Update: Sorry Tom, I meant for this to go in reply to Steve's post. I guess that makes it one of those 'useless' posts everyone is complaining about.

:o)

When doing a search, if you find a message that provides the resolution to your problem, a way of marking that message (like some forums do) would be great, even if that message was marked 20 times already as the resolution. It would provide a way to view the most common problems with the appropriate resolution regardless of when it was originally posted. That may save on some of the repetitive postings. Would that be a thumbs up on a post? I'm still not clear as to 'who' gives the thumbs up or down--the UT audience in general or a 'select' group?

Tracy

>Steve;
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>Well stated! Everyone on the UT should read this.
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>Tom
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>>Ric, I think you're misunderstanding a key element.
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>>It's not all about keeping people's scores, though the system could well do that, and the most thoughtful and helpful among us might appreciate the business that naturally comes from being genuinely valuable online.
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>>This is really more about identifying great takes, and elevating them so more people can easily identify and see them.
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>>So in other words, it's about rewarding great ideas, and great expressions of insight, and secondarily about identifying the people who are behind them.
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>>It's not about surrogate twit filters. or anything else, really.
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>>=====
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>>Here's an example. I have nearly 18 years experience of clipper/xBase/Fox experience. I've worked in over a dozen countries for companies big and small. I come here every day, and mostly I do not answer questions nor do I read more than maybe 25 messages per day. I could do more of both but I don't because it's just too frustrating. Too much clicking, scrolling, reading, and generally getting nothing out of it. Many days I see the big list of messages, and I don't click any of them.
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>>My UT usage algorithm is as follows:
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1. Zero-in and focus on high value posters. These are (in my 25-message per day experience over the years) in no particular order Rick Strahl, David Frankenbach, John Ryan, Ken Levy, Yag, Tamar Granor, Sergei, Christof Lange, Bill Anderson, but very few others. I'll also occasionally read posts by other friends. I know there are some other great people saying valuable things but I don't have the time or the patience to search and dig.
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2. Next I look for posts by people whom I know are abusive of the position they've somehow achieved. These are people who pose as clairvoyants, but generally give terrible and demonstrably odious advice.
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>>That's it. I miss about 400 messages a day because scrounging them is a very low, arguably negative, payoff proposition. I *know* I'm missing something that someone may have spent 20 minutes composing and contributing, and I'm poorer for it, but it's just not possible to get more than minimal value from the UT unless one has a lot more time, which I don't have, for increasingly marginal returns.
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>>I would read much more, and respond much more, and generally give more if I knew that the time I spent online could be leveraged by others. In other words, if my time online was more productive, and if my time also made other people more productive by flagging really great takes or by down-flagging the messages I stumble-upon that are off-topic, personal, or technically without value. It's a total win-win proposition.
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>>Note that messages will accrue value over time, and not become immediately quasi-worthless and buried by the next day, as well over 95% of all messages do now. Imagine looking at a list of all the posts from the past month or year, sorted descending by the sum of their +/- thumbs...
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>>The one-star three-star thread-originator system we have now underachieves in a very, very big way. It shows us answers or partial answers to maybe 10% of the questions, and it does not reward good insight or the expression of engineering judgement that always comes with non-trivial software problems. It's also shown us precisely who some of the "givers" are, and that's obviously good, but aside from that, it's non-participative and it's but a shadow of what we truly could use and value.
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>>**--** Steve
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