Comment by Nevermark

Comment by Nevermark 3 days ago

5 replies

Skipping unanswerable questions would be good for everyone. Any answer would be misleading.

But answer choices should not be qualified by anything, because that systematically creates unanswerable regions.

There should be Context and Question, narrowed down any way the questioner wants. Then just “Yes” or “No” without qualification.

That is what a jury does.

Or: allow answer qualifications, followed by an automatic “None of the above”.

Anyone getting a lot of the latter is getting accurate feedback that the choices they posted were too narrow.

Without either fix, the basic logic of the utility will often be broken. Maybe both? Allow questions to be yes/no, or n choices with NOTA.

thaumasiotes 3 days ago

> Skipping unanswerable questions would be good for everyone. Any answer would be misleading.

I disagree with this. The purpose of the website is to provide answers. If you let people skip questions, you can't guarantee that any given question will ever be answered.

The whole concept here is that you aren't asking people who hold particular credentials. You, Nevermark, should provide your take, regardless of whether you feel it's valid.

However, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that the two answer options are both specified by the user. They should be limited to "yes" or "no", with the meaning of that supplied by the question.

  • Nevermark a day ago

    But you can’t provide your take if it isn’t an option.

    You can click a choice you don’t agree with, or the other choice you don’t agree with. Neither choice is a service to anyone.

    That is the problem of the current site in a nutshell.

d3Xt3r 3 days ago

Maybe also add a "Needs More Info/Context " option. So two choices which the user provides, and then two system-added options (NOTA/NMI). If the jury votes on the latter two options, allow the user to resubmit the question with edited text/choices.

ensignavenger 3 days ago

Even one of the poster's sample question, the one about the brothers third wedding, is one I would not want to answer with a simple yes/no.

  • shermantanktop 3 days ago

    Definitely not answerable. Not without knowing whether it’s a cash bar or an open bar.