In list of questions, view quality of answers?

Question

In a list of questions obtained by various means, one can see the number of votes on the question, the number of answers, and the number of views.

I'd also like to see some measure of the quality of the current answers, such as the net number of votes for the most highly ranked answer.

If I click on the question button, I get a list of questions, one line for each. One can see how many answers any particular question has, but not how good these answers are. Thus a user cannot find out the quality of the best answer to a question without looking up each line of the list and scrolling through the answers. I may want to read an entry only if there is a good answer (if I want to learn form the entry), or only if there is no good answer (if I could possibly contribute one).

Comments

Hm... I don't understand this. Do you mean just displaying the net score for answers? 

It's usually simple arithmetic, does it matter much? 

---

The net score for the highest ranking _answer_ (since there may be several) to a question.  Not the net score for the question itself, which can be obtained by simple arithmetic from what is displayed.

But a user cannot find out the quality of the best answer to a question without looking up each line of the list and scrolling through the answers. I may want to read an entry only if there is a good answer (if I want to learn form the entry), or only if there is no good answer (if I could possibly contribute one).

---

@Arnold I unfortunately still don't understand : ( The answers are already ranked according to the net score, aren't they? 

---

I am talking about a page with lists of questions, not about pages giving all answers for a fixed question. I rephrased my original post, hoping it is more clear now.

By the way, it would be less confusing and time-saving if the link to writing a comment would be after the most recent comment rather than before the first comment.

---

@Arnold Neumaimer Thanks, I understand now. The issue with this is that it may occupy too much space, but it can replace the number of views box (removing the #views box was once suggested by Ron, but there was no specific need at the moment.) 

We will have to ask polarkernel about how difficult this would be. 

---

If you want to save space, delete (instead of the number of views) the number of answers - which is less informative than the quality, if the latter is taken to be 0 in case of no answer.

---

I think this is a good idea, so we can keep the number of views which can for example be used as a measure to see if the question needs to be improved for more attention.

On a general note, apart from the fixing of bad unexpected bugs, PhysicsOverflow now concentrates on the task and the schedule listed here, whereas new feature requests must be deferred to next week at least, to not  endanger the stability and successful start of the public beta of the site by too many last minute changes implemented in a hurry.

---

@Arnold Neumaier Or we could also write down the total answer quality, like the sum of net scores? 

But anyway, you'll have to wait a bit (sorry!) till this Saturday, because as Dilaton has mentioned, we need to follow the (quite tight) schedule so that we can launch the public beta, and of course bug fixes, which we cannot avoid. 

But be sure to bring this back to attention (just bump the post) on Saturday, and we could then think about how to go about implementing this.  

---

I think it would be better to write down the number of votes for the highest voted answer. An answer with 6 votes is going to be of higher quality than three answers with two votes each.

Answer 1

Now that we are in the public beta, we should re-look at this idea as promised.  

Having 4 pieces of statistics (votes, answers, views, answer quality), takes up too much space.

I think that instead of completely getting rid of the number of answers, we could display the answer quality in place of the number of answers, but still display the number of answers as the title text, which appears when one hovers upon the answer quality.  

Is everyone (who supports the idea proposed in the question) fine with this? If so, we can then proceed to take a proper vote of whether we should "leave it as it is" or "make the change", and then if the result is "make the change", we should list it under the public beta feature requests.  

Comments

The number of answers is nearly irrelevant, as only high quality answers make a real difference. Even if there are 6 answers of quality 2, there is still a need to write, if possible, a good answer.