Now taking requests for Question2Answer 1.5!

Question

In September I plan to start working on Question2Answer version 1.5, with a view to (hopefully!) releasing it before the end of 2011.

As for previous versions, I am interested in knowing what new features would be most important to people using the platform.

So please post up to 5 prioritized feature requests in your answers below.

FYI, the following are already planned, so you can skip them in your lists, but feel free to elaborate on them if particular aspects are important to you.

• Closing questions (due to duplication, or other reasons)
• Optional moderation mode (admin approval before post appears)
• Ajax-style interface for answering and commenting

Thanks and I look forward to your feedback!

Gideon

Comments

This question can now be considered closed. Please see the Q2A 1.5 roadmap:

http://www.question2answer.org/qa/9322/question2answer-1-5-roadmap

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Nice to see "closing questions" feature working, but comments are still acceptable ?

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hybridauth is a great features to allow user registration with other social accounts than just facebook .

Answer 1

Wow I happened to be on exactly at the right time :D My #1 request would have been closing questions so here's my input on close reasons:
- Duplication: here you would obviously want to link to the original question. Either the user could paste the URL of the duplicate, or tick one of the related questions.
- Spam: obviously here the question should be hidden.
- Off-topic/rule-breaking: Question should stay visible for a while so the user knows what they did wrong, and maybe get hidden eventually. Custom messages for users to choose would be great.

One more thing, part of your AJAX interface. If you are not logged in, clicking "answer" or "comment" creates a whole page load just to show the error message "please login..." At the very least it should show the error right away, or otherwise go directly to the login page.

OK on to my requests:

1. Ability for unanswered questions to show those with "no upvoted answers".

2. An event hook that runs before a post is saved to the database. So I can remove tags in my plugin without the extra query, and Q2A would return an error if all the tags got removed.

3. On the permissions, instead of "voting on answers" and "voting on questions" it would be better to separate upvoting/downvoting. I want to allow new(ish) users to vote up posts, but stop them from voting down until they have more reputation.

4. Stop users from the same IP address creating multiple accounts, (or more likely, don't let IP create more than one account a day).

5. Use basic numbers instead of "start" e.g. questions?page=2, or better yet no parameters e.g. questions/2, questions/3, etc.

Minor issue: another question reminded me now that my site is over a year old, a huge number of posts say "1 year ago" which isn't very helpful - maybe use a date for these old posts, e.g. Jul 4, 2010 ?

Oh, and even though I don't use it on my site, making the CKeditor fill the width of the available area would be good. And make the default font size the same as on the site so that it actually is WYSIWYG ;)

Comments

with the close feature, it would be a good idea to let administrators add their own reasons. Also, it would be nice to ask users for a reason when they flag a post.

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Yeah, that's what I thought about it... that's how the close plugin works:

www.question2answer.org/qa/8710/ability-to-close-questions

Referencing duplicates is accomplished by adding html to the reason, like <a href="123">this question</a>

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+1
- Duplication: here you would obviously want to link to the original question. Either the user could paste the URL of the duplicate, or tick one of the related questions.

It will be like the "Synapse" button on Spacecollective: http://spacecollective.org/eyeclipse/6899/Spanish-revolution

Answer 2

Looks like two plugins will be shelved soon :)

Just a few things I had on a list:

• pluggable functions, hooks, filters
• language integration for plugins
• meta tables for posts and users that plugins could use to add data (this is how I implemented question closing)
• reminder to select answer on voting, posting comments on answers to own question (I added this to the ajax comment plugin)
• turn disabled vote buttons from submit into buttons so the title text actually shows up

I imagine that badges would be another important core feature, but I don't know how you feel about that, or whether you really want to take on the task of putting it in the core.

Thanks for all your work - Q2A has been a great help in mine.

Answer 3

1)    Deduction of User score

There would be a system where point would be deducted from user score who ask question.

    And also Option for user to send their point to other users.

2) Login with twitter plugin

3) ajax-style interfacing for asking a question , when user click on text box  for writing his question then that field open up with WYSIWYG editor and category which he want to choose.
 

4) Pagination with Ajax when ,

 In pagination there are so many number 1 ,2 ,3 4, 5, ............ 

 so when user click let say '89' then inspite of loading of whole page only question  of that page should load.

A small box with GO button to jump to desired page directly .

 

thanks for this beautiful platform.

Comments

+1
Login with twitter plugin

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That's a nice idear for pagination :D

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+1 for deduction of User score from users who ask question.

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You can already set up Q2A to deduct from a user's score when they ask a question - just put a negative value in the "Posting a question" option.

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+1 for 4) A small box with GO button to jump to desired page directly .

Answer 4

VERY IMPORTANT!:

qa-include\qa-page-admin.php
Change function on line 545

switch function file_get_contents for qa_retrieve_url

As allow_url_fopen is a major security flaw, I suggest modifying qa_retrieve_url with an 'else file_get_contents' call to satisfy insane users who don't mind being hacked every three seconds.


Request:

remove function to speed up code and allow more theme customization:

qa-include\qa-app-format.php

remove lines: 1222 and 1223

if (!file_exists(QA_THEME_DIR.$theme.'/qa-styles.css'))
$theme='Default';

so that we can change the name of the style sheet in the theme without the script loading the default theme as a result of not detecting qa-styles.css


Also I have a few idears:

• Viewable Revisions for both the questions and the answers
• Single item and follow user rss feeds
• Recommend button on questions to email a friend
• Answer lists expand pagination with jump to box
• User has total moderation over there question answers
• jQuery 'expand' ajax comments and answers

I hope upgrading will be easy

I look forward to the planned upgrades

Thank you Gideon :D.

Answer 5

1. Questions sorting by time:

Questions > Most votes > ...of week, of three  months, of year, all time;

Questions > Most answers > ...of week, of three  months, of year, all time;

Questions > Most views > ...of week, of three  months, of year, all time.

1.2 Sort questions by: Most votes, most views, most answers, unanswered, hotness at /search, /user, /tag pages.

2. Option to completely disable downvoting or require x amaunt of points to downvote.

 

3. Question type: Poll, poll question like here http://www.answerbag.com/polls/cans-beer-want_2568933

 

4. Optional moderation mode (admin approval before anonymous post appears)

 

5. Stop users from the same IP address creating multiple accounts, ignore voting from same IP adress to post created by the same IP adress as voter voting.

 

Sorry for English language skills and thanks Gideon !

 

 

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I have some more, not in list, not prioritized, maybe someone think they are important and ad to theyr list:

 

Option to set category where questions with no category would go.

 

See who rated post by hovering on rating.

 

(1.3 search question in particular category).

 

Update/renew button to renew question for example onse a day, so it can be seen on top of the questions as "updated".

 

Option to hide or coloring text to grey answers below -3 rating (By default or just by user)

 

More interaction for questions for example random questions widget, unanswered questions widget, all user's questions, all users answers at user page.

 

More advanced private messaging system.

 

Answer 6

Better tag management would be great. If people could delete and merge tags, and also retag questions, that would help q&as become much more organised.

Comments

You can rename tags with DisgruntledGoat's plugin "Q2A-Tag-Synonyms" ( https://github.com/svivian/Q2A-Tag-Synonyms )

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yes, but that plugin doesn't have a front end interface, and it would be nice if this feature was supported in the core. Plus, I don't think that plugin includes a retaging feature.

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The plugin does do mass retagging, when you tick the option "Also convert existing tags using above rules".

I can certainly look at adding a front end interface. What kind of things were you thinking about? Remember you can easily delete tags and retag questions in the front end by clicking "edit". I don't think it's too much trouble to go to the admin interface and add a new synonym when you need it.

Answer 7

Hey!

Caching system would be nice. That's the only thing that should be on top of the list.

And if you have time - Badges.

Thanks.

Answer 8

Thanks very much for taking opinions and I appreciate your work.

1: More functions for my account something like saving favorite questions/answers/users, previous viewed pages, my sent and received messages and etc on my account

2: Login with Twitter

3: Giving and reducting the points to users at the admin and could show a message why points have been changed when the users log in.

4. Advance Search such as Users by email address or ID name, time rage, and paticular categories.

5: Automatically delete question pages which have not had any answers for a month.

Answer 9

1. Onsite notification system
2. Default Internal mentions system like mention notifier @username
3. Internal private message
4. Admin need a buttom to Delete hidden questions with dependencies, in this moment i need hidding all comments, answers etc,need button for delete all hidden question/answers/comments with or without dependencys
5. Panel for moderators, list of hidden questions, questions/comments/answers marked as spam.
Thanks this it's awesome sorry for my English

Answer 10

Yep! close the question..after  "best answer" chosen,  would be good indeed.

 

thank tou.

Comments

+1 good and needed

Answer 11

Thanks Gideon for your efforts on Q2A.

Here are top 5 feature which I feel are important.

1. Delete user and all question,answers and comment from the same users (will help for SPAM management)

2. Cache system for frequently viewed questions and pages.

3. More interactive user page (example: http://www.quora.com/Kevin-Systrom  or http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet )

4. Better search.(now only QA are searched, add pages to search)

5. User favorite questions: when user log in he should able to see his favorite questions list.

Answer 12

First thing I want to say that the system simply wonderful

 My ideas are

 1. Picture for each category so that the site will be a bit nicer
 2. Signature as forums
 3. Advanced Search
 4. Images of Statistics (questions, answers, comments, members)
 5. Mail system to contact all members on site

Comments

+1 for  3 and 5.