BookmarkSubscribeRSS Feed
art297
Opal | Level 21

First, glad to see 's post, about how to ask a question, being highlighted on the main page.

Second, I just noticed one of the many times someone has suggested that an original poster mark a post as being either helpful or correct.  While people ought to always do that to thank the responder, the post I just saw was suggesting they do it in order to help people find correct answers when they search the forum archives.

I think we should add another mechanism, in addition to the current one, namely that would let all users rate posts as being either helpful or correct.  Often, the original poster marks a less than correct post incorrectly, fails to identify a more correct post, and/or wants to mark multiple posts as being correct but can't.  This new mechanism I'm thinking of wouldn't add points for anyone, but definitely might serve to give one searching the forum a better tool for identifying answers that have been vetted by the entire community.

Art

9 REPLIES 9
Reeza
Super User

Like StackExchange? Vote answers up and down...I do like their system, but not the layout because people use it incorrectly most of the time.

art297
Opal | Level 21

Yes, like StackExchange, but with a better layout.  In fact, I'd capitalize on the ratings that we already have, and have assigned proportional to the rater's rating.  Regardless, however done (as long as it is done correctly), let future searchers know what the community's experts thought of the various responses.

FriedEgg
SAS Employee

As far as I know, Jive doesn't have a feature like that, aside from the current point system we use here now, the alternative is what they call their gamification module.  It adds a lot of neat and engaging features in an attempt to better reward participation, like the points system does.  If we will ask for changes, best to spend our effort on features available to our software...

Jive Gamification Module: End User Documentation | Jive Community

art297
Opal | Level 21

(Matt): I have to slightly disagree.  A bit of SAS coding can enhance what Jive has to offer.  Me thinks, what is most important is what we are ultimately trying to achieve, not what our foundation software has to offer.

Quentin
Super User

Sounds like  a great idea to me.  They already give folks the ability to vote on the SAS ballot ideas, and you can vote up or down.  So something like that would get you most of the way.  (Probably would want the votes/ratings to be anonymous, but require a user to log in before voting). 

BASUG is hosting free webinars Next up: Jane Eslinger presenting PROC REPORT and the ODS EXCEL destination on Mar 27 at noon ET. Register now at the Boston Area SAS Users Group event page: https://www.basug.org/events.
jaredp
Quartz | Level 8

I doubt there is a way to use SAS code to enhance this site which runs on a third party platform called Jive.

One could probably connect SAS to the backend of Jive which is likely some sort of relational database, but I don't know if there would be an easy way to pump results back into Jive (unless there is some sort of HTML widget or access to the site templates).

Even if you could, you may not want to.  It means maintaining two separate systems for a single feature.  I'm not sure it's worth it.

To me, the real issue is that most users would not take the time to rate responses in multiple ways.  Even the rating features that already exist do not get used all the time.  Less is more.

AncaTilea
Pyrite | Level 9

Arthur and all this sounds like a great idea.

However, my one thought is that while the experts of the community may find an answer "more correct" or efficient than other answers, the user that asked the question may not have the SAS skills required to grasp the "more correct" answer.

As a quick example, I don't know/understand (yet) hash tables. I know they can accomplish things rather more efficient than other methods. If I were to ask a question about reading some data, merging, I don't know this and that, and I get one answer using data steps, one answer using SQL (perhaps) and one answer using hash tables...I would prefer as the best fit for me the SQL one. maybe the experts would find the hash tables as "best"...so, I can mark the SQL answer as correct, and community users can mark/vote whichever answer they find more useful.

To finally get to my point, I am afraid to not lose the more "simplistic" answers. That's all.

Cheers.

art297
Opal | Level 21

: I'm not suggesting doing away with the current point system or how points are awarded or to which posts.  Simply adding another evaluative layer. 

Reeza
Super User

What about getting people to use the LIKE feature that is currently enabled but adding a sort by the number of likes for the responses?

I think might be one way to start sorting through responses.

Then if they're anything like facebook they can sort all the top liked comments to the top of my feed. The result is that I don't see anything new for days and don't go on....

Until I found a way to change the sorting Smiley Happy

sas-innovate-2024.png

Join us for SAS Innovate April 16-19 at the Aria in Las Vegas. Bring the team and save big with our group pricing for a limited time only.

Pre-conference courses and tutorials are filling up fast and are always a sellout. Register today to reserve your seat.

 

Register now!

How to Concatenate Values

Learn how use the CAT functions in SAS to join values from multiple variables into a single value.

Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.

Click image to register for webinarClick image to register for webinar

Classroom Training Available!

Select SAS Training centers are offering in-person courses. View upcoming courses for:

View all other training opportunities.

Discussion stats
  • 9 replies
  • 1055 views
  • 5 likes
  • 6 in conversation