What does Answers provide that CSSM, Stack Exchange, etc do not

Inspired, or possibly uninspired, by some of the responses to

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/13927-the-future-of-cssm-and-answers

and

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/994-wish-list-for-matlab-answer-sections

I am curious what Answers provides that other forums or formats do not provide. In particular, if TMW won't/can't give us what we want in a timely manner, is there someplace else better to go? The rate at which Answers took off, makes me think you could get people to ask questions on any site.

[Jan]

See also: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/1822-foreign-matlab-forums

Answer 1

[Paulo Silva]

The voting system allows any user to see the best answers right away without having to read all answers and comments.

The markup allows the code to be format properly, web links, lists, etc

Some people also seem to like the reputation system but for me it only shows the amount of time each one spend here.

[Daniel Shub]

Those are all advantages over CSSM. A lot of forums allow markup, by do not include the voting/reputation. Other "question/answer" sites like, stackexchange and stackoverflow, have markup, ovting and reputation.

[Paulo Silva]

other places are not official, like Jan said they have commercials and that disrupts my thoughts, here is all clean and simple although some feature are needed to improve the system because many times small changes (edits, comments, etc) aren't easy to find.

[Daniel Shub]

Yes, ads can be a problem at other places.

Answer 2

[Jan]

Answers provides the important advantage, that the TMW employees participate actively. On one hand this allows for getting information at first hand. On the other hand this is an efficient feedback channel, such that TMW learns from the needs of the users.

Of course TMW employees post in other forums also, which is very helpful, but not with the same high frequency as here.

Other modern forums, which allow to layout the text and embed pictures, are financed by commercials, such that there is a certain level of optical noise. For a one-time user this is not really hard, but imagine how Walter brains would be penetrated by seeing a specific animated GIF banner 10'000 times, every hour, every day, every week. But MATLAB Answers is its own commercial and it offers concrete information needed by customers in reality.

[Sean de Wolski]

Question: When you say "10.000" is it 1e4 or is it 1e2 with three significant zeros?

[Jan]

@Sean: Edited to 10'000.

[Sean de Wolski]

Oh, I was just curious, here we use a comma for every three spots so

10,000

but even that's being done away with I think.

[Daniel Shub]

I think TMW participation is a huge boon. I am not sure why they participate more on Answers over the CSSM or if they would participate as actively on another site.

[Sean de Wolski]

They don't have control over CSSM on any server other than their own, perhaps?

[Walter Roberson]

I would configure my browser to block that banner of course ;-)

[Derek O'Connor]

Jan,

I don't see any commercials on Stack Exchange Math:

<http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/48919/generating-a-non-uniform-discrete-random-variable>

I have found this site very easy to use, it allows you to format programs and tables correctly, and for mathematics you can use LaTeX commands. I have not posted pictures on this site, but I assume that can be done.

I wish Answers had such nice facilities.

Derek.

PS: Check and see if you have latency problems with this site.

[Jan]

@Derek: How is Stack Exchange financed then?

@Daniel: Andreas Goser is active at the German goMatlab.de and he replies to all questions concerning the installation, licenses, bugs and other official concerns.

[Derek O'Connor]

@Jan, Wikipedia or this may explain the financing of Stack Exchange:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/changes-to-stack-exchange/

My point was that I see no "optical noise", as you call it, and that it has much better facilities for asking and answering questions that involve programs, diagrams, tables, and mathematics.

You say "Answers provides the important advantage, that the TMW employees participate actively." I don't understand this statement. There is nothing, except company policy perhaps, that stops TMW employees participating "actively" on Stack Exchange.

[Daniel Shub]

@Derek, I also wish MATLAB answers could be as nice as Stack Exchange. While I do not know the reasons why, I think Jan is correct that TMW employees participate more here then they would at a "third party" site.

[Oleg Komarov]

I don't see such a mystery about it. What if you're caught being on facebook while at work, would your boss be happy? Now imagine your boss is Mark Zuckerberg, does the situation change?

It's obviously an exagerated example but I guess it applies to a certain extent to TMW.

Answer 3

[Sean de Wolski]

With CSSM, never used Stackoverflow or others:

Pros:

• When I click Submit, it actually submits and appears instantly, not after its taken a coffee and cigarette break and maybe maternity leave throughout its travels across the internet.
• The ability to edit your post. (less clutter, fix typos, etc.)
• Profile picture!

Cons:

• The ability to edit your post. (can't distinguish between small, but significant changes.
• Can't follow threads.