# Splitting answers and comments?



## ThomasK

I suppose this is utopian, but let me just try. 

I love the AL section, and I am thrilled about the results I am getting. I just wondered whether it would not be possible to answer in two ways: 
- the answers to the given question (translation) together, collected, in a separate window (url)
- the comments in for example another window.. 

If it were possible, one could have a very clear survey of the answers given (if all goes well of course), and we could mention comments, discuss the topic, in another window, so that the survey still remains quite clear, easily readable, and thus the straightforward information quite accessible. 

It might ideally be possible to vote on whether certain answers need to be deleted or added, or not. But that is extremely utopian, I suppose.


----------



## mkellogg

Hi Thomas,

As you suspect, this is something that would not be easy to do.  It would be great if we could do it and make it work, but I don't think it is possible.

Mike


----------



## Egmont

It seems to me that many, if not most, posts in the forums I frequent (granted, that doesn't include AL) mix answers, comments on the question, and comments on previous answers. In many cases the three would be difficult or impossible to separate, as in a comment explaining why a poster disagrees with a previous answer - followed by that poster's own, different, answer. It would also be asking a lot of our volunteer moderators to keep the two separate and to enforce that separation.


----------



## ThomasK

I knew this could be utopian. On the other hand, with a technical trick, two screens might perhaps be possible, one for answers and one for comments, though I admit it might take some self-discipline from the contributors will be required so as indeed not to burden the moderators with it. in fact one could end up with some kind of summary, especially at places like AL. 

But I won't insist; I quite understand your point of view...


----------



## mkellogg

My dream has been something similar:  having people put their answers in [answer] tags [/answer]. That would make it easy for me to incorporate the answers into the dictionaries, but it is completely impractical to ask that everybody does this!


----------



## ThomasK

Well, you might suggest that perhaps. Now a lot of people spontaneously use the lay-out suggested at the beginning of a thread.... (Pleased to hear it is all not that crazy)


----------



## valdemar

mkellogg said:


> ...As you suspect, this is something that would not be easy to do.  It would be great if we could do it and make it work, but I don't think it is possible.
> Mike



I know there's the rule that you have to look first if there's a post that already have the answer to your question, which I do all the time before asking. The problem I see when doing this search is that many times there are lost of threads that are about what you're looking for, except they don't answer the question. In saying this I don't mean they don't have replies to the question but rather they are comments instead of answers. And this is very annoying because people think that the question have been already answered which is not true, and  it's deceiving. And even when you try to participate in them, most likely you wont get answers because either the post it's too old and the original posters don't answer anymore or else  people who are available to answer would think that it has a lot of replies already. Therefore the need of splitting the replies into answers and comments, if not for old posting it would be nice for the new ones . Look for example at one of the competitors: English Language Learners Stack Exchange .

Having said that, I wanted  to say that I love WR not only because it has helped me big time with my English but also because I think it's an enormous contribution to the internet as a source of knowledge and I'm really glad that you guys have finally decided to improve the old primitive look and functionality to love it even more.


----------



## colognial

Hi All. I think I agree more with mkellog. Separating comments from answers is near impossible. Because who and on what basis could judge whether a hint or a hidden clue or a link to a completely different environment is an answer or a comment?

Isn't a forum as much about conversing and providing indirect guidance as it is about straightforward teaching? To attempt to separate one lot of mental activity from the other would actually go against the principle of tutoring, I should imagine, which asserts that people learn just as well or even better through problems created around a jumble of thoughts.

But it would be nice if sum-ups, 'last ties on the loose ends', so to speak, could be attempted by askers. The Forum could have a rule that says an asker shall make a final attempt to show the helpers what he or she has learned. Of course a sum-up may trigger more answers/comments/directions, which is fine.


----------



## merquiades

mkellogg said:


> My dream has been something similar:  having people put their answers in [answer] tags [/answer]. !


  I will start doing that now.  I think a lot of us non-technical people simply don't know how to go about doing it, though now that I see it, it seems easy.  Maybe you could put it as an option with quote, strike-through, spoiler etc.  so foreros would just have to make a click on it when they answer.


----------



## colognial

The dream can come true, then, can it? But are we sure the tag is not going to detract from the usefulness of the Forum? "Answer" could be just what an answer has failed to be.


----------



## jann

merquiades said:


> I will start doing that now.  I think a lot of us non-technical people simply don't know how to go about doing it, ...





colognial said:


> The dream can come true, then, can it?


I'm afraid you may have misunderstood.  

There is currently no such thing as a tag to mark answers.  The format Mike showed -- _[answer] tag [/answer]_ -- does not actually exist as a functioning tag.  His example was just intended to illustrate that so-called answer tags (if it were possible to implement them) could potentially work like the many other BB code tags that allow us to format our posts, designate quoted text, etc.

Adding the word "answer" in brackets around a chunk of text in the body of your post will not tag your statement as the answer to the question.  Instead, the bracketed [answer] [/answer] pair will just appear as extra text, exactly as you typed it, after you submit your post.


----------



## colognial

Thank you, jann. I was speaking as the hopeless ignoramus in matters to do with tagging! Think I'll just keep quiet and wait to see the future developments.


----------

