Proposals: Q/A post filtering and conversations

[Former Member]

Hi all,

I'd like to propose several enhancements to existing SDN forums functionality. Probably other users will find them useful as well.

So, currently it is possible to see messages of specific user via clicking on his name. What is lacking here:

1. Unfortunately, there is no divide between questions and answers. Or, going further, questions, valuable answers and "the rest of answers". As for me, it would be just great if I can open my own posts that was questions just to check whether or not I've closed them.

2. Also I'd like to have an option to slice results in conversation-like fashion. I open recent posts by certain user (current behavior). Now I'd like to see my own conversation with him: where I provided answer to him or he answered me (i.e. our conversations). The benefits:

2.a. It's easier to check user's "level" (novice, advance, expert whatever). It seriously affect how to help him: for some users only exact code fragments can help, for others just general hints or API entry point is enough. The reverse is also true: should I take his advices with a grain of salt or rely on them safely?

2.b. It is easier to refer to previous discussions where current topic was mentioned as something related, or some environment / configuration details was posted.

Sure, that benefits of [2] could be archived even without such conversation-like search. However, I firmly believe, that any given pair of humans interact differently. For some ones plain English is enough (not my case, just look at this post , for others Java|ABAP|SQL|ANY_OTHER_PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE-esperanto is necessary.

Thoughts?

VS

[Former Member]

I think if we were a given a command line and enter our own regular expression , I think most of the things you mentioned we would be in a position to do. However, we have to know some of the fields , perhaps date fields , etc...

We all want to slice and dice.

Referring to pt. 2a , I am not comfortable with user level. User level brings more bias and relying/unrelying is a decision that needs to be taken by the person who posts the question. It is an open forum, everyone will/can contribute.

Regards,

Subramanian V.

[Former Member]

First, thanks for you feedback.

Let me explain what I mean by "level". It does not invalidate "openness" of forum in any sense. It affects how I personally will communicate with given person:

1. I know users on WD forum for whom it is just enough to get a hint what they are really looking for, just get a correct keyword.

2. On other hand, I met several guys, that feel themselves offended by such my suggestion. In replies they said smth. like "Thank you for solution that doesn't work", however I'd checked twice search results before posting -- they lead to solved problems. Sure, we need communicate in different way next time. This is the point.

3. Some suggestions are quite radical: re-visit your architecture, use a different persistence mechanism, split application differently etc. Even evaluating such advises take considerable time. If this is posted on WD forum by Armin Reichert or Bertram Ganz I take this very differently then advise from somebody else. Yes, I will be very biased. But this is my choice, anyway

VS