Question

HomeworkEqualsDone.com! come one come all! Post your HW Q's and see them solved before your very eyes, sports fans! Never once did your fingers leave your hands!<----That's what OpenStudy is currently screaming from the initial new-user experience.

Answer 1

Perhaps there could be a specific moderator for visiting the official groups to make sure this isn't happening? I know there isn't one. Almost every question on here is answered by someone other than the person who asked it.

Answer 2

Flagging it for spam.

Answer 3

What, this?

Answer 4

@FoolForMath What are you flagging? This is feedback, not advertising....

Answer 5

For a second, I thought you are advertising, pardon my foolishness :(

Answer 6

lolz I did it to prove a point,
everyone seems to be just jumping on and slapping down answers (I'm guilty, but almost involuntarily)

Answer 7

It needs to be explicitly clear that this is not a Q = A site, right? It's a Q + Study together to find A site.

Answer 8

@blues did you read the whole post, sir?

Answer 9

@Dyiliq: What solution do you propose? :)

Answer 10

Well, I have an idea.....but not one I haven't regurgitated obsessively XD

Answer 11

@cshalvey knows exactly what I'm thinking....I think.

Answer 12

Hi @Dyiliq - in fact, we do pay attention to all the official groups - as much as possible. In terms of this not being a Q&A site, we've recently both updated our Code of Conduct (openstudy.com/code-of-conduct) as well as posted blog explaining our position http://blog.openstudy.com/2012/03/13/mission-driven-learning-for-all/

However, this is always going to be a 'community of learners' - and we ask that all learners and teachers embrace our philosophy. One of the steps we have taken is to revamp our rewards system in order to decrease the incentives for people to simply 'give answers' (supply side of the equation), while also taking steps to warn, suspend, and ban repeat offenders who wish only to 'receive an answer.'

In terms of the 'initial new-user experience' you mentioned, I'd have to disagree. Each user's experience is completely dependent on the interaction they have with who answers their question. Again, the steps above (and many more before and also planned) are aimed at changing that experience. There will ALWAYS be negative experiences - but our experience has been that our core users, the ones who truly live up to the OpenStudy culture, have embraced and enabled these changes far more than we ever could.

Also, in terms of moderation or lack thereof, I know you just started on OpenStudy recently, but it just so happened to be at an *extremely* busy time for us (SmartScore Launch today, TEDx talk on Saturday). That's no excuse, but we trust our users (both moderators and not) to take action. In many cases, the experiences you have mentioned *have* been addressed via behind the scenes warnings or even suspensions/bans.

Answer 13

Hehehe, no worries @Dyiliq - you'll find that I am not prone to many emotions (positive or negative) - a source of much consternation for many people in my life ;)

And you bring up a good point, regarding moderation as a whole. OpenStudy, in my opinion at least, is truly *owned* by the community, and we at OpenStudy have strived to empower our user base as much as possible in terms of providing them tools to aid the protection of OpenStudy and what it stands for.

You will notice those 'Report Abuse' buttons on literally every action a user can make (chat, answer, question, direct message, etc).

And btw, I REALLY appreciate your enthusiasm, and am very happy to welcome you to OpenStudy. You can always post your thoughts/concerns/feelings about OpenStudy here and we'll address it. Also, feel free to message me whenever you wish. As Community Manager, my main job is to listen - I leave the real work to the dev guys ;)