what are the disadvantages of this site?

Question

anonymous · Answer

Kids can get help on tests they are supposed to do them selves, (minor) cyber bullying and (once in a while) rude language @justinekaye

mandre · Answer

People spend whole semester/term partying then they come here for answers for homework/assignments, even exams. 

Most of the top users on this site will try to help others to work things out for themselves, while there are some who will just blurt out answers without showing them how to do it (hoping for medals).

e.mccormick · Answer

Some things have a delay in being answered.  As they said above, people use it for the wrong purposes.  It is meant for tutoring and people use it for cheating.  We do our best to suspend the abusers we can't nudge into doing things the right way.

anonymous_user · Answer

A disadvantage is that the site can be addictive.

unikornkiller · Answer

its very addicting

unikornkiller · Answer

its like a public chat room or a other facebook

unikornkiller · Answer

its a good question

rsmith6559 · Answer

Probably the biggest disadvantage of this site is that subjects can't be searched, so we answer the same (legit) questions over and over.

anonymous · Answer

Oh, yeah @rsmith6559 so aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnoying

anonymous · Answer

@Rsmith6559, but it's good that they get asked more than once, sometimes people call themeselves helping and explain/answer incorrectly.

e.mccormick · Answer

@WassupJade The medal system is supposed to help with that.  However, it does not address the other problems with having questions asked only once.

@rsmith6559 I disagree with repetition as a disadvantage.  The site has a stated goal of helping to tutor people.  It is not an answer site.  If it was an answer site, then ease in finding your answer would be an advantage.  Instead, it is a learning site where people are supposed to be tutored.  The existence of answers that do not tutor is a disadvantage.  Also, people learn more by working through something themselves.  This means that the lack of a search actually helps push people towards being tutored.

anonymous · Answer

@e.mccormick How so?

e.mccormick · Answer

If you get bad answers, they tend to have less medals.  Also, people can and have corrected others and ended up with several medals.  So then you have multiple methods in a single thread and the ones that are proper tend to have more medals.

rsmith6559 · Answer

One of the reasons for "just answering it" is that a good, best effort tutorial can be a lot of work, and time consuming to write.  The quick and dirty is to just answer the question.  If the effort is made to write a first class tutorial, the tutorial has a life of maybe a week before it's so far down the list that it's probably not going to be viewed again.  Then the exact same question will be asked because the previous tutorial can't be found, and the tutorial needs to be written again to answer this week's question.  A search function can give good answers enough exposure so that it's worth the time and effort to do a bangup job.

e.mccormick · Answer

There is now the tutorials database. http://openstudytutorials.weebly.com/ Makes them easier to re-find.

rsmith6559 · Answer

Good.  That essay you posted about the difference between programming and Comp Sci deserves to be available for a good long time.

e.mccormick · Answer

Yah, I think that is something that is needed.  Falls under a disadvantage of the site.  No sticky posts, tutorials, etc. type things.  The weebly is a decent work around for some of it, but it would be better if that was worked into the site itself.  Then posts that are designed to answer more complex issues or tutor people can have a real place to live.