Is there any value in setting up a voting system on G2G comments as we have done on questions and answers?

Question

As in the case of G2G questions and G2G answers, comments to the questions and/or answers have good and bad qualities.  In the interest of having a more collaborative website, would you feel bad, good, or indifferent in voting on the comments made in G2G.  I know sometimes comments can be changed into answers, but on the whole, no one votes on the good or the bad of the comments provided.

Comments

Voting is mostly useless as it is. It would at least need to show up and down votes separately. But even then the way the votes are going tells us nothing about the significance of a topic. I would rather just see threaded replies not separated as comment vs. answer.

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I think the software for the G2G is based on different software than Wikitree and there's not so much that can be changed.  If you scroll down to the bottom right-hand corner you can see a link for Question2Answer.

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I agree with you, David, that we should be able to vote on comments.

Many times, the comments are actually the answers that the poster was seeking; being able to give them a vote up would definitely communicate to other members that the comment was a good answer or that it answered the question.

But, as Vincent says, the G2G software may not allow for that function or be editable to allow that function.

The better solution, then, would be to post an actual answer to a question as an answer instead of a comment.

Answer 1

You always have the choice of entering a question or a comment.  If you don't want votes you can enter comments and some people do do that.  I try to decide if Im answering a question or just providing other information.  If you allowed votes on comments you'd have to either allow votes on every comment, even when someone makes several on a given thread, or you'd have to limit each person to one comment on a thread, neither of which I'd concider productive.

Comments

As I said, I didn't care if the answers were good, bad, or indifferent.  If they don't work to make wikitree a more collaborative effort, then there's no reason to use them.

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If you don't care, then why ask about voting?

Beam me up, Scotty.

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As I was trying to explain, I wanted to know if it would help us  all communicate better with each other if we could vote on what people said in their comments.  But so far, I seem to be the only one that feels that way.  Some think it would detract from better communication with each other and hamper the overall goal of wikitree.  If we become more competitive, afterall, also means we become less collaborative, then voting on comments might be the wrong approach.

Am I making any sense?  As it Is, one can refrain from trying to gain points by making comments, which are not voted on, instead of providing answers and thought provoking questions.  I'm beginning to think that voting on comments would make the process less helpful than the current process.  Then, there would be no reason to change the current policy and procedures, but one never knows if one never asks.

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I agree, concerning votes.

But I don't think we should get points for comments.  If we want credit for our comments, we should post them as answers. 

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I've come to believe that is the way it should be done.  It's not about making points, it's about communicating facts, thoughts, impressions, etc.

What I'm after is better communication, not more points or a more complicated point system.

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Hear, hear!

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Hopefully, our voices will be heard.  I know none of us our perfect, especially when it comes to knowing and understanding our ancestors, aunts, uncles, and cousins, most of whom we never met (Some of them were living 1000 years ago or more).  I had ancestors who were with William the Conqueror in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings;  None of us have our complete pedigree let alone our complete family history, so we all can use a little friendly interchange of information from time to time.

If we are collaborators, we can fill in the gaps, fix the mistakes or inconsistencies, and repair the disorder in our ancestral and collateral lines.  Wikitree promises us much, but we need good sourced information to make what we think is real, really real.