1066365 - [User Story] As a Helpee, I can submit a new question so that I can get help.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: BuddyUp, defect, P1)

Comment 1

[Michael Cooper [:mythmon]]

Adding implementation bugs as blockers.

Comment 2

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

Working on this.

Comment 3

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

Some clarifying questions on the below:

* I can submit the question if X characters / Y words are entered

So this means that we need to only allow a user to submit a question after say, at least 10 characters have been entered. The question then is, what is the least number of characters?

* I can only enter Z characters in a question

I read this to mean that question have a finite length. If so, what is the maximum number of characters that we allow?

Thanks!

Comment 4

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

I'm going to have to ask Kadir here to see if we can leverage some of the SUMO experience, Kadir any recommendation?

Comment 5

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

On SUMO we have a minimum character count of 5. The maximum is 10,000 characters. I'd suggest we keep the same limits for simplicity's sake.

Comment 6

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

We'll have to change how we store the question then. Mike tells us that topic titles are limited to 255 characters. So we need to store the question in the content. And probably a truncated version of the question in the title.

Comment 7

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

We have also discussed this a bit more and the general feeling is that, setting a minimum number of characters is not going to be that useful and we should just not allow submission if nothing has been entered.

And if the upper limit is 10,000 characters, then we also do not have to be concerned about that, as it is highly unlikely that someone will enter a question, even comment, of more than 10,000 characters.

Does this work for you?

Comment 8

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

(In reply to Schalk Neethling [:espressive] from comment #7)
> We have also discussed this a bit more and the general feeling is that,
> setting a minimum number of characters is not going to be that useful and we
> should just not allow submission if nothing has been entered.
> 
> And if the upper limit is 10,000 characters, then we also do not have to be
> concerned about that, as it is highly unlikely that someone will enter a
> question, even comment, of more than 10,000 characters.
> 
> Does this work for you?

What is the rationale?
How can a question with less than 3 words make sense to any helper?

Comment 9

[Schalk Neethling [:espressive]]

(In reply to Romain Testard [:RT] from comment #8)
> (In reply to Schalk Neethling [:espressive] from comment #7)
> > We have also discussed this a bit more and the general feeling is that,
> > setting a minimum number of characters is not going to be that useful and we
> > should just not allow submission if nothing has been entered.
> > 
> > And if the upper limit is 10,000 characters, then we also do not have to be
> > concerned about that, as it is highly unlikely that someone will enter a
> > question, even comment, of more than 10,000 characters.
> > 
> > Does this work for you?
> 
> What is the rationale?
> How can a question with less than 3 words make sense to any helper?

The problem is that there is no magic number that will ensure that bogus questions are not submitted.

If we go on the low end and say a minimum of 5 characters, a user can type bleh!! and happily submit it. If we say no wait, 5 words, someone can type b l e h ! (splitting the previous on spaces will equate to 5 'words') and happily submit it.

Of course, we can be more clever? and split on spaces and then ensure each word is at least 2 characters but then no, wait, what if one of the words is 'I' or 'a'. 

This can quickly get very complicated and, seeing we have a way for helpers (and helpees?) to flag a question, I feel we should simply prevent users from submitting an empty questions. From there, we should place some trust i our users that 90% of the time we will receive questions from non malicious users and for the remaining 10%, moderation might be needed.

Makes sense?