Question

I've been using this site since March and here are my two cents. This site is great with potential to help millions. However, I think the chat box needs to go. It is counter productive, abusive and even dangerous. We have middle school students publicly exchanging phone numbers; also sometime there are predatory actions going on.
Also medals encourage people to just give out answers. If someone is willing to help, they will do so without medals. Instead , there should be a rating system for helpfulness rated by other users.

Answer 1

Hmm I also think a 'helpfulness' rating would be better. Just giving an answer doesn't always help the person asking it, those that include explanations or encourage the questioner to work out the question themselves is more likely to be beneficial.

The chat box is sometimes a worry, I would suggest some sort of private messaging system, however this may be more risky than the current chat system as it cannot be monitored as easily.

Answer 2

Well. rating system is cmming up, i guess! ^.^

Answer 3

this is an excellent point

Answer 4

Wonder if there's a way to poll the users about the medals. I agree that the motivation for me is to help out and to learn. The medals don't mean anything, however I must admit getting the OS dialogue box response once in awhile is nice.

Answer 5

I understand the motivation factor, but medals seems to encourage low quality answers.

Answer 6

Maybe u could have "inverse medals" so as to undo the effect of poorly awarded ones, might cause a bit of trouble though....