanswered questions." That would tie up some loose ends and may actually still help people out by having solutions for their issues. I am sure you can "see" which one of the unanswered questions do still get looked at for an answers.

One of the concerns I have are the "low effort questions". I understand there are tons of those but those might be exactly what new users are looking for to answer in order to help them get their feet wet. Are you possibly running a chance of decreasing recruitment of human intelligence by having FixBot answer those? You know it's difficult to recruit new talent and the "regular " crowd is maturing quickly :)

Also, will you be monitoring the percentage of the current answer rate performed by human intelligence and compare that to the percentage once FixBot is fully integrated? My concern is that the answer rate could become even less. Do you have a cutoff for that so that iFixit Answers does not turn into something that is totally run by AI? How about giving the humans a month-long head start or something like that? Longer than that would really be of no value. Aside from cleaning up Answers, of course. If FixBot uses more energy than we (the Humans) do, make it work for it.

The older cousin iRobot has taken a lot of negative hits over the years for all those wrong deletion etc., I feel with should treat FixBot with a bit more respect and welcome the technology. Let's integrate and not segregate and let it earn its keep but show reward by treating it no different than any of us. Rep Points and all.

Like I said, I for one am all for it. As long as you all keep an eye on it so it doesn’t turn into a "human versus machine" and "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" situation, let's go for it and see where it takes us.

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Like I'm fine with rep points, but it shouldn't be competing with us. Use it as a way to clear stale questions, absolutely -- especially since the death rate is 100% once we get to a certain age bracket. If I can ping fixbot over moderate it out of existence (and it's a good quality base) I'm all for having a 2nd option.

There really needs to be a set of hardcoded limits - no questions under 3-5 years old when they're basically dead to us, and complex high risk ones are not touched. I would also say it's good to explain things like why you can't beat Chromebook MDM - we know (and I especially know!) but explaining how I pulled enough hackerman stunts in my teens on the early XP machines as context to validate the information is old. 2nd common covers the rest because of the character limit being fixed :/.

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https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/9341... -- This is an example I consider too much for a bot - it needs the nuanced knowledge needed without being fed context like 3V 5.4L Triton, or having the poster tell us. Unless you know the series is 100% 3V or can use the VIN, you can't quickly tell from a glance.

The trick is this: “L” = 2V, “N” = 3V and the model year: 2V engines are typically before 2004; 3V engines are 2004 and newer, though some 2004 models may still be 2V.

As to the maturing part... I'm at the point I'm leaving most of the basic questions be for someone looking for credibility unless I can tell someone will be misled by a bad answer if it is likely going to be complicated somehow. I don't need it anymore -- I feel like me taking on a common question is an insult to some of the high level ones I've taken on at this point. I don't expect someone new to shrug at a 5.4 Triton and know about the 3V oil issue.

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@nick I hear what you are saying but we got to teach it well. So, the more it works and is around the smart people on iFixit, the greater the chance of it becoming smart too :-)

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@oldturkey03 I think a middle ground concession would probably be better - give the PITA ones where all the experience is needed to figure it out to the ones who know, leave some easy wins for the new ones.

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@benz78 @vauweh looking at it from a European perspective, what are your thoughts about this? KI etc., is viewed a bit different "over there" :-)

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Hey guys, and thanks for asking @oldturkey03

I had to think about this for a while ... before i started writing an answer. Is the Fixbot a good solution or a bad solution (some people have this black-white view, when i browse some of the questions on Meta)? My opinion: neither nor! New technologies often tend to separate people in pro and con -groups. It depends on how we are using it.

Here my 2 cents from this side of the pond: The activity in the german answers is growing, and from 1 mod some years ago we have now 4 active ones. We try to answer every question and help everyone and use the support of our fellow comrades @oldturkey03 and @dan0 . Every mod has his own expertise but we try to support even when we the question is not our sweet spot. But every one and then a question comes where no one from us has a single clue how to tackle this problem. Then the Fixbot comes in handy, because he/she /it is giving some advice how to take the bull by the horns. I could not answer the question myself, but advocating the help of Fixbot is an additional resource which is very helpful here.

Option 1 + 2 from Kyle are sounding OK to me. And if we additionally set the user Fixbot to jump in after a couple of weeks (months?) to answer unanswered questions i would be all in :D
When difficulties are poping up, it is early enough to do some finetuning.

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First, the statement produced by ChatGPT:

“Caution is essential when using AI for repairs. AI lacks hands-on experience, real-time assessment, and may provide inaccurate advice, risking worsening issues. Its static knowledge may not address evolving technologies or unique circumstances, potentially leading to unsafe situations. Balancing AI with human expertise is crucial for accurate and safe repairs.”

That's just it: so far, I've never relied on AI because I found it too unreliable. (We expect improvements in the future). But I like to use it to get information in advance. Fixbot has the huge advantage of specializing in repairs. I've used it quite often and am really pleasantly surprised by the quality of the answers.

I think all answers with AI support—including those from Fixbot—should be clearly marked. We can no longer completely prevent members from creating answers with the help of AI, but we can require that these answers be marked with a note. I would therefore not award any points for them and Fixbot..

For old questions, I would only trigger Fixbot's answers manually; for newer ones, I would wait at least four weeks.

By the way: We could perhaps reduce low-level questions if we put the questions into some kind of template that also helps Fixbot:

(Something like this:)

Model name:

Year of manufacture:

Error description:

What has already been tried:

Image (if possible):

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@kyle - I'm likely going to be the fly in the ointment here!

Many of the unanswered questions are like the ones you linked to are short, incomplete or just nebulous. Which is why they tend to linger falling off the table.

Pushing the poster for more details only goes so far as they them selves don't even understand the magic held within! My mom had no idea how to use her cellphone for years! Even after spending hours with her. It just went in one ear and out the other! I loved her dearly but she needed a simpler interface a one button action for the important things. At the time I spent a good few weeks programming it up so her Home Screen had what was needed, I hadn't programmed in years so it took me a while to dust my brain cell off. In the end she was happy!

Sadly, I think we are facing the same thing here! Our older generation made the transition, but many of the current only see the world as work-broken and don't know how to describe the broken beyond just stating that!

This then gets into how to keep them engaged trying to pin down the fault. From as simple as what was the break point, that is when it was working and when it stopped as well as backwinding from that point on what happened that was different. As often as we know the damage could have been before it was noted.

We also need to be careful as we sometimes over assume the skills set of the person. There's no measure to know the persons background, so they maybe more capable that we expect or just trying to learn. And leaving them in a dust with a bunch of techno babble when they don't understand is no better.

So I think the Bot needs to assess their skill set in the process of getting more details. Simple answers to questions need to be short not too long ideally pointing to a task page and within the header area a tools and skills listing. The skills might be a link to another page which gets into it. At the end it must ask do you feel comfortable with the task? Do you have the needed tools? And lastly there maybe sundry items needed to do the task adhesives or tapes.

Then how deep do you go? One of the killer tasks we have faced is opening up the newer iMac's and then afterwards the display popped off damaging things!

Even the common sense assumptions have to be spelled out. And even less obvious things do as well! As an example I ruined part of my dinning room table with a ESD mat as the mat had a plasticizer or something that reacted with my tables finish! Just sitting for a few weeks.

I know! Where to start!

Old questions (6 weeks or older) - Likely are abandoned but can lead to someone else finding it for their issue. So outline the steps to drill down and aim them to open their own question.clearly identify this is a bot response.

Newer Sound bite Q's - Push during the process the more details the better! If they were unwilling to give deeper details they likely don't have the knowledge or facing language issues! Prod them to use their native language if they are struggling. Then if possible identify the language and offer an English translation.

Future enhancements:

Time zones! It really would be helpful knowing where the person lives so if we can we can aim them to a parts source.

We got the where can they go for local service button which is great! But we have no way to link it within an answer or even access it to even see what is available where they live. I get how we are in a strange time when up is really down and left is right and inside is outside. We can't be afraid of the BS around us and just do the Right Thing for the given person. Leaving them in the cold doesn't help them and country politics shouldn't shape us.

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Great points, thank you Dan! I've shared it with the team. I also like the idea of sharing the country that people are posting from so that advice can be tailored to them. I'll look into it.

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Kyle Wiens will be eternally grateful.