- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Wish-list for MATLAB Answer sections.
Asked by Walter Roberson
on 8 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Latest activity Commented on by Rena Berman
on 15 Mar 2019
- 0 questions asked
- 25 answers
- 0 accepted answers
- reputation: 77
This topic (which was not started by Mathworks) is for features you would like to see for this MATLAB Answers facility.
I suggest one wish per answer, so that people can vote for individual wishes.
See Also
148 Answers
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 8 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
It should be possible to mark up Comments.
10 Comments
We implemented this in a release on June 27, 2012 (I'm using it right now!).
Walter Roberson
on 28 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Oh frabjous day!!
Walter Roberson
on 29 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Already I'm editing comments regularly. It's a very welcome upgrade!
Sign in to comment.
- 28 questions asked
- 48 answers
- 9 accepted answers
- reputation: 86
M Language Syntax Highlighting.
1 Comment
I've created a userscript that applies MATLAB syntax highlighting using google-code-prettify (it was originally intended for Stack Overflow). Project is hosted on GitHub.
Sign in to comment.
- 16 questions asked
- 5 answers
- 2 accepted answers
- reputation: 58
Notification when someone replies on a previously commented question or published.
6 Comments
We have implemented a notification system for new answers to questions. Thank you for all the feedback, it helps us to prioritize what features the engineering team works on.
How do we use it?
Please, notification for comments on answers. Desperately need it.
Bob
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 8 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
- In the list of questions, each question should have a "last updated" date and time, where an update is the addition of an answer or a comment or the editing of any part of it.
One can get the list sorted by most recent update time, but without a time stamp, one has to look at the individual questions all through to determine whether there has been an update since the last time one looked at it.
4 Comments
It would also be useful to list the user name for the most recent update.
Image Analyst
on 28 Oct 2011
- 0 questions asked
- 28,436 answers
- 9,315 accepted answers
- reputation: 51,746
Looks like this finally got done in October 2011. Yay!
Walter Roberson
on 28 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
And improved in today's update!
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 8 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
- "Next" and "Previous" buttons while reading questions, to move to the next or previous question without having to go back to the list of questions.
1 Comment
its really nice suggestion
Sign in to comment.
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
Answer by Matt Tearle
on 11 Feb 2011
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
Include questions you've commented on (but not necessarily "answered") in "my answers". This way you can keep an eye on a question where you're asking for clarification or suchlike discussion.
Note: this would be rendered less important if we had notifications of some kind.
6 Comments
Search for your user name, and look for the 'Subscribe to this View' link (below the search text box, on the right).
I just noticed this answer. If I search for my user name, I get 12 hits.
Walter Roberson
on 21 Apr 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
According to the help documentation, you can currently search using commented_by: tag
Sign in to comment.
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Answer by Jan
on 15 Feb 2011
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Perhaps this is implemented already - I didn't ask a question yet: If you select an answer as accepted, can you change the selection afterwards, if a better answer is given?
6 Comments
I was going to nominate that one for the longest living dead question so far...
Walter Roberson
on 7 Apr 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
The Night Of The Living Dead Question!
("Brains. We want Brains!")
Wow. I hadn't seen that one. That's...
Yeah.
Pity I can't vote twice.
Sign in to comment.
- 2 questions asked
- 2 answers
- 0 accepted answers
- reputation: 20
Posting a photo in a thread..
4 Comments
Yep. Anything related to the post, which may find useful for easier understanding and visualization.
You can do that with double passage, first by uploading a photo on say tinypic and then using the markup <<>>
And if tinypic stops its service, the corresponding question or answer becomes meaningless. Would it be possible to host the pictures on a TMW server?
Sign in to comment.
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
Answer by Matt Tearle
on 16 Feb 2011
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
An automated email: "Dear [user], than you for using MATLAB Answers. Your question "[title]" now has [num_ans] answers. If any of these responses has helped you, please accept and/or up-vote them. If none of these answers has resolved your question, please provide further input to help guide others on how they can assist you"
This email should be sent after n days inactivity, at an exponentially increasing frequency;)
9 Comments
That's why we care so much: because the stakes are so low!
Walter Roberson
on 28 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
@Matt: LOL
I have heard it said that in situations where large-scale distinctions between people are relatively rare, that people tend to become preoccupied with small-scale status symbols, such as parking privileges or office size.
Hah. Makes sense. I ripped off that line from somewhere -- it was describing university politics... I can completely see how the stuff I observed at universities was an affluent society's update to our primal urges to have our political enemies ax-murdered by corrupt government goons (after which you take their mud hut, beads, and lion skin loincloths).
Sign in to comment.
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer by Loginatorist
on 2 Mar 2011
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer folding.
Say there is a question which has 55 some-odd answers. I keep coming back to look and see if there is anything new, but since the answers move up and down with votes and other mechanisms, it soon gets exhausting. If I had the ability to fold answers I have read before - a choice that would stick between logins - then this process would be much easier.
I would like to be able to fold and unfold answers within a question. Perhaps a little star would appear next to the unfold button if there were new comments since I folded the question.
1 Comment
A very important improvement! It is nearly impossible to find the new answer or comment in a set of 55 answers and 100 comments. It seems like even a comment, which is deleted directly after the creation, changes the oder of the answers. Then it is even absolutely impossible to find the modifications...
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 8 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
My Answers should display the number of votes for the answers, not the questions.
0 Comments
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 8 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Allow links to a specific answer, not just the question it answers.
9 Comments
Image Analyst
on 22 Jun 2012
- 0 questions asked
- 28,436 answers
- 9,315 accepted answers
- reputation: 51,746
You're right. I'm not sure why I didn't see it at first. Maybe there are too many non-tutorial answers tagged as tutorial when they shouldn't be because they're just regular answers saying how to do something specific, such as this one: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/19062-fprintf-table or unanswered requests for a tutorial, such as this one http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/32107-manage-oceanoptics. I might untag some and get rid of the clutter so that only real tutorials are in there.
We made it easier to find these in a release on June 27, 2012. Click on the "Link" button next to an answer or above a comment.
Walter Roberson
on 28 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Nice, Randy!
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 11 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
The accept button should be further away from Comment on this answer, and it should be possible to undo it - at least for a grace period of a few minutes.
3 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 25 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Looks like this has been implemented in the last couple of minutes!
Walter Roberson
on 25 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
The further-away part, anyhow.
It's a start!
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 9 Mar 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Andrew mentioned as part of a previous suggestion that My Answers should include a search box. The same should also hold true when viewing someone's profile.
Go to my Answers and try to find something specific in there. With over 700 Answers logged already, good luck in finding what you are looking for...
The situation would not be as bad if the existing search box supported a tag for author search (and if author names were unique.)
8 Comments
Hi Matt - Yes, I did notice. Randy is working on this one. :-)
Image Analyst
on 18 Aug 2011
- 0 questions asked
- 28,436 answers
- 9,315 accepted answers
- reputation: 51,746
But it took 21 days to see Matt's post. ;-) There has to be a better/faster way to find new posts since last time you looked at a post.
As of last night, when you look at My Answers, it is now sorting by most recent. Enjoy!
Sign in to comment.
- 37 questions asked
- 1,022 answers
- 481 accepted answers
- reputation: 3,468
Answer by Oleg Komarov
on 8 Feb 2011
- 37 questions asked
- 1,022 answers
- 481 accepted answers
- reputation: 3,468
Smt like a Users list by score under the Home link (upper left corner)
Oleg
3 Comments
Bring it on.
The Contributors list has just been added, it's located under Home link. Check it out: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/contributors . Keep the feedback coming!
Very nice! Sorry, Oleg - it looks like your program has become obsolete.
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 14 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Adding a button for inserting images. Even though instructions for adding an image can be found in Markup help, more than one user has been unaware that it could be done (including one on this page!).
1 Comment
And store the images on a MathWorks server. The other hosters will delete the images in the near or far future and then the corresponding question will become meaningless.
Sign in to comment.
- 1 question asked
- 211 answers
- 103 accepted answers
- reputation: 979
A way to automatically scroll to the most recent answer/comment/edit. For example, this question has many, many answers and comments. But I don't know where the most recent stuff is. Perhaps there should be a "go to next recent content" button on the page, that takes me to different sections.
9 Comments
This is a regression--we will change it back to votes-first soon.
Walter Roberson
on 28 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Ah, I notice that the recent activity information at the top of the Question display, is now a direct link to that activity. That helps for the very most recent change, but not so much if multiple changes have been made.
The sorting regression is fixed--answers should now display with the accepted answer first, then the remaining answers sorted by number of votes (high-to-low) then date/time asked (least-to-most recent)
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 16 Mar 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Walter mentioned a "Best of Answers" area. A more flexible alternative would be an "Add to my favorites" button, so we can each keep a list of answers that we find really useful.
Of course, we can always bookmark them in our browser, but it would be good to keep them in the same environment as our personal questions and answers.
3 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 16 Mar 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
That's an interesting idea, Andrew.
Walter Roberson
on 16 Mar 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Though the Best of Answers would be aimed more at the incoming people who are willing to do *some* searching but would get lost in the unstructured morass that exists now.
I get lost in the morass too. Recently I spent fifteen minutes trying to find a particular answer and gave up.
Sign in to comment.
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer by Loginatorist
on 8 Jun 2011
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
A "Views" counter for the questions.
0 Comments
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 9 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
When one is being shown a list of Questions, it would be nice if hovering over a question link would show you a brief summary (e.g., first 100-ish characters) of the question statement. This would make it faster for people to take a quick look to see whether the question was interesting, or a quick reminder of exactly which question it was.
1 Comment
Walter Roberson
on 21 Apr 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Still on my wish-list! Was wanting this again about 2 days ago...
Sign in to comment.
- 37 questions asked
- 1,022 answers
- 481 accepted answers
- reputation: 3,468
Answer by Oleg Komarov
on 12 Feb 2011
- 37 questions asked
- 1,022 answers
- 481 accepted answers
- reputation: 3,468
- More meta info about the contributors: num. of votes given, num. of comments...
- Keep the meta info separate from answers/questions: try to load Walter's profile...it takes already a lot of time and if he keeps at this rythm in a year it won't be possible to load it at all...
I'm trying to think of long run stable way to query the site to have a score of the contributors. You can see an attempt in User reputation: post here to get into the list. It already takes 6 minutes to retrieve that info.
In general, it would be nicer if the list of the contributors and the meta info was available at one shot (and basically this is what I'm trying to reproduce)
EDIT
TMW team implemented a page with the metascores: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/contributors
Please refer to it and congrats to the team!
0 Comments
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 7 Apr 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Somewhere or other in the documentation, we need a note saying plainly that when a Title is edited, the effect is to create a URL which aliases the old one. For example, I had
http:.../4321-j-random-title
and after I renamed it, that continued to be valid in addition to the new name
http:.../4321-john-q-title
This behavior of keeping the old name accessible can be important because URLs may have been created linking to the old name. This is a good feature; documenting it would save people like me from having to worry about such things.
2 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 19 May 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Interesting... the behavior is not quite what I thought it was. It is not that aliases are created, but rather that as long as the number and dash are there, followed by any non-meta character (e.g., excluding '?'), then the match will be found. In the above example, http:.../4321-* would work just as well.
This is, incidentally, a way to link to a question by number without having to remember or copy/paste the entire title.
Technically, the dash is not needed either. So, for example, you can get to this question via:
Sign in to comment.
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
Answer by Matt Tearle
on 24 May 2011
- 1 question asked
- 621 answers
- 239 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,867
Some way to prevent questions being deleted without a good reason!
I'm getting really annoyed with people whose response to your help is to disappear and take with them both their question and your response to it. It's happened more than once to me, and not necessarily questions where the poster was doing something dumb -- perfectly normal question, valid answer(s), then... floop! It's gone.
2 Comments
What really upsets me about a question that I have answered being deleted is I never can remember who asked the question. My feeling is if you are going to delete a question that I have answered, then I am not going to answer any of your other questions (at least until I think you have learned better).
We implemented a partial constraint on this behavior in a release on June 27, 2012. You can no longer delete your own question once someone has answered it.
Sign in to comment.
- 14 questions asked
- 4,568 answers
- 1,616 accepted answers
- reputation: 10,017
Answer by Sean de Wolski
on 8 Jun 2011
- 14 questions asked
- 4,568 answers
- 1,616 accepted answers
- reputation: 10,017
A "How many users are online" string somewhere on the home page.
5 Comments
How about how many people are logged on to MATLAB central? That would at least give an approximation...
Walter Roberson
on 8 Jun 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
"logged on to MATLAB centeral" is the same thing as "authenticated to the web site" that I wrote about.
Oh, o.k. You confused me with your technical speak. ;-)
Sign in to comment.
- 14 questions asked
- 952 answers
- 366 accepted answers
- reputation: 2,571
Answer by Paulo Silva
on 18 Jul 2011
- 14 questions asked
- 952 answers
- 366 accepted answers
- reputation: 2,571
I would like to have a way to see when someone's account was created and how many questions that person deleted (maybe even the names of the questions deleted for those who are editors), this is because I clearly remember having answered several questions from someone but all those questions were deleted and the very same person posted a new question yesterday, I replied and that person exhibited the same old behaviour that triggered my memory, he/she didn't even look at the links I provided and asked something that isn't MATLAB related, I didn't answer the specific question because I would waste my time, this is MATLAB Answers not Control Engineering Answers.
6 Comments
Sean de Wolski
on 18 Jul 2011
- 14 questions asked
- 4,568 answers
- 1,616 accepted answers
- reputation: 10,017
Or at least answered by someone else. If you want to delete a question you answered yourself, I don't really see an issue.
Walter Roberson
on 19 Jul 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Although it is true that in theory this forum is about MATLAB, I find that in practice there are a lot of more questions about theory posed, or questions about theory that are disguised as MATLAB questions.
A fair bit of the time, "How do I do {something} in MATLAB" really means "I barely know what {something} is, but I have to implement it in MATLAB: how do I do that, preferably without ever having to learn anything about what the {something} really means or the mathematics behind it?"
I do admit that is the cynical view from having dealt with large number of students; I _do_ see people (including some of the students) who are interested in their topic, but are lacking the background in it and are also perhaps weak on their research skills (or research initiative) to investigate before trying to implement.
We implemented "no delete if already answered" in a release on June 27, 2012. Click on the "Link" button next to an answer or above a comment.
Sign in to comment.
- 30 questions asked
- 105 answers
- 25 accepted answers
- reputation: 347
Answer by Oliver Woodford
on 20 Jul 2011
- 30 questions asked
- 105 answers
- 25 accepted answers
- reputation: 347
Many questions get asked again and again. Why? Because people are not searching for previous answers before asking questions.
Stackoverflow suggests some similar questions that have already been asked when people are typing in their questions. It's therefore easy for them to see that the questions already exist.
This system also relies on good questions being voted up, so they appear at the top of the list. I have asked several (dare I say) well-worded questions (and usually answered them well too), with a view to providing a resource for people to refer to. This effort is wasted by the questions and answers receiving no votes, and the fact that people never search for them anyway.
So, TMW please implement question suggestions like Stackoverflow, and regular users please vote for well-worded questions.
1 Comment
Just curious, why is Matlab answers separate from Stackoverflow? I would like to combine all my reputation points (low as they are) in one place.
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 8 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
- Whether Preview is automatic or manual (or the switch-over point) should be a user preference.
7 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 24 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Jan indicated yesterday in another thread that he is getting quite badly hit by the slow speed of the automatic preview.
We added a disable/enable button for the preview in a release on June 27, 2012.
Walter Roberson
on 28 Jun 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Hurrah!
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 8 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
- For the benefit of those of us that like to do some infrastructure maintenance, it would be appreciated if there was a way to select questions that had no tag, or that had no Product . Especially in conjunction with the "next question" button that I proposed, this would make it much easier to step through postings adding appropriate meta information.
0 Comments
Sign in to comment.
- 25 questions asked
- 15 answers
- 1 accepted answer
- reputation: 17
Perhaps,
to group questions on Category (and create category list)
keywords do not enough
2 Comments
This would be a great advantage. I've never worked with Simulink, so it is more efficient not to read Simulink questions.
Walter Roberson
on 12 Apr 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Looks like this has been at least partly implemented.
Sign in to comment.
- 0 questions asked
- 3 answers
- 1 accepted answer
- reputation: 12
I like the idea of checking for relevant answers before posting a new question. As mentioned at [1], neural nets would be one vehicle for accomplishing this; alternatively, consider the following routine, for which x and y could be optimized.
Maintain a database of URL's, keywords, and tags for existing articles, threads, and questions.
For each new question title proposed:
* Define X as the set of all words of length > x from the user's proposed title.
* Search the database for articles/threads/questions whose keywords and tags match y% of the members of X.
* Display "Do any of the following answer your question?"
* Display best matches.
Implementing a quality search procedure now could prevent unnecessary clutter and avoid the difficulty of deciding whose answers to delete should cleanup otherwise potentially become necessary. This would help answerers by politely encouraging common sense questioning practices with which to prevent redundant and unnecessary questions, and users would feel more intelligently assisted and locate answers more quickly.
The dual objectives would be time-efficient search and high-quality user feedback. Search time might be reduced by categorizing questions and searching only within relevant categories. And recommendation quality could be optimized by using a modern optimizer to maximize the recommendation success rate per 100 questions on the 2D search space defined by x and y [2].
- http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/301724#818324
- http://www.georgeevers.org/HESTEC_poster.jpg
Regards,
George
http://www.georgeevers.org
5 Comments
George, I like this idea a lot. This happens quite a bit in CSSM where people *may* search for things, but ultimately end up posting his/her own question (which happens to be the same as 10 other questions). I think the interface can be changed to encourage the "search first" behavior.
Right now, there is a Search bar where you can type in keywords. There's also a separate "Ask a Question" button. The first problem is that some people will always go straight to "Ask a Question". Having two separate interfaces (search and ask) gives the user options, and it becomes hard to enforce the behavior.
Now once a user asks a question, we could do something that you suggest which is to give some recommendations on existing questions. But we run into the issue that Walter mentions, which is that some people don't provide meaningful titles. Some titles have nothing to do with what they actually ask.
So what I think is that they should get rid of the "Ask a Question" button. There should only be an edit window that says "What is your question?". With that wording (as opposed to "Search MATLAB Answers"), people would hopefully ask the question using natural spoken grammar. They certainly won't type "help!" or "Plz give me code!" because that's not a question. It would force users to type descriptive questions. Based on that question, the system can go through and search the Answers database to come up with some candidates that may be relevant to the asked question. This part is the same as your idea. If the user doesn't see anything relevant, then he/she can go ahead and fill in the rest of the question (description, tags, products).
Walter's experience with tags is exactly why I think that it would be better to just use Google for searching MATLAB Answers (see my separate answer). Why try to reinvent the wheel when someone else does it so much better? This would be quite consistent with many of the other proposals in this discussion.
See this about tags also: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/33319-is-matlab-or-matlab-code-a-useful-tag
Sign in to comment.
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Answer by Jan
on 15 Feb 2011
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
I do not like to be tracked by Google-Analytics. In Germany it is currently checked, if this service conflictes with the laws for data protection.
It is obvious that participating in a newsgroup is not very private at all. Nevertheless I see no reason to let Google know my IP, such that they can check if I've opened a browser window for Ebay or Amazon, while I'm posting at MATLAB Answers. Or does anyone needs informations like this: "People who have bought this book have been interested in these questions also: ..."
So my wish is: Disable tracking by Google-Analytics.
2 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 24 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
With Firefox and the Abine and NoScript extensions, I have enough control to disable cookies on a site by site basis.
On the other hand, unless I change my username, there isn't much that can be done about the fact that google is going to index the 'Walter Roberson' author against the content I write -- not without disallowing google from indexing the site, which would have many disadvantages.
Google-Analytics is an online service, which stores your IP-address. This is another quality than indexing the text you've posted here. If you browse through Ebay or other web sites controlled by GA, Google has enough information to perform the cross-correlations. If you browse this page from your IPhone with enabled IPv6 and did not enable the privacy control, Google knows even your unique MAC address.
I'm using NoScript also - otherwise it is hard to register that GA scans the users of MATLAB Answers.
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 15 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Documentation (and on-line help) of the search capabilities.
Known but not documented:
- string to be searched for in the body
- tag:"tag string"
- product:"product string"
Thought I saw:
- a prefix for searching by author. I can't reproduce this, not through author:"author name", not through author:contributornumber
Possibly it was in the newsgroup that I saw this supported.
Unknown and not documented:
- any other supported prefixes
- whether terms are phrases or "and" or "or", or if words not found at all are silently dropped and a search done on the rest.
- whether terms are case sensitive -- or can be made to be
- whether there is a spelling-correction pre-pass on the search
- whether comments are searched
- whether the search is on the unrendered or rendered form -- in particular, are urls themselves searched for matches
9 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 21 Jun 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Search term stemming is used! For example if you search on "computability" you will find "computes" and "computing". Common suffixes are stripped off of the input text when the index is generated, and also stripped off of the search terms when a search is done, and matches are determined.
It is _not_ a simple case of matching prefixes. For example if one searches on "compu" then one will find exactly one posting (well other than this one): it is a posting in which someone mistyped "computing" as "compuing". Strip off the common suffix "ing" and "compu" becomes a recognized search term...
How do I search for a phrase such as "Simulink debugger"? How do I require that two words both appear in an answer, such as "Simulink" and "optimization"? This is not covered in the documentation (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/about/answers/). I get better results searching the whole web with Google than using the Answers search window.
Walter Roberson
on 22 Mar 2012
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
"simulink and debugger"
but without the quotes seems to be the current method.
I did test with quotes as well; if I remember correctly I got results that I could not characterize at the time.
ps: dang, took me several minutes of searching to find this update!
Sign in to comment.
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer by Loginatorist
on 18 Feb 2011
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer numbers. If we can't link to a certain answer within a question, at least give the ability to link to the question and say, "See answer 12." The numbers could be fixed even if the questions move up and down, so we have two ways of tracking things.
2 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 25 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
See also
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_3868
Image Analyst
on 17 Jun 2012
- 0 questions asked
- 28,436 answers
- 9,315 accepted answers
- reputation: 51,746
Walter - nothing happens when I click on your link.
Matt, I heartily agree. I almost added this myself until I decided to search this page for "number" and found your suggestion was already in here. I was going to say this in a new "Answer":
I think the answers should be numbered, so that when someone wants to refer to a particular posting it can be done easily. For example "That suggestion has already been noted. See Answers #2, #16, and #42." The number should be retained when the "Accepted" answer moves to the top of the Answer list, or else it would mess up everyone who referred to a number in their answer.
Sign in to comment.
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
Answer by Andrew Newell
on 19 Feb 2011
- 15 questions asked
- 758 answers
- 297 accepted answers
- reputation: 1,997
There should be a way of uploading a data file so that people can retrieve it but it doesn't take up a lot of space on the display. Sometimes we just can't figure out what the problem is without the data (as, for example, with question 1504).
2 Comments
It should be possible to add size-capped mat files!
Walter Roberson
on 26 May 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Some of the upload sites people are using are aggravating to free downloaders.
easy-share for example: nags you to join, and if you choose to download for free, makes you wait 30+ seconds before you can do the download. And if you are like me and have javascript disabled for most sites (e.g. via NoScript) and have to turn it on to download from there, you'll have another 15 seconds of imposed delay before it even gives you the chance to trigger the download; multiply by 3 because there turn out to be multiple site's scripts referenced there...
Anyhow, the current ad-hoc list of download sites is in http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/7924-where-can-i-upload-images-and-files-for-use-on-matlab-answers
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 25 Feb 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
When there is a problem posting (a comment or answer), currently the content of what was to be posted is lost; going back from the error page refreshes to the current content without the attempted addition. This can be a major time waste if one has posted a long reply :(
Wish list: that when an error page is given, that the attempted text be made available so that the user can at least copy it and retry or save it for later submission.
4 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 8 Jun 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
I would call this a bug, at least for the case where something goes wrong with the processing. The case where one is replying to something that got deleted is perhaps not a bug, but if I've put a bunch of time in to constructing a reply, losing it can sure be annoying -- e.g., I might want to save what I wrote for future needs, or might want to email what I wrote, or perhaps I was writing into a posting that got deleted because it was a duplicate, or perhaps I was writing into a posting that the original poster deleted without good reason and I might be wanting to post the material to the newest incarnation of the poster's question.
Sean de Wolski
on 17 Oct 2011
- 14 questions asked
- 4,568 answers
- 1,616 accepted answers
- reputation: 10,017
If the OP deletes a question while a reply is being written an error page shows up when the answer is submitted. I would like the error page to contain the text that was just written so it could be copied to a text file in case the OP reposts the question.
Walter Roberson
on 17 Oct 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Yup, exactly what I was complaining about!
Sign in to comment.
- 14 questions asked
- 952 answers
- 366 accepted answers
- reputation: 2,571
Answer by Paulo Silva
on 28 Feb 2011
- 14 questions asked
- 952 answers
- 366 accepted answers
- reputation: 2,571
Too many people are using the Answers system like they use a search engine (google,bing,etc), I'm tired of trying to find out how to do something (wasting my time solving other person problems) and that person doesn't accept my answer or someone else answer, doesn't vote, etc.
I'm not here to earn points, I play fair and even vote against my own answers if I feel that someone else's better, the only thing that makes me mad is the amount of ungrateful people that post questions expecting answers and don't bother to vote, accept or just say thank you.
We need a way to vote down on the users, give them -1 point for the things already mentioned.
2 Comments
But will the negative votes have any effect? If enough people create positive votes frequently, a missing vote is as good as negative. The tags and comments are a further method to add an individual voting. I do not read questions with a doit4me tag and I do not invest a lot of time in an answer, if the OP does not reply to questions about necessary details. I feel free to post this in a comment also.
Another idea is to answer just voted questions - but unfortunately voting good questions is not very frequent yet. So see my answer...
I think it would have some effect, or just flag those who keep asking questions without interacting with the system and those who help them.
Another good thing could be only allowing someone to post a question after that person posted N comments somewhere else, that way could encourage people to interact more with others ('break the ice') and search for answers first.
Sign in to comment.
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Answer by Jan
on 28 Feb 2011
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Dear community! Please use the chance to vote questions and answers exhaustively to increase the total quality of MATLAB Answers.
A guideline for voting and choosing an accepted answer would be helpful. E.g.:
Vote a question, if it is helpful for others and contains most likely all necessary information to solve the problem - even if your personal skill does not allow you to answer.
Or:
Vote a question, if you think, that reading it and its answers help to improve the personal programming skills.
Then a question with many votes but no answer gets very attractive for advanced programmers, questions with many votes and an accepted answer becomes attractive for beginners, while questions without a vote after 4 days are obvioulsy irrelevant.
1 Comment
+1
Sign in to comment.
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Answer by Loginatorist
on 2 Mar 2011
- 13 questions asked
- 1,506 answers
- 796 accepted answers
- reputation: 5,335
Let me put blank lines in my responses!
If I type a line that doesn't go all the way to the end of the window to wrap automatically, then hit return to enter another line, the second line is appended to the first as if I had never hit return. Also, I cannot put multiple blank lines in without doing this fake dot
.
.
.
thing. (dot,return-return; dot,return-return) This feature would be useful for making a space in order to draw attention to an edit to an answer.
2 Comments
+1
I have a small screen and need a large font size. Such empty lines do *not* catch my attention, but force me to scroll vertically during reading. A picture, bold font or the picture of a well-known author are much better to catch the attention.
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Answer by Walter Roberson
on 3 Mar 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
When constructing a comment or editing an answer (but not in initially submitting an answer!), if you have a line that begins and ends with a double-quote, then everything before the line and anything after the line are usually (but not always) lost, along with the double-quotes.
I had an example in my previous edition of this Answer, but when I edited the Answer to add more info, that line became the only thing left of the Answer :(
Wish: fix this behaviour.
7 Comments
Walter Roberson
on 21 Jun 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
:whimper:
I had another Comment trashed today where I input a quoted string result :(
This should be fixed as of June 28, 2011
Walter Roberson
on 1 Jul 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
Thank you!!!
Sign in to comment.
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Answer by Jan
on 3 Mar 2011
- 71 questions asked
- 11,984 answers
- 4,144 accepted answers
- reputation: 28,058
Unique user names would be helpful to recognizewho has written a comment or question.
Some days ago I've read a comment by "Matt" and answered it by citing another thread, where I had discussed with "Matt" before. But there are 7 Matt's at the moment. By accident I've moved the mouse over the name link and have seen "Reputation: 0". This was about 300 less than expected.
Any ideas how this could be improved?
9 Comments
What might happen, if I change my name to "Walter Roberson" and copy his photo?! Sabotage is a bit to0 easy.
Walter Roberson
on 27 May 2011
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
I'm wondering what would happen if I changed my username to something like </HTML> or </FORM> ;-)
Twelve Answers models. Seven are known. Four live in secret. One will be revealed.
Sign in to comment.
- 31 questions asked
- 42,215 answers
- 16,282 accepted answers
- reputation: 84,458
6 Comments
Andrew Newell (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_18881
Jan (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_32055
Daniel Shub (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_86633
Sean de Wolski (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_86642
Walter Roberson (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_86813
Walter Roberson (view profile)
Direct link to this comment:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections#comment_86953
Sign in to comment.