Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Topic: How can we improve the DHanswers site?

Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Topic: How can we improve the DHanswers site? http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Topic: How can we improve the DHanswers site? en-US Fri, 04 Oct 2013 23:00:06 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/search.php Arno Bosse on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1296 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:50:49 +0000 Arno Bosse 1296@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1283">post</a>: Aha, yes, I can see the green check mark on the left - I had missed this earlier, thanks (I take it the check mark I see renders a page as green but does not flag the question/topic itself with a checkmark? As in this thread?). I do follow the reasoning behind no best or closed answers. Conceptually, I fully agree. Just, I think I was coming more from a perspective where the presence of a check mark on the DH Answers homepage on just a handful of articles makes it "look" as if the others haven't been answered yet. This is reinforced a little bit (not much, because the link isn't immediately apparent) by the "Questions With No Answers" link at the bottom left under Find Answers. Another suggestion might be to remove the checkmark to the left of existing articles to avoid creating the impression that some haven't been answered (and not use this feature anymore in the future) but leave in place a means to mark some responses as "green" for exactly the same reasons you cite above. Alternatively, if you do eventually decide to move to a more complex system (DH Answers becomes a victim of its own untamed, untrammeled, runaway success :^) you might want to look at the new Atlassian Q&A site (<a href="https://answers.atlassian.com/" rel="nofollow">https://answers.atlassian.com/</a>) as one possible model. They're using an open-source product from <a href="http://www.osqa.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.osqa.net/</a> It still looks too fidgety for my taste, but perhaps there's a way to turn off various bells & whistles as needed. elotroalex on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1289 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:37:51 +0000 elotroalex 1289@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Count on me for Spanish. Bethany Nowviskie on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1283 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:30:33 +0000 Bethany Nowviskie 1283@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @<a href='/profile/kintopp'>kintopp</a>'s <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1280">post</a>: Thanks for the great suggestion about adding multilingual "welcome" posts! I think we should really make this a priority -- and we'll probably need to call for volunteers to help out. On the question of "best answers" and closed-out versus "open" questions: DH Answers admin and the original poster of each question should have the ability to designate one or more answers in a thread as "best answers" by clicking a "best answer?" link with a little green check-mark next to each post. If you are not seeing this for questions you posed, please let us know! We actually decided that we don't want "best answers" in DH Answers to "close" our questions (which is one of the reasons we're using this discussion-forum platform over some other available choices). Many of the issues being discussed here will never have a single, correct answer -- but the green highlight is a useful indicator of quality content and a nice way for question askers to acknowledge when a particular answer really hits the mark! Arno Bosse on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-1280 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:37:48 +0000 Arno Bosse 1280@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ I see that some replies to questions are marked in green as "best answer" but I can't see a way to do this myself for the questions I've posted. Have I overlooked something? I think the ability for questioners to "close out" a question (with or without a best answer) would be very useful. As it stands now, the ratio of open questions to closed questions is skewed heavily to towards the former, which I don't think properly reflects reality, and leaves a bad impression besides. Another, unrelated suggestion is to offer shorter versions of the sticky "So, what is this forum?" post in several languages to encourage people to pose questions or to reply in French, Italian, German or what have you.. alternatively, simply encourage people to do it anyway in the existing Q&A. I suspect many in the DH community in Europe or Asia have no difficulty reading English but might feel hesitant to respond in writing in a non-native language. elotroalex on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-720 Sat, 20 Nov 2010 02:07:50 +0000 elotroalex 720@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ I noticed you can't remove a reply. I wrote one earlier that was redundant. It was an accident, but they happen. jamesc on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-690 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:11:46 +0000 jamesc 690@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-689">post</a>: now that is clever... I use google alerts for other things (TEI generally and Digital Medievalist) but I didn't think about targeting it using a site serach. ;-) I don't think this thread can have a single 'best answer' flag, can it? -j Bethany Nowviskie on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-689 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:52:36 +0000 Bethany Nowviskie 689@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @<a href='/profile/jamesc'>jamesc</a>'s <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-687">post</a>: You could always set up your own <a href="http://google.com/alerts">Google alert</a> search, with parameters like: <code>site:http://digitalhumanities.org/answers TEI</code> Oh, I'm so clever. Do I get a "best answer" flag? ;) jamesc on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-687 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:41:55 +0000 jamesc 687@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @Bethany Nowviskie's <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-685">post</a>: It might be regionalism, you are right... I think arts-humanities.net since it was launched in UK advertised itself there more. But also maintenance and sustainability of such things is difficult without funding. That's why DH Answer's model as crowd-sourced is better, as long as the impetus keeps up. I am too lazy to come too often without constant prodding (ok I'm following @dhanswers and so that should help). Is there a way to get announcements based on keywords? I.e. if any posts have XML, XSLT, XQuery, Markup, TEI, etc. in them I'd probably be able to help. Sometimes you can't tell from title. -James Bethany Nowviskie on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-685 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:09:10 +0000 Bethany Nowviskie 685@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ I don't want to speak for the CUNY folks, but perhaps regionalism is a factor. Just as, say, HASTAC tends to be more North American-focused, Arts-Humanities.net tends to post more info about UK/Irish and other European events, groups, etc. But thanks for the reminder! I'll include a link to <a href="http://www.arts-humanities.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.arts-humanities.net/</a> as well. (You probably sense from my answer why I encouraged ACH and ProfHacker to adopt the purely crowdsourced model for DH Answers! Carefully curating a generalist resource would be a tough and thankless task!) PS: one thing I like about the CUNY site is this section, on "<a href="http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wiki/index.php/Hot_Topics">Hot Topics in DH</a>." I hope they keep that up! jamesc on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/3#post-684 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 13:59:05 +0000 jamesc 684@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Bethany, How is the CUNY thing different from the existing arts-humanities.net? It seems people keep wanting to reinvent such things. I agree with everything you said. I guess one way to do this in the DH Answers context is to make sure that at least one such referral (to TEI-L Mailing list or some popular piece of software or whatever) is put into each of the major sections, then people can just add new posts to that project if/when they feel like it. But yes, pointing to any of the largest DH portals from the About section seems reasonable to me. Bethany Nowviskie on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-682 Sat, 13 Nov 2010 13:48:54 +0000 Bethany Nowviskie 682@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Picking up a conversation from another thread that really belongs here, this is in response to @<a href='/profile/jamesc'>jamesc</a>'s <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/tei-basic-tags#post-680">post</a>: Hey, James -- on the subject of the relation of specialized email lists to DH Answers, we're in perfect agreement here: the goal should be lots of fruitful interchange, useful referrals, and awareness of all the resources we have available to help each other (especially new colleagues) in DH. (And I'll pause, in a sappy way, to say: how lucky we are! It's a generous and friendly global community.) Part of the issue here locally is that we've wanted the DH Answers model to be simple and -- as much as possible -- unmoderated: ask a question and we'll see who answers. I like the idea of a sticky post with a list of useful general DH resources elsewhere, but also don't want to create something that's a pain to maintain and goes rapidly out of date. Instead, I think we should encourage people to add to efforts like the <a href="http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/wiki/index.php/The_CUNY_Digital_Humanities_Resource_Guide">CUNY Digital Humanities Initiative Resource Guide</a>, which is a new wiki and (I think -- although it could use the kind of catalogue of DH-related tech lists you're talking about) is probably the best and most helpful intro-to-DH guide out there. So, I think I'll add a mention of that and a link to <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org" rel="nofollow">http://digitalhumanities.org</a> to our sticky thread on <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-i-find-info-thats-already-been-discussed-help-dhanswers-grow">how to find answers in DH Answers</a>, and would really welcome suggestions of other similar initiatives that seem likely to be kept current! Eric Johnson on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-557 Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:53:16 +0000 Eric Johnson 557@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ I'm finding that I have to log in almost every time I hit the site. I'm not sure if that's because it's timing out since it may be a day or two between log-ins, or if it's because I'll check it from work one time and from home the next (p'raps sessions are somehow tied to IP address or the like). I'd vote to up that limit if possible--either increase the span before we time out or allow log-ins from multiple sites. Miriam Posner on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-530 Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:22:44 +0000 Miriam Posner 530@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ Replying to @<a href='/profile/nkelber'>nkelber</a>'s <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-435">post</a>: One potential solution to the repetitive question problem might be what ask.metafilter does: after you've submitted your question but before your question is posted, you're treated to an intermediate screen, which delivers the results of an automatic search for the question you've entered. A very sternly worded warning says something like, "Take a look at these other questions. Do they address your problem? Are you sure? Are you really sure? If not, then click submit to post your question." Bethany Nowviskie on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-480 Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:30:57 +0000 Bethany Nowviskie 480@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ I love the favoriting feature that sends you emails with the content of new posts to your favorite questions -- but wish it were smart enough not to send double-posts if you also have your preferences set to receive a notification on ANY new post. Likewise, it'd be nice if those shorter emails you get if you've turned the drinking-from-the-firehose option on could also include the name of the creator of the new post. (That'd sometimes be a helpful determining factor for me in deciding whether to click through. Not that I'm stalking any of you brilliant people.) nkelber on "How can we improve the DHanswers site?" http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-can-we-improve-the-dhanswers-site/page/2#post-435 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:35:26 +0000 nkelber 435@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ In my personal experiences with forums (as an expert in some cases and an amateur in others), repetitive questions can drag down the level of discourse. Experts don't want to answer what they deem obvious, noobs (in this case, grad students ;) feel like they're being ignored. I don't necessarily think DH Answers needs this right away, but it might be nice to have a wiki or, as sheepeeh suggested to me, drupal database which amalgamates the knowledge and experience being culled here. Such a database would be helpful to budding scholars looking to become a part of the DH field who may not have enough departmental, university, or personal connections to DH.