MATLAB: Are we voting enough

matlab answersmetavoting

After about two months of MATLAB Answers, there are about 270 questions that have one or more votes. That's out of 4100 questions. For comparison, more than 1050 questions have no answers. The same is true of answers – most get no votes. The questions and answers that attract a lot of votes are mostly "meta" questions about MATLAB or MATLAB Answers, or "fun" questions (challenges). Are there really so few good technical questions and answers out there? Can we do anything to encourage more voting?

Best Answer

I'll vote for a question based on its:

clarity
example data/results
politeness
presence of error messages/specific details

It doesn't matter how advanced or not advanced it is. As far as answers, I'll vote for an answer that provides a good reference or working example/explanation, e.g:

doc so_and_so_function
http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#Why_is_0.3_-_0.2_-_0.1_.28or_similar.29_not_equal_to_zero.3F
F = zeros(size(k)); %preallocate for speed

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Answering the own question

I say go for it. I would say write the question and then immediately post the answer as an answer. I would hold off on accepting your answer until other people have a chance to chime in with what they think might be best.

Try it with a few questions, see how you do. If your questions are good and interesting, then you will likely get multiple answers or up votes to the question. If your questions are not interesting, then you will not get any other answers or up votes (up votes to the answer say little about the question). If you are not getting answers/votes, then it is probably an indication that you should stop.

MATLAB: How does MATLAB Answers break ties among answers

The accepted answer is always listed first.

After that, answers are sorted by the number of votes, then by when the answer was created (oldest-to-newest).

This can cause "jumping" when an older answer is voted up to have the same number of votes as a younger answer. For example:

Answer 2 is listed above answer 1 because it has more votes.

 +--------+-------+---------+
 | Answer | Votes | Created |
 +--------+-------+---------+
 | 2      | 2     | 00:01   |
 +--------+-------+---------+
 | 1      | 1     | 00:00   |
 +--------+-------+---------+

Answer 1 receives a vote, and appears to jump over answer 2 because, even though they now have the same vote count, answer 1 is older.

 +--------+-------+---------+
 | Answer | Votes | Created |
 +--------+-------+---------+
 | 1      | 2     | 00:00   |
 +--------+-------+---------+
 | 2      | 2     | 00:01   |
 +--------+-------+---------+

Best Answer

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MATLAB: Answering the own question

MATLAB: How does MATLAB Answers break ties among answers

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