High reputation users having trouble understanding Super User?

Question

With about 1 million views a month at the moment, Super User is turning out to be successful, however due to the general audience the concept of a Q&A vs. a forum is still something we need to deal with every day. Part of the problem is a few of the high reputation users do not understand Super User, and one idea to help improve this is to send an e-mail to all users with 3K+ reputation with the goal of explaining how Super User works, and the role these users play on the site. The content of the mail would be something along the lines of the following:

Dear Super User,

We would like to thank you for your contribution to the Super User website, and appreciate the time and energy you have put into being part of the site. As a high reputation user, your role on the site is slightly more than just answering questions, and we would like to ask your help with the following:

Due to the larger audience Super User caters to, and the lack of understanding about the site, we would like to ask that you are vigilant with closing duplicate questions, and identifying questions that do not meet the criteria listed at https://superuser.com/faq. Unfortunately, there are currently a lot of these questions being answered rather than closed, which makes it hard to control the level and quality of the content on the site. Please keep in mind that the goal of Super User is to be a canonical source of information, linked by Google, with a single up-to-date question providing the most up-to-date answer.

kind regards,
Super User Team and Moderators

There are a few of the top users constantly answering these questions instead of closing them, and this has actually created friction, highlighted by various comments on answers. The problem is that it reflects negatively on the site as well as causing these users to stay away or even needing the diamond moderators to intervene. Honestly, the diamond moderators are just that, moderators, not psychologists. As pointed out by the answers, some of the existing regulars have already started to leave Super User because of this.

Instead however of penalising users and potentially losing valuable members, there needs to be some way to encourage more positive interaction. However this can't be done unless these users are made more aware of the goals and functionality of the site, instead of it being treated as another forum.

Thanks to Jeff:

So the real implied question is, how much direct coaching should be/is appropriate for the 10K+ users on a trilogy site?

And how can we do indirect coaching, that is, make the software nudge them to do the right things and nudge them away from the wrong things?

Some more recent examples of where these issues occur:

1. This answer on a question closed as subjective by the community caused some interesting comments.
2. This question which is not computer related has 1 answer. Common pattern here: Vote to close and answer question.
3. This exact duplicate generated 1 high rep answer.
4. This question should have been closed outright.
5. This is another multiple duplicate question.

Some more samples courtesy of random with comments:

• ISO on a USB drive? Answers sound eerily familiar?
• Got a problem with a drop-down list on Windows? Enlarge the original screenshot.
• Clearing history on Windows 7? Two high rep users answer instead of casting a vote to close or a comment about the dupe sitting in the Related list.
• Monitoring network traffic? Split the answers across questions!
• 7zip command line getting you down? Post dupe questions. Always gets an answer.
• And when a high rep user finds out after they post a shot in the dark that there is a close vote, but all they do is comment? Don't worry, if a question is open, that brings in more eyeballs.
• What if a new user finds the dupe themselves? Post answers anyway!

Personal Note:

I do not agree with the stance "I am going to answer and vote to close just in case it stays open", I also do not agree that closed questions should allow accepted answers or voting. However apart from putting the high rep users in the penalty box, which is a negative solution, I would rather find a positive way to encourage correct behaviour.

Furthermore, the two items I would really like to see changed on Super User are:

1. Diamond moderators having to intervene and close every question.
2. Users staying away because of the actions of high reputation users.

Summary:

Is there currently any way apart from the suggestions already made in some very good answers on how to deal with this correctly? Is this really a problem? Currently there seems to be strong support for some sort of intervention, however is there also strong support for not doing anything?

Some Implemented Solutions

• SVN Revision 6276: Introduced expanded closed boxes with more detailed descriptions for closing reasons, including detailed descriptions of the specific close reason once the question is closed.

Answer 1

Cracking through the 3000 rep level to start close voting, it's really been the only fun part of visiting the site now. Blowing through the meagre 12 votes a day and watching as either Diago, Ivo or Troggy come down with their power vote to close out the dupes or off-topic questions is the only reason to even visit the site any more. Barely.

The first column of the users page are notorious for rarely voting to close and always, always making sure they get an answer in. The current top two users are the worst of the lot.

Dupes that are eventually closed are answered by the high rep users who also post duplicate answers knowing full well that even if the question is eventually closed, they'll stick around collecting their precious reputation points.

They don't have any problem understanding how the site works.

The problem is that they couldn't care less outside their reputation and badges.

Examples please?

• ISO on a USB drive? Answers sound eerily familiar?

• Got a problem with a drop-down list on Windows? Enlarge the original screenshot.

• Clearing history on Windows 7? Two high rep users answer instead of casting a vote to close or a comment about the dupe sitting in the Related list.

• Monitoring network traffic? Split the answers across questions!

• 7zip command line getting you down? Post dupe questions. Always gets an answer.

• And when a high rep user finds out after they post a shot in the dark that there is a close vote, but all they do is comment? Don't worry, if a question is open, that brings in more eyeballs.

• What if a new user finds the dupe themselves? Post answers anyway!

Answer 2

We should stop rewarding unwanted behaviour

For instance giving rep to duplicate questions/answers makes it worthwhile NOT to close it. If people know there are duplicates and they won't get rep for it if someone closes it as one, they might as well link to the original version instead of posting a needless answer

Another issue is that people will post similar answers. Instead of deleting their duplicated version and adding their info they think is relavant to the other person's version, they will leave their version to garner some additional upvotes. Sadly, I have no idea how to reward people for not doing this, without gaming the system. Perhaps rewarding editing a little bit more?

Similar to the previous situation is when looking to answer a question and find that it has already been answered, but poorly formulated or lacking certain info. Instead of editing this answer to make it better or up-to-date, a lot of people will just leave them as they are, since there's nothing to gain.

My bottomline is: we need better incentives for good behaviour

Answer 3

This should have been done a long time ago. At this point, however, such an email would be a bit insulting for some higher-rep users; they might take it as an offense towards their work. The major problem is that the behavior we want to change today has been tolerated for way too long. This has lead to:

• users not voting to close as duplicates, but rather responding over and over again,
• few questions being closed as not a real question or not computer related (questions about websites are still answered by many, even though the FAQ says they're not SU related),
• people giving vague answers to vague questions instead of asking for more details in comments (this leads to answers being edited a lot of times, making it a needless back and forth),
• a complete fear of the community wiki flag. No one requests it, no one wants it, few people answer questions that are marked as such.

This behavior has to be changed, but moderators need to really crack the whip on this one. Good behavior should be rewarded by having a healthier community, not by throwing badges and rep at it.

Thinking about it, I think the whole concept of Super User is flawed. There's no direction, there's no clear-cut niche to fill, it's a dumping ground for anything even remotely IT related. We keep adding bullet points to the FAQ in the hopes it will somehow help things out. That's why it's failing; because that's the truth, it is failing, rotting from the inside. There's been endless discussion on meta about why SU's not working. There are simply no conclusions. Jeff doesn't really care about it (he's not involved in the site or the community that much), we can't change it because we only care about our own rep, leaving it to die.

We were left with a single active moderator (Diago) for the better part of 3 months. People might claim that they were active in the background, doing unglamorous janitorial work, but that's not true. There was one moderator, that's it! It's unacceptable to have one person left with so much work.

Using traffic as the most important metric means that we're steaming full speed ahead towards a very successful clone of Yahoo! Answers. I'd rather have a smaller, leaner, more focused Super User with users better prepared to handle the traffic that will inevitably come, than what it is today.

This might come off as just a bitter rant against a whole community, but I don't want it to be that. It is my personal opinion, one that I have formed over the months I've been active in the Super User community. I am part of that community, part of both the problem and the answer. I want this site to succeed because I think the idea in it is incredible; a place where people can help and get helped out of sheer good will, not through monetary incentives.

Answer 4

This thread has some of the greatest discussion I've seen on meta in weeks.. awesome.

I have a few specific recommendations, which are just a synthesis of previous feature requests that have been raised earlier, but IMHO might help to start cleaning things up on SU:

• immediately lock all closed questions
• add the ability to flag locked questions (something we've needed for a while), so that questions can be unlocked over time by the mods and dealt with individually as needed
• remove the reputation gained from any post that has since been closed
• institute the change from -1/-2 to -2/-5 for downvotes (has been "status-planned" for many months)
• global rep recalc
• send Diago's letter to all users with +3000 rep, and another one (less specifically targetted towards closing questions, but still highlighting the issue of duplicates and inappropriate questions) to +200 rep users
• put the highest rep users on notice that they are expected to uphold the highest standards on the site and they will be watched to see if they are able to help or hinder the site's goals.
• moderators start the tiresome job of merging and deleting duplicate posts, possibly by temporarily enlisting the aid of users who have high rep on other sites but don't use SU much*

*_{e.g. I have <200 rep on SU but 10k on SO; I do at least know a dupe when I see one and can assist with many junior janitor roles, if only helping flag posts that need attention}

Answer 5

I agree with that, as mostly shown by my regular comments on such answers.

We have indeed a bunch of people who provide good answers, and who are very active. They have an important role, because they provide a lot of quality answers. However, there is indeed "too much" of it, since many of them will simply answer on everything, even if they are themselves voting to close.

Moderators are doing a good job, but they can't (and shouldn't have to) be behind every question. For my part, I try to encourage good behavior and comment on bad behavior, to push in the good direction. But as visible on the first example, I obviously sometimes miss correct words to make my point of view understood.

Educating high rep users is indeed the best we can do, but it won't be easy. Such a mail is already a good start, because it comes from "higher". It shows that this is what the team, and moderators are suggesting as a good behavior. Other than that, I see only "watching" answers, and commenting under them to push to a better behavior. Unfortunately, that would be again something to be done by moderators, as they represent an authority (as opposed to a regular user like me, who is "lecturing" a 10k+).

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Also of note, I noticed that while we have some 10k+ users who are not fully respecting the rules, we have as well a growing number of 1000-3000 users who understand the rules of this site, and start posting more and more often comments explaining why such question is not adapted, or how it could be improved, etc.

So the good news is that there is indeed a base of people who are ready to help this site go on the good direction, further than only gaining rep. Let's hope that once they reach 3000, they will help closing questions without "diamond" power.

Answer 6

Answering to alex's point:

Thinking about it, I think the whole concept of Super User is flawed. There's no direction, there's no clear-cut niche to fill, it's a dumping ground for anything even remotely IT related. We keep adding bullet points to the FAQ in the hopes it will somehow help things out. That's why it's failing; because that's the truth, it is failing, rotting from the inside. There's been endless discussion on meta about why SU's not working. There are simply no conclusions. Jeff doesn't really care about it (he's not involved in the site or the community that much), we can't change it because we only care about our own rep, leaving it to die.

We were left with a single active moderator (Diago) for the better part of 3 months. People might claim that they were active in the background, doing unglamorous janitorial work, but that's not true. There was one moderator, that's it! It's unacceptable to have one person left with so much work.

Using traffic as the most important metric means that we're steaming full speed ahead towards a very successful clone of Yahoo! Answers. I'd rather have a smaller, leaner, more focused Super User with users better prepared to handle the traffic that will inevitably come, than what it is today.

I don't think that the whole concept of SU is flawed. It might have been at the beginning, especially with the "let's dump not programming related trash there" which could have been then. But right now, there are people determined to make this site count, and this site is pretty effective. There are plenty of questions which are answered, every day, and in a high quality way. I can't even ask questions on it myself, because most of the time, a single search on it shows me the answer already.

However, I agree that SU is different from other SO and SF sites, for a simple reasons, the target is wider, and wide to a range of users which doesn't really have an idea of what the site should head to, and who don't care anyway. It is easier to have such a Q&A site moderated only by its community when you cater only to programmers and sysadmins.

In my opinion, if we want to keep SU clean, it will require more explicit moderation than other sites. As we target a wider audience, it is much more exposed to noise, even from its own regular users who will see their personal interest before the interest of the site. Even when there will be a lot of 3000+ users, it will still remain hard to keep it clean, because traffic will increase as well.

So yes, there should be several attempts to educate the regular users (with a mail, but also with regular comments on people's activity), but in general, Super User will require more explicit moderators, in my opinion, to keep the site in a good direction.

I'm aware that it might sound like giving up a bit on the community, but the facts are here, for now. When there is no moderator online, questions which should be closed remain opened. There are not enough 3000+ even for now to close them, even if they would all agree, you will rarely have 5 of them at the exact same time. So maybe for a time during which people will earn enough reputation to reach 3000, there is indeed a need for a bigger moderation, to keep the site in a clear direction.

Answer 7

Just wanted to say my take on this after reading many of the answers here (will read them all in due course) and been told to do so a few times...

I am not sure if people have been directly referring to me as I am user 2/3, however after reading through some of the example links - I only saw an answer I wrote once - so I think that is a good sign.

I try to vote to close questions when I know that they are duplicates - but it is very hard to do so... The fact is, I do not know every question on SuperUser off by heart!... If the question says Close (1) I will always look at it and then if I agree, I will also vote.

When I see a question that I know I can answer, my first instinct is to help out and answer it - not to spend five to ten minutes doing a search for a duplicate question then answering when I know it isn't a copy.

Also on top of this, what makes it harder is that so many questions require very similar answers - For example, I have probably copied the same spiel about dead/faulty capacitors five or more times, but the question were different enough and required it.

In a previous question, I made a comment and I want to say it again - "I do not want to sound bad or unappreciative for the tools - I do flag and delete/close from time to time, but at no time did I ever say I want to be a moderator - I am happy to do this when it comes up, but I am here to help people and answer questions." - Again, I mean no disrespect, but it is hard to say that without coming across badly.

As for the FAQ, I did answer questions about Gmail and Wikipedia (I think it was) - but I had no idea that the FAQ was changed - It was brought to my attention and I haven't since - personally, as internet applications become more and more important, I hope this decision is changed. ... I just answered this and I did not give it a moment of thought at the time, but right now I am thinking it is really web related... Also, what about this one from not long ago?

I just have a little problem with people who have been answering here - it really feels like you are blaming the top users when I don't think that we are (well most) to blame.

Again, I just want to say that it is easy for many people to say these things, but as a user - it is harder than you think! I am getting on to 1,800 answers, I can not honestly remember the last few answers I have given - and if another question came up, I would probably give the same or similar answer - unless it was worded exactly the same to remind me...

I come from a forum/newsgroup background of simply answering questions - I think I have adapted and sorry if anyone thinks otherwise. In my honest opinion, this is not excluding repeat offenders but more responsibility has to be on the question asker to look for similar questions before they post...

(I was going to say, why not also display related questions on the question page... I feel like an idiot, but I just seen it is there! I will do my bit and look there in future when answering.)

There is much more I want to say, but I have typed and edited for the best part of two hours and this is turning in to a rant and I really do not want that. If anyone wants to address any specific points, please leave comments and I will be happy to answer.

---

To change slightly, I wasn't sure if this deserves its own question (It is the sort of thing that I guess would of been discussed before) - but as this is about various problems on SuperUser, I thought it is best I write it here.

A much bigger problem I have with Superuser is duplicate answers, I love the fact that on StackOverflow, I can get 3 duplicate answers that go in to great (different) detail. I have cancelled (or deleted) answers when I see someone else writing the exact same thing, but if I feel like I can give a detailed explanation, I think it is important to write it.

e.g. I say to use a tool along with a guide on how to use it. Whilst writing the guide, someone posts the same tool but just the name/link. I think it is ok to continue.

I would like an official answer on this... I never really had a problem with it (I say, let the votes decide who has the best answer, and the question asker decide if he wants the quickest or detailed answer.

This was a real sticking point between me and another user on the site, not so much that I did it, but the fact that he/she would always write in comments whenever I did it... on a few times that I saw him/her do it and I would say the same, it would start with excuses and arguments... I know the arguments were annoying Diago and I felt really bad doing it...

It got to the point where I felt like leaving - in the end, I significantly cut down my time on the site... That user is now gone (after having similar arguments with other users as well), but I would still like to get other peoples opinions on this?

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Edit- One theme I have seen many people saying is that people are doing this sort of thing just for reputation - I would like to say again, I come from forums/newsgroups and a selfless background, I would be here if there was no reputation, it is simply a very nice addition... however, to be honest, I feel rather depressed when I see the large number and then think how much work I could of got done!... but I am greatful for the breaks between calls/emails!

(Now up to about 4 hours and by far, my longest answer on all the sites!)

Answer 8

Current Implementation

My current approach to the above situation as a moderator is as follows:

• When closing a question, inform the OP via a comment that they need to review the FAQ before posting questions to check for either valid contact, and in the case of a duplicate, carefully review all duplicates before posting as they will be closed.
• Posting a comment to the answer of 3K+ users informing them that they should review the FAQ and ensure a question meets the criteria before answering. If not they should vote.
• Posting a comment to the answer of users under 3K+ informing them to review the FAQ before answering and flag a question for moderator attention if it does not meet the site criteria.

This slows down the closing process in my case, but will hopefully start making a dent toward resolving the above.

Possible Solutions

• High rep users continually answering questions that should be closed should be grounds for placing them in the penalty box.

Answer 9

Another idea: why not downvote any "extra" answers to duplicate, closed questions? If the only thing certain users respond to is votes, then maybe a few downvotes are in order? Or, perhaps disallow voting on closed questions entirely?

After looking at the examples Diago cited, I am not sure there is a problem.

1. This answer on a question closed as subjective by the community caused some interesting comments.
2. This question which is not computer related has 1 answer. Common pattern here: Vote to close and answer question.
3. This exact duplicate generated 1 high rep answer.
4. This question should have been closed outright.
5. This is another multiple duplicate question.

None of these closed questions resulted in any significant rep, and the answers did not seem harmful.

The one exception is the cut-and-pasted duplicate answer on #5. In this case, I think the (answer to the) closed question should be deleted, primarily because of the blatant cut-and-paste rep gain, which means any rep gained would be removed on recalc as well.

Answer 10

I'm not sure there's much you can do without changing the rules to stop providing an incentive for this behavior. And even doing that may be a bad idea.

Your basic problem is that, unlike SO, SU has a far broader range of acceptable subject matter, while your user base is smaller (~50 users with 3k+, compare with SO where there are almost 500 users with 10k+)... This means that the rules are more open to interpretation, and there are fewer people interested and clued enough to intepret them properly.

Even if you could get more of your 3k users on board with stricter interpretation, I think you'd still have the basic problem. The rules that work for SO do not work so well for SU. Or, to put it another way, the problems that SO has are amplified and worsened on Superuser. After all, if nobody were voting for inappropriate responses, then there would be no incentive for the behavior. But this behavior is rewarded by the SU community, which is the root of the problem. Having more 3k people setting a good example won't get you very far, I fear.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can convince your userbase to shape up this far downhill from where the site started. I think you have to either live with the status quo, or the rules are going to have to change.

Talking about changing the rules for SU is beyond the scope of this discussion, but suffice to say that that's not exactly an attractive proposition, either. You could end up alienating enough of your userbase to effectively kill whatever progress you've made thus far. In fact, any intervention at this point carries that risk, including your proposed e-mail.

Answer 11

I think throwing high-rep users who answer questions likely to be closed into the penalty box is too harsh, and we should not act in a manner that scares newbies away. The aggressive approach to moderation on Stack Exchange certainly has led to sites that are clean, but we also need to help users who have genuine problems. There are quite a few questions with "help!!!" and similar because they need an answer quickly.

The way to go here is to instruct experienced users to direct new users to the appropriate resources (FAQ, other questions, etc.) using a friendly tone. We need to encourage users to participate and assist others with problems. If a question is a duplicate, we can send out a notice through the global inbox to prepare users to edit their answers for merging into the other question, and merge the questions together such that subtle differences present in the two questions are reflected in the merged question.

I know this involves additional work on the part of moderators and high-rep users, but we need to do this in a way that encourages participation, not lock out desperate users seeking an answer they easily can't find otherwise.