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Possible solutions for OP's not coming back to there question

I have been thinking over what ifixit could do about OP's not coming back to their question after posting it. I believe this is getting to be a large problem. Out of my 250 answers, only about 15% of them have been selected as answer, largely due to the problem of discussion. Similar numbers have been observed from other reputable members.

However, looking at Jayeff as an example may show us approximately how many answers are affected as such. From my personal knowledge, I see Jayeff's answers very well written, and nearly always are selected as solution. This can be backed up by the fact that he has exceeded the reputation cap almost every day for more than a year.

Now, as his (answers) A/AA (answer accepted) ratio is just as good about as good as it gets, I will use it as a base. 60% is roughly the A/AA. That would mean that 40% of all answers go without the OP ever coming back to the question.

I have a few Ideas on how to solve this, but it would be great to hear from anyone else interested in the subject.

After two days with no activity (no activity meaning no votes or comments or such, or if possible page visitation), from the OP, they will be sent an email encouraging them to return to the question. If the link within the question is not clicked and there are no answers yet, the OP's question will be deleted a week of more inactivity. However, if the link is clicked, the question will remain open for another 14 days if there are any comments. If there are any answers, the "most helpful answer" will be selected as the accepted answer after 21 days of no activity by the OP.

Of course that plan has bugs, but I was hoping I could get some feedback from others. Thank you.

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@pccheese I hear you young grasshopper and I feel your pain:-) all the hard work or researching and no responds from the OP. Just does not seem fair, does it? Remember why we do what we do. It is not for fame, glory or financial rewards. It is because we like what we are doing! Sharing our knowledge empowers others to do their repair and keep their device afloat. I figure that for every 10 people that ask a question only 2 or 3 will ever come back to that question, for whatever reason. But if those that come back actually get good quality answers and it helps them to repair their device, have we then not succeeded?

Yes, @jayeff is a perfect example. His answers are well written, to the point and very concise. I yet have to read an answer by @jayeff that did not apply. So the reason why he achieved the point count is because he gives quality answers and is very active with doing so. Simple math, the more you answer the more points you accumulate. This is not to say that people with less points know less. It just means that they may not be as active.

The one big negative part about your proposal I see is, we are still going to answer the question. We'll do the research and post the answer but the OP does not return. Under your proposal "the OP's question will be deleted a week of more inactivity" which would delete the hard work somebody did as well. You are not keeping the OP's from continuing to ask their answers without ever coming back, but you will have people thinking twice about answering question only to have them deleted after. A lot of work for nothing?

If you look through Meta around 2014/2015 you will find a lot of discussions around this with no real resolution. I suggest that we continue doing what we do best. Help others regardless if the OP comes back or not. There may just be a person out there that has the same issues with the same device and will be helped by one of us. Good enough for me. Let's continue to have fun, support each other and learn from each other.

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Hi,

After I stop blushing.

There is satisfaction to be gained from getting an answer accepted knowing that your solution has helped somebody and also that you got it right.

However even if it is not accepted the answer can still help a lot of other people who might have the same problem and satisfaction can be derived from that.

Not quite the same but I have one particular answer that whilst it was accepted it also has over 60 upvotes and 40 comments (36 where it worked and 4 where it didn't). This is over a period of 15 odd months, so you can see that an answer can still help a lot of other people not just the OP, especially if you also add your formula about people who use the information and do not respond one way or the other.

There are other answers as well that haven't been accepted yet still attract upvotes and / or comments (long after the posted date), so again somebody has been helped and perhaps the landfill is a little less full than it could be. Given your age George this may become more of a problem for you in the future than it will be for me ;-)

Cheers.

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Good suggestions! We do currently email people and suggest they accept the answer. I'm sure we could be more insistent about this. I'm always interested in more ideas to improve here, so keep them coming!

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@jayeff, yes that's interesting about the old answers. I am always surprised when I get the monthly stats. I haven't been at it nearly as long as the other veterans but my most viewed answer, and by far, is this one (https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/3549...). Ironically, I was not "chosen" yet I received the most votes (only 3, I'm such an amateur ;>) and it is certainly not the best answer I have formulated. It just goes to show that what users want is not always what you think. The questions and answers will live a long life, way beyond what you intended.

If you do this for points, you WILL be disappointed!

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@refectio - Often I mark up the better technical answer which might not be the chosen answer as I want to make sure the OP or anyone else viewing the question gets the idea the higher voted answer might be the real answer to the problem not the chosen one (OP's often select the first seen answer as the correct one even if it's not).

@pccheese - I'm always amazed how many people review our answers and even vote! The popularity of a problem is often because so many people encounter the same issue. Even though the OP may never have acknowledged it as being their answer. As @jayeff pointed out the information here will live a long time! Offering help to many others.

The only think I don't like is when a Q becomes to chatty either off subject or nitpicks on something. Q&A type of dialog flows do tend to be a bit sterile So I do understand the want to have something more. This is were the Pro space and even here are better suited for that.

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Well, I don't know what to say. There just isn't a solution to the problem. But maybe we could still do the last part of my suggestion, to help the moderators a bit. Thanks for the input everyone.

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@pccheese George, it's not really rejection. To learn about that start asking girls out ;-)

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Ahh... Thems where the days...

You opened a door for the las, you plucked a flower for one, all the while you get rejected. Then someday things turn around! Your rejections don't hurt as much and often you get a yes! Even later the girls are asking you out!

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Ummm, errr...

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I think you also have to be careful about ratios. Up until a few weeks ago, I could see that I was getting about 20% of my answers accepted organically. This ratio has been true pretty much since the beginning of my contributions.

If you check some other contributors, for example jessa, who is pretty much the gold standard in iphone logic board repairs, or iMedic; they are at 20% . I believe this is normal because a), the answer you give will not always be the correct b), the answer you give will not always be the best one (out of potentially many), c) the OP will not always distinguish the truly best answer, d) the OP will never bother to select or vote and e) the OP will post a question and never come back. Obviously the quality of your answers will have a direct impact on "accepts" but it will never be perfect.

When you look at folks like @jayeff or even myself lately, we benefit from the moderators (@mayer, @oldturkey03) going back in time and "accepting" answers when they appear to properly respond to the question or are the best solution. This comes back to the quality of the original answer.

This is not just for free points though...I believe they are doing this to help new users who search through the archives. When you find an question that is 1 year old, it may 20-30 answers, most of them just clutter (@kyle that is another topic that I will address in another thread). Accepting an answer helps a user focus on the right or best answer rather than trying all sorts of weird recommendations. This is just my opinion of course, the mods can state the true reasons if they like :>).

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While I'm not as aggressive as @mayer or @oldturkey03 going through the older questions, when I have the time I do make an effort. I also try to thin out the chaff a bit putting repeated posts under the same answers the clutter is cut down.

Sadly, it all takes time. I guess the question is: Is your house as clean as you would want, or clean enough to be livable. Thats the same here... The amount of energy to put everything in an orderly fashion is just beyond what one can do. Besides, no sooner do you finish, you have new stuff to clean up as its never ending.

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@refectio you are right about the reason for going back in time. I do take an effort in accepting the "most likely" correct answer to close the loop on those questions. This goes back to what you stated in an earlier comment " questions and answers will live a long life". It may make it easier for future answer seekers to repair their devices.

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Unfortunately, even when the answer is selected, some people like to post their answers, most of which are "Remove as not an answer" cases. I do like to help out with the moderating as much as I can, but I could easily find 100 questions that have gone out of hand or a duplicate of another. We really need some more moderators. @refectio @lpfaff1 @theimedic @jimfixer to name some of ifixit's brightest and best for the job.

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@oldturkey03 hope this gets through iRobot's got me, help! 7 minutes ago I commented here. Nothing wrong. I look at my rep and noticed it dropped 100. Now the comments in passed votes. Help!

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@pccheese let's see if this will last and if iRobot leaves it alone ;-)

There are plenty of question out there that suffer from what you are talking about. Remember that ifixit is almost as old as you are :-) so some of those will always be there. Have you noticed that some answers are flagged as remove as not an answer just because we think that those are wrong? That is not the role of a moderator. We do not make a decision to delete an answer just because we think it is wrong. Even wrong answers are answers. We only remove those that truly are not answers (the hey thanks me too comments that are posted as answers) and those that are obvious spam and offensive. We are not judging right/wrong nor do we judge opinions. We do not remove questions as unanswerable because they may not make immediate sense. We try to encourage the OP to elaborate on what they are looking for. See, there is a bit more to it.

Continue to mark those that you see as unfit and let the mods figure it out. You point us the way....

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George A. will be eternally grateful.