Tailor Made Answers

A Javascript question:

http://javascriptquestions.com/question/show/id/19

Questions on “Javascript Questions” are rare, so I wanted to be sure everyone saw it.

Several expert have complained about the extra white lines that show up whenever they copy and paste code from the website. I’m not sure how to fix this problem while still escaping all the actual code that our customers want to post to our sites. I’ll here post the code we actually use to format code on screen, please let me know if you see a better way to do this.

public static function showSafeCode($description) {
$description = htmlspecialchars($description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;code&gt;”, “<code>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;/code&gt;”, “</code>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;blockquote&gt;”, “<blockquote>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;/blockquote&gt;”, “</blockquote>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;strong&gt;”, “<strong>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;/strong&gt;”, “</strong>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;em&gt;”, “<em>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;/em&gt;”, “</em>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;cite&gt;”, “<cite>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“&lt;/cite&gt;”, “</cite>”, $description);

$description = str_replace(“"”, “\””, $description);

// this will be tough. will do rough then come back later to clean up
//
// 2009-12-08 – we need to introduce a special syntax for links, to
// allow

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users to both make escaped links visible on screen, but also
// to have a way to insert active links that really work.
$description = str_replace(“[[LINK “, “<a “, $description);
$description = str_replace(“[[/LINK]]”, “</a>”, $description);

$stringSoFar = “”;
$weAreInsideLink = false;
for ($i=0; $i < strlen($description); $i++) {
$stringSoFar .= $description[$i];
$last3Chars = substr($stringSoFar, -3);
if ($last3Chars == “<a “) $weAreInsideLink = true;
if ($weAreInsideLink) {
$last2Chars = substr($stringSoFar, -2);
if ($last2Chars == “]]”) {
// get rid of the last “&gt;” and replace with “>”
$stringSoFar = substr($stringSoFar, 0, -2);
$stringSoFar .= “>”;
$weAreInsideLink = false;
}
}
}

$description = $stringSoFar;

// darren wants all code blocks wrapped in PRE tags
$description = str_replace(“<code>”, “<pre><code>”, $description);
$description = str_replace(“</code>”, “</code></pre>”, $description);
$description = nl2br($description);
return $description;
}

(And wow, one has to do a lot of escaping to get a post like this to render correctly in WordPress. Is there a way to automate this?)

Yesterday we wrote about our new page, that shows how much askers have offered for questions/work in the past, and how much the experts thought that work should be valued at. Today we added this information directly to the form that the askers fill out when they first create a question.

Askers have often asked us for guidance about how much to pay, and now we are giving them the feedback of the experts, right on the page where they specify how

much they will pay. We believe this will benefit everyone, and reduce the miscommunication between the askers and the experts who answer.

I’ve also decided that we need for the price suggestions to be serious, so, as with other things on the site, I’ve decided to restrict this (the ability to suggest what the prize should be) to the voters of the site (the voters are the top all time experts and the top monthly experts).

Here is what the form now looks like, where askers specify the prize they will pay:

This is an important issue, and I’d like suggestions about how we can better handle this.

Via Twitter, Denzel Chia wrote:

I noticed that recently askers either do not reply to answers or does not vote for any experts, even after the question has expired. At least this is happening to almost all the questions I had recently answered. I cannot always vote for others, as I need the money too. Askers seem to think that all they need is to pay for question and get answer, they don’t realise we need their reply for further development, and we need their vote to get paid. I think they should either refund or vote. I cannot depend on community pot for a living. They are really using WP Questions as a public “forum” to ask a question and get lots of answers and leave without “resolving”.

I responded, and I asked him if it would help if I created a special page of just those questions that are waiting for someone to vote on them.

Denzel Chia then responded:

I think ideally a small “unvoted” tag on the question list will make it obvious, but as I said before, I think nobody sees the refund page or visits any other page link on the footer. Maybe a reminder to vote on the askers’ admin page header, visible after login can help too. As for encouraging other experts to vote, I don’t think there is any “effective” way, since money is involved, those who answered cannot vote for themselves and those who don’t “do not wish” to see other people get the money, they rather let it go to refund or community pot. At least this is what I think now. If I don’t get voted, I would rather let it go to community pot, since nobody cares to vote for me.
I used to ask Christianto to vote for me if he thinks my answer is correct, and he did voted fairly by dividing it among others. But I cannot keep asking him for help. So ultimately, it is better for neutral party to vote, it is better for you or your colleagues to vote for unvoted questions, rather than me canvasing for votes which may seem “unfair” to other experts.

What is the best way forward here? What I’d like is to make it as easy as possible for the experts to vote on each other’s answers. I’m wary of stepping in and voting myself, except in emergencies. I do not think it would be fair to the community

if I was the one who decided how most of the prizes got distributed. That would change the dynamics too much.

I am curious, too, why is it that experts are so eager to rate each other on StackOverflow, but not on WP Questions? What is it about our system of rewards that is lacking?

I’m also curious if would be worthwhile to send out a daily email to those voters who wanted to be notified of questions that are open for voting?

Our customers frequently ask for guidelines regarding how much work should cost. We hope this page will help educate the WordPress community about the value of each expert’s knowledge. On the linked page you will see what askers offered, and what the experts suggested the prize should be. Some of these questions ended successfully, and others had to be refunded. We remind everyone asking a question: if you offer too little

money, the experts will not be motivated to give you the information (or work) that you need.