43
$\begingroup$

When we are at math.SE homepage, we can see the asked question, and at the left of the title we can see information about the numbers of votes, answers and views, like this:

enter image description here What I suggest is to add for unanswered question the number of comments. Here is the reason: questions which have not received any comment will get more attention, since it will make the difference between the unanswered questions

  • which have been already solved in the comments,
  • which need some precisions or context, and we can't do more until the OP replies the comments.

What do you think about that?

Update: as Nate Eldredge says, the number of statistics associated to a question can be judged as excessive. So what I suggest is that each user can choose in the option to display or not the number of comments to unwanswered questions.

Update 2: has the idea being discussed between moderators?

$\endgroup$
6
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Interesting idea. $\endgroup$
    – Aryabhata
    Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 17:29
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ Indeed a good idea. My +1 for the proposal. $\endgroup$
    – user21436
    Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 17:34
  • 16
    $\begingroup$ I wouldn't be displeased if it just replaced the view count thing entirely, which to me conveys nothing useful at all... $\endgroup$
    – user856
    Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 17:45
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Why don't add the (feature-request) tag? $\endgroup$
    – draks ...
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 7:12
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @draks Because I didn't know such a tag existed. Done now. $\endgroup$
    – Davide Giraudo
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 7:24
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Rahul I think the viewcount might be useful. When I browse recently active questions, the question with high viewcount are probably older questions, which were recently bumped. The questions with low viewcount are probably genuine new questions. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented May 9, 2012 at 16:15

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
8
$\begingroup$

Has there been any progress on this? I would very much like to be able to see the number of comments rather than the number of views. If a fairly easy question has no comments, then I'd probably go and drop a hint, but if I can see there are already comments (as there very often are), then I will know already not to waste my time clicking on the question.

$\endgroup$
3
$\begingroup$

I'm not sure this would have the desired effect. Often, the reason a question has no comments is because it is so boring that nobody bothered to say anything about it. I would probably be less likely to look at a question with no comments.

Conversely, a substantial number of comments suggests activity and interest. However, we may not wish to encourage a large number of comments, as it is somewhat contrary to the intention of the site, which is to give answers.

Finally, I think the number of statistics associated with each question on the front page (votes, answers, views, tags, time of last activity, user responsible, their rep) is already becoming excessive, and there's no need to add to it. What would come next? Word count?

$\endgroup$
3
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ I think the first point is not true. I know from experience that questions in unpopular subjects get very few views. I'm quite sure it's unlikely to be caused by their inherent lack of interest. It's often impossible to evaluate the interest of a question just by looking at the title. So I think some interesting questions may be seen by very few people. Nothing can hurt such questions so giving them a chance by telling other users, "This question hasn't been commented on yet" can only help. $\endgroup$
    – user23211
    Commented Apr 4, 2012 at 14:57
  • $\begingroup$ And I believe it will help them. I'm quite sure some people will try to answer a question no one has commented on yet. I can imagine a couple of reasons for doing that. I once asked a question which received very few views and no comments or answers. I offered a bounty for it and someone eventually answered it to my satisfaction. I don't think they would if the question hadn't been highlighted. $\endgroup$
    – user23211
    Commented Apr 4, 2012 at 15:01
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ If the number of statistics may be considered as excessive, maybe each user could be allow to choose the displayed statistics. $\endgroup$
    – Davide Giraudo
    Commented Apr 5, 2012 at 17:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .