Discussion: Avoiding overwhealming newbies with too many/expert answers

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Another community member shared with me their observations regarding many of the questions in the Python Help help section. They expressed concerns that the number of different responses by different experts in many question threads was potentially overwhelming to newer Python/Discourse users, and potentially dissuade the poster from actually replying and engaging in the discussion, making for a not-so-newbie friendly environment despite the good intentions of the folks involved. They stressed that this was a general problem rather than a specific person, and not necessarily easy to solve.

They pointed to this case as an example, where too many answers and comments may have made it hard for the user to keep up:

Several other folks involved here +1ed their concerns, and as someone responsible for some of this, I can certainly see instances where it can potentially happen.

What do people think about this? Do others see this as a problem, and is there anything we can to do mitigate it?

My own take is that in that case, it certainly took some iteration to figure out what the user had done wrong, but maybe a different approach could have avoided much of the extra noise. Also, email users don’t get replies from web users (or get them very delayed, way beyond just the post delay). Finally, everyone does often have something different to share (and sometimes answers that aren’t so helpful are posted before other bettre ones), but maybe we can find a way to avoid making this less overwhelming for newbies (and duplicate less of our experts’ effort).

Aside from just being more mindful about it, maybe we could explore enabling a Q&A mode in the Python Help section? There appear to be some plugins and config options for that:

On the other hand, often times the chronology is important, because users very often don’t provide enough information to answer their question, and require several rounds of back and forth to get there.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

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I think this is a bad example. At best, the author inadvertently misled other users and wasted their time. At worst, it was a troll testing the waters.

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I have not paid much attention to this phenomenon or intentionally kept track of this. But indeed in some threads it felt to me like one person asks a question, there is a couple of helpful answers really focused on the content of the original question, and then it quickly transforms into an intense conversation between “experts” who talk between themselves completely ignoring the author of the question. The discussion goes on and on, deeper and deeper, without waiting for the author to come back and follow up, give feedback on whether or not the first answers helped them. So, yeah, this does seem intimidating. And not sure it ends up being helpful at all for the one asking the question.

On many occasions – and I include the long #packaging discussions – I wish there was some kind of limit of allowed post frequency. So in questions from beginners I would be limited to maybe 2 messages per hour, and in longer discussions with more depth I would be limited to maybe 1 message per day. This would force me to think carefully about getting the right message across. And this would allow others to keep up with the reading and give them some space to write themselves.

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This is a public forum. People are allowed to talk to each other. Conversations can drift into related, or even unrelated, matters.

Especially if the original poster goes missing from the conversation and stops replying.

I think it is somewhat patronising to assume, without any evidence, that the person asking the question cannot learn from reading a conversation between more experienced coders.

Especially since they can continue to ask questions at any time.

I know I have learned a lot over 20 years of following conversations by people who know more than me.

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Not all newbies will feel overwhelmed or unwelcomed but some will do.

For myself too, in the beginning when I started contributing and reading the mailing list, I also felt intimidated because it seemed like everybody knows each other and knows more than me, so I was afraid that I would be saying something stupid or something so obvious that other people thinks it’s stupid. If I didn’t have mentors within the core team who encouraged me to continue participating and assuring that nobody in the core team will laugh at my comments, then I took perhaps would never post anything on the mailing list.

In the situation with the OP with Elo-related question, I don’t know why they didn’t return to clarify, but if it was me when I was a newbie, I probably felt so stupid and embarrassed that I didn’t dare returning and posting a follow up message.

Each individuals are different of course, and I recognize if none of you might have had the same experience as me. I still think it’s worth treating the newbies, first time posters, first time contributors slightly differently compared to when you deal with someone who’s already experienced and knows how it works here/in online open source community.

I recommend when answering questions for newbies: be a little bit more lenient, and don’t go out of tangent too much. They might have realized that they’re asking something kinda stupid and have mustered the courage to ask such question in a very public forum (perhaps because they heard that Python community is great). Try to ensure that your response actually answers their question and is helping them.

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I’ve definitely gotten that vibe as well from the way some established users / groups of users respond to questions and ideas. Everyone is probably acting independently with the intention of being helpful, but the result is often multiple essay-length or highly technical posts in response to an original post that put in much less effort or asked for much less.

My advice to established users would be:

  • Let users ask follow up questions, don’t give up your valuable time writing preemptively. Answer the question at hand directly, then move on and wait for a response.
  • If a thread is busy already, consider if your response will help it reach a conclusion or just drag it out.
  • Use flags to indicate problems with topics or responses. This helps moderators know what to pay attention to. I don’t personally pay attention to the Users category because it’s too big.
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This is a public forum. People are allowed to talk to each other. Conversations can drift into related, or even unrelated, matters.

Sure, but this is about etiquette and keeping a particular thread
manageable for the OP. I’ve certainly seen several threads drift at
great length from the OP’s initial question into relate topics. This
does not help the OP, because the discussion is well past the OP’s
experience.

From the point of view of the OP, this is noise. It’s not nonsense, but
they can’t wade through it to find things they can apply to their
situation. The web forum presents a very linear view of the discussion.

Especially if the original poster goes missing from the conversation and stops replying.

I think the point here is that part of the reason an OP goes missing is
sometimes being swamped.

Maybe it would be a good thing to self assess how peripheral the
discussion is becoming WRT to the OP’s immediate problem and fork a new
topic? It seems there’s some facility for this even retrospectively; I
don’t know if it needs an admin to do it.

And of course we can do it by hand: just start a new topic referencing
the OP’s topic:

 Over in [href-here] the OP has such and such a problem. This is a 
 case of a more general situation blah. ......

Of course people can do what they want. I’ve suggesting that we could
choose a better way that is less prone to exceeding the OP’s mental
bandwidth.

I think it is somewhat patronising to assume, without any evidence, that the person asking the question cannot learn from reading a conversation between more experienced coders.

It’s also patronising to assume that a divergent verbose technical
discussion will help the OP instead of swamping them. I know that’s I’ve
consciously stopped following threads of interest a number of times when
things diverge.

Especially since they can continue to ask questions at any time.

I know I have learned a lot over 20 years of following conversations by people who know more than me.

Me too, but I’ve also stopped watching things where the conversation
simply gets too verbose for me to spend the time on. I’m not the OP in
that case, but the effect is real.

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Great point. Any TL4 user, category moderator, moderator (which now includes me) or admin can split posts out to a new thread or merge them with an existing thread (of course, you’ll need to use the web UI for it). We could consider making a few folks here who have a consistent record of contributions and civil interactions (like yourself) category moderators for Python Help to help with this.

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This is a public forum. People are allowed to talk to each other. Conversations can drift into related, or even unrelated, matters.

Exactly, I come here for these, for not just a dry reply to exactly the asked question, but potentially alternative viewpoints and solutions that are not directly answering the question but are trying to investigate or solve the original, implicitly underlying issue the question is raising or is caused by.

What I mean is the classical case of an innocuous question highlighting a more general problem caused by an upstream issue that was not seen before or was left unchecked for too long, and so the discussion drifts into a much more technical one that is not anymore directly about the opening question but is still very much pertinent for those who want to understand what is happening behind the hood.

If I want simple straight-to-the-point answers, I’d rather go to StackOverflow. IMHO not all communities should do everything, they can specialize in various aspects. I see StackOverflow and the likes as good places for common solution to common issues, and sometimes to rarer issues. But for highly technical, edge case issues, then specialized forums (and IMHO this is one) are the best place. And of course there are exceptions, but what I mean is that the drifting that can be considered an issue for some is actually something others (such as me) are actively looking for.

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