Question

It seems to me that with the change that an asker can only give one medal per question now encourages users to give an answer over a hint or instructions on how to solve the problem. If someone gives a hint and someone else comes in with an answer, many if not most of the askers are tending towards giving the medal to the quick answer.

Answer 1

Hm. This is an interesting observation. I believe in this case the person who came in and gave the solution in the middle would actually be in the wrong here, according to our current Code of Conduct. Perhaps it's time we start cracking down on this.

@cshalvey you might want to see this.

Answer 2

On the same note, please report people who jump in with answers :)

Answer 3

I've helped people through private messages and I don't think that gets factored into anything. But I was never really motivated to help people for some silly score to begin with. There's no smart score in the real world.

Answer 4

I mentioned that problem, and my solution to it was to let other answers be able to declare an answer as not helpful or breaking the rules, which then would not necessarily harm them in any way, but they wouldn't get credit.

Answer 5

If enough people click not helpful (5? 10?), the question could be hidden as unhelpful, or would not give the answerer credit.

Answer 6

The problem that with my proposal is that it might discourage people.

Answer 7

I do believe that it would help the community more than discourage people, but, I do realize that that decision is not up to me to decide. It's merely my opinion.

Answer 8

and, @TranceNova , the problem is, sometimes they give the answer, then explain it afterwards shortly. Or, they give the work, but give the exact answer.

Answer 9

In either of these cases, you couldn't really report someone, but they would most definitely have a much higher probability to get a medal.

Answer 10

Remember there is no limit to the speed you can close and make a new question, so it is easy for one to just use the answer. The work is euphism for an excuse to not break the CoC on both sides. (What I mean is that the answerer has given an "explanation", and the asker has "read and understood it". This can never be confirmed)

Answer 11

Well, inkvoyd, we're *specifically* talking about answer sniping here.

Answer 12

Well, you can give both the explanation and the answer, but those looking for the answer will always go straight for it.

Answer 13

I mean, the answerer will answer "snipe", but in differnt ways.

Answer 14

Is typing the answer then giving the explanation answer sniping? Is giving the explanation and then having the answer at the end answer sniping?

Answer 15

No. Answer sniping is when I'm working with you to help you solve a problem, I'm walking you through the steps, and then some third party just walks in with the answer while I'm working with you. Much like what happened here:

http://openstudy.com/updates/4f98c805e4b000ae9ece6c70

Answer 16

Ohhh. Sorry...

Answer 17

That's the exact situation ChrisS is describing in the OP.

Answer 18

But

Answer 19

What I mean is that there are different ways of helping someone

Answer 20

some people just give the steps they took to solve the problem, maybe or maybe not including the answer

Answer 21

some people choose to give a hint, and walk them through.

Answer 22

but in the former situation, if the people give the answer, it almost always comes before the latter situation manages any engagement

Answer 23

in these cases, the asker can simply just look at the answer given and just close the question.

Answer 24

The dilemna is that the former answerer showed their work, and ways, helped out instead of "just" giving the answer.

Answer 25

Would you say it's still abuse to be reported?

Answer 26

I don't see the relevance of this to answer sniping. If two people are working out a problem, a third person comes in and just drops the answer in such a way that interrupts the tutoring that is happening, that's discouraging to the answerer and one of the major things that we want to avoid.

The "just answers" policy is separate from "answer sniping". These are two separate issues in my mind. One is just a matter of not showing any details with your work. The second is a matter of completely interrupting the learning process for your own benefit, whether or not you show the work.

Answer 27

For the record, I consider the second a bigger problem in many respects.

Answer 28

Well, to be honest, the second problem happens to me on math, but not nearly as often as what I described.

Answer 29

People rarely just give out the answer more than once. THey do it once, are informed that it is wrong, and stop doing it.

Answer 30

if they don't, they get in trouble many times.

Answer 31

Most of the time I see answer sniping as two people working out a problem, and a third giving out the complete process along with the answer in one post.

Answer 32

Still answer sniping, but they gave an explanation, right (the third person)?

Answer 33

That would be answer sniping, yes.

Answer 34

Providing the entire answer in one post (with work included) seems like it might be a gray area if you look at the letter of the Code of Conduct. I know that our goal is to encourage an interaction, not just an answer - so I know that's against the spirit of what we want - but it might be worth us hashing out as a team where exactly the line is drawn there.

Answer 35

I believe that this gray area happens so much because people who do it hope for medals, but don't want to get in trouble for giving the answer.

Answer 36

Some people are just too lazy to explain though; I understand those cases too.

Answer 37

I do it sometimes so they can see the process and then maybe have more interaction if they continue posting similar problems. I don't always but just sometimes.

Answer 38

For example, if the question is to simplify something ith the distributive property, many people just do the "gray area", because walking them through step-by-step is seen as unecessary because some answers would consider that property "common knowledge"

Answer 39

It is evidently not common knowledge for everyone, however.

Answer 40

Right, I think that's probably the case inkvoyd. Which is why I say this may be something we need to really think about and help clarify where we stand on it.

Answer 41

I'm not entirely sure what the right answer is off the top of my head. heh.

Answer 42

I don't think OpenStudy can be too picky about the kinda help they want.

Answer 43

Just a little picky but not too much.

Answer 44

To be honest, in the past when I would answer snipe or just give stuff in the described "gray area", it was because I was too lazy to spend time on one user.

Answer 45

And the results were quite strange - by keeping the probability of getting a medal around the same, but not engaging and thus being able to answer 2-3 times as many questions, I racked up medals and levels incredibly quickly.

Answer 46

Well, yes. In the past that made sense. But now medals have different point values based on who they come from. Getting a point value from the asker is worth about six times the medal from an on-looker, you know? In the past all medals were equal so it made sense to get medals ad quickly as possible.

Answer 47

Eventaully, however, I got bored, and started explaining them. To be honest, I got bored because the questions were not limited, and people just kept asking homework questions about the same subject. I pretty much raged, and stopped helping them. (That was the main reason I broke the Code of Conduct with my inappropriate post.)

Answer 48

Well, would giving complete work one step away from the answer be considered answer sniping?

Answer 49

say, integration by parts, where one decides to help out step by step, well the other tells what du and dv should be directly, and places them in the problem.

Answer 50

these gray areas have probably caused every answerer to lose maybe 30-40% of the medals they should've gotten.

Answer 51

Yeah, we'll talk about it. You're right, it's important that we're clear on this.

Answer 52

Anyways, thanks for listening to what me (and other members of OS) have to say.