koobas.hobune.stream
Closing Duplicate Questions... but what about with the Help Room now?
I just closed a topic in the Help Room because it's an error BCE0044 topic (missing whatever, expected whatever else) ... I helped on it a bit, but closed it anyway since its one of those topics... but should we leave those open now (at least until an answer is accepted or the issue is resolved) since the help room is for helping with random issues with individual scripts although they may be considered a duplicate question since so many of the same types of questions exist?
Edit :
eg, the topic I closed : http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/1036390/assetsmenu-1js101-bce0044-expecting-found.html#comment-1036405
It seems like we would leave these now if they're in the Help Room. That seems to be the intent of that space. But some official word would be nice.
I am still confused and then off from the help room. I can see the actual purpose of it. I can see questions there that are more advanced than in the normal room. I tend to forgot about it as well... But it is just me.
Its up to us to make sure that the right qs end up in the right places.
Just because its in the help room, doesnt mean it shouldnt have been rejected or closed.
We should stick to the old tenets of what goes on to UA, but the new help room is to push aside the swathes of basics that clogged up our list beforehand.
Basic Q? -> Help room
Retarded Q? -> Reject
No research whatsoever? -> Reject
You know, lads n ladies ... the usual.
This seems like part of the larger Q, about what the rules for the Help Room even are.
I think all "fix the error in my script" should always be allowed, since that's primarily why it was created. We can't call them Duplicates since the posters don't understand that -- "I searched, but the other scripts with this error were different from mine."
Even for obvious duplicates, like "how do I color an object?" I think the Help Room is so that person is no longer told RTFM, and writes nasty stuff to Unity. Much like a real Help Room, it's set up to politely handle Qs that the users don't know they could have looked up.
Pretty much, every Q in the Help Room fails to meet guidelines for main UA. So the guidelines for Closing a Main UA Q probably don't make sense over there. And they've never been that good to begin with (I see Qs closed with "right answer was accepted," which is explicitly not a reason to close a Q.)
The best general guideline I can think of is: the Help Room's main purpose is to keep main UA cleaner. Right now, now one cares what goes on in the Help Room. Maybe a community of "Help Room Mods" will eventually have an opinion.
This is pretty much how I'm interpreting things as well and it seems to be working well and as intended.
I see Qs closed with "right answer was accepted," which is explicitly not a reason to close a Q.
For me this depends on if the question is open for eveyone to draw from or if it is very specific to the user. "Oh yeah I had a missing semi colon" -> close. No good it being open.
How do I jigger my thingymabob to perform world do$$anonymous$$ation -> Never really gets closed. A good answer may have been presented but theres always the chance of a better on one day.
In my opinion the base requirement is an appearance of effort.
With the 'let em through' philosophies many people will end up running away with a lot of free code and no further understanding on how it works.
We cant suddenly ignore RTF$$anonymous$$ as we then make the manual ( and other base requirements ) obsolete. We cant encourage new users to take this route by default.
For me the help room doesnt change ANYTHING. Those who fall short still do but those who made it but barely will now be tucked away in the help room.
Its not a new wooden standard for new users, its an organisational tool for us.
The rules of rejection havent changed.
I don't have an official word on this yet, as it's new and still being tested as a concept. Owen has summarised it pretty well, and it's not that black and white what rules we should have for the Help Room. But as Fafase also mentioned, there are more advanced questions in the Help Room that could just as well be in the main/default Space. It may take some extra work to move these questions between Spaces if we can spot them, as well as discovering what methods we should have for handling content in the Help Room but in time we will learn what works the best for both mods and users.
I think that all 0 and 1 karma users' q's should automatically be placed in the help room and moved out of it if required. I do believe that would be a lot less work for the mods.
For Graham's pet hate questions (Error code - you know; the really basic ones) I still dont see a problem with throwing a google search at them. Teach a man to fish and that. Just be polite.
It would be nice to streamline them all in to one giant post for each code; a bit like a web or a directory.
But I don't think there's that much of a correlation between UA points and "question maturity." Seems like many of the good questions come from experienced developers who just never had a reason to use UA before, so have 0 $$anonymous$$arma. And being sent to the Help Room ... how many would ever return from that?
You are quite right, except that in general we get a far greater number of help-room worthy questions than real ones. So all it would mean is that ultimately we would perform less '$$anonymous$$oves'.
The choice is either, keep wading through piles of rubbish
or
Help those who need it out of the help room pit.
This is something we have to figure out how to solve. There are many experienced devs who use UA (they find solutions while searching) but after a few years may need to post a question. Hopefully they will post it to the default site (ending up in the mod queue) rather than Help Room directly though. So perhaps we just need to be more clear on what the difference is between Help Room and Default space, and when to post in which.
Ive just been putting things in the help room that are super basic or common. Or things which are of no particular use to anyone else. Or can be found in the manual. That is, if the question isnt a reject. I still refer to RTF$$anonymous$$ but I make sure they know where the manual is.
You'd be surprised how many people dont know about the Scripting API reference.
"Ive written a double jump script but..." -> Help Room (sometimes)
"I need help to double jump" -> Search Google! (->Reject)
I still often use "This is answered many times. Even if you did not understand them, the answer you will receive will be no different" (->Reject)
