NO QUESTION - Suggestions concerning this question & answer area

asked 2013-03-28 07:02:05 -0600

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

I would like to place some suggestions for this question and answer area, in order to create some better results and answers.

Is it possible (regarding the tool used for this forum) to create a range of like 3-4 stickied topic on top of the question page. I am thinking about the following: basic guides for searching information / basic manners and behaviour / ...
Make it possible to append a discussion area? A lot of usefull discussions go to waste due to the structure of the forum. One could filter out good discussions and place them together.
Why not use this information to create usefull guides? If people are up to helping me out on this, we could filter information into usefull guides. I have noticed there are topics like cascade_training / installing OpenCV / C style versus C++ style / ... that are literally answered week after week. And I am guessing one of the main reasons is that they are not published into usefull guides.

Just my 2 cents. Delete if this is not the place to discuss, but feel free to point me to the right persons for this.

Furthermore, I suggest the more explerienced Q&A forum users supply other suggestions in this topic.

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1+ 2: looking at how this is made, it does not seem to be so easy to extend

3: maybe let's think of a way to extract recurring themes into tutorials/guides on the main site ?

berak ( 2013-03-28 08:02:37 -0600 )edit

It is something that @Guanta already suggested and indeed, it seems legit to create a sort of FAQ. It would also create the opportunity to be more strict on this forum, removing all rubbish, and pointing people to the correct place, enforcing better rules.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-03-28 08:16:03 -0600 )edit

Good idea indeed. I will follow the thread, if you have a solution and/or need help, let me know.

Mathieu Barnachon ( 2013-03-28 08:42:12 -0600 )edit

To Steven: it is great idea, but we do not only need to develop some FAQ or instructions, we also need a group of moderators, who will remove rubbish and etc.

AlexanderShishkov ( 2013-04-04 06:52:15 -0600 )edit

I agree :) I haven't been around that long, but hey I am up for some structure. I have the idea some other newer people also. And I have the idea some people are already taking it as a job to go through newer topics and ordening everything :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-04 07:00:16 -0600 )edit

Good idea. i agree

Akhil Patel ( 2018-12-04 04:49:09 -0600 )edit

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answered 2013-04-05 10:36:26 -0600

Philipp Wagner

1842 ●4 ●14 ●29 http://www.bytefish.de/

First of all I think this QA page is a huge improvement over the Yahoo Mailing List. Thanks a lot to Alexander for building it, he has done a great job in my opinion. Since most of the answers I give here are more or less self-contained, I wouldn't have much of a problem with turning them into something like a wiki page. This way it can be found by people and is archived. I know we have got an OpenCV wiki over at:

http://code.opencv.org/projects/opencv/wiki

But it appears to be unknown or not used widely, I am just looking at the edits. Does anyone else think a wiki might be useful?

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I do not think that using a wiki is a bad idea, but i would rather stimulate people to write comprehensive documentation for the main docs. It is already hard to push people to actually do a decent search in documents, so I guess creating another base with information isn't the best approach for the moment.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-05 12:48:46 -0600 )edit

I agree, wiki-pages would solve many problems. So one solution could be to make the 'tutorials' and 'user guide' sections to wiki pages. And cross links between the reference and the wiki pages then would give it more relevance and attention.

Guanta ( 2013-04-06 06:49:59 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-02-24 13:47:34 -0600

xaffeine
829 ●2 ●12 ●25

It's not clear to me that making a sticky "rules" topic would have any great effect. Every forum I've ever seen has the same problems, whether they post rules or not. In fact, this is one of the most polite forums I've seen. We just have a problem with redundant questions.

I think the main difference is between questioners who do some search and questioners who seem to do no search. I suppose a better search function might help.

I suggest putting a header at the top of the Q&A page before the askbot-managed main section. It should have a search box that hits the tutorials and reference documentation as well as the questions and answers, and any other source that that's sufficiently relevant.

If I'm allowed to dream, I would also have the "ask question" page automatically do search as the user enters a question. Maybe some questioners would find their answer before they hit "post!"

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Nice addition :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-02-25 03:03:34 -0600 )edit

I totally agree. Just an addiction about Tags vs Keywords as comment to @Mathieu Barnachon answer

pklab ( 2015-07-03 12:08:33 -0600 )edit

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answered 2013-08-22 01:02:32 -0600

Mathieu Barnachon

4678 ●18 ●53 http://www.math-barnac...

Just reactivate this question for the tag subject: Lot of people are using # in their tags. We should add a section on the FAQ to prevent that. Otherwise we will have a lot of duplicate tags. We can not blame people if we don't say them how to do... If you are agree with that, I will try to edit as much tag as I can, and I invite people doing the same on new question, like Steven did! (thanks to him).

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I support this suggestion! Duplicate tags will make the forum filtering go crazy. So editing tags is the only way to go.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-08-22 04:17:55 -0600 )edit

Answer from @Alexander:

  I am moving our Q&amp;A server to another hosting with few updates. I will try to solve problems with hash tags also.  But I need few weeks to finish it, because right now I have a lot of work, so I have to do it in free time.

So it will get fixed :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-08-27 04:38:21 -0600 )edit

There has to be a way to automatically strip '#' out of the tags and it has to be easier than forcing countless people to stop putting them in.

xaffeine ( 2014-02-24 13:17:49 -0600 )edit

For the moment there isn't but I do admit an automatic function would benefit us alot :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-02-25 03:02:46 -0600 )edit

Tags vs Keywords ! a way could be: low karma could use only existing tags or suggest newone. Higher Karma can create new tags and or accept suggestions

pklab ( 2015-07-03 12:14:32 -0600 )edit

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answered 2013-04-04 06:41:47 -0600

AlexanderShishkov

3577 ●14 ●32 ●57

Hi! My answers are below.

Is it possible (regarding the tool used for this forum) to create a range of like 3-4 stickied topic on top of the question page?

It is possible and it is very interesting idea. If you want to create such topics let me know. The main problem with current materials is the size of OpenCV team. All OpenCV core developers are very busy. So we very rarely have a time to create some documentation. I can add all needed materials to our web-sites but OpenCV community should develop them themselves.

Make it possible to append a discussion area?

I don't believe in such type of resources. We tried to do it with Yahoo group. Could you argue this idea?

Why not use this information to create usefull guides?

We don't have enough time and enough donations :-((( to do it. But if you want to help us, it will be great. If you want to develop any tutorial or guide I will help you.

If you have more particularly questions you can address them to me directly: admin_delete_@opencv_delete_.org

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Ok so basically I can respond to this very quickly.

If it is possible to create a sticky, I would ask you to create two sticky posts, one to post some kind of rules for the Q&A forum and one for a general guide to start a search for your problem. I will gladly write both topics as comprehensive as possible within my spare time.
I indeed find references some time of a yahoo group on google, which seems to have died out and which does not work as good as I expect. I will think about a good manner to actually discuss recent problems. For example a small discussion area/group, to end up with enough data for a comprehensive guide.
About the tutorials / guides. People like @Guanta and @Mathieu Barnachon already showed interest in helping out. So I will adress them.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-04 06:55:56 -0600 )edit

So yeah, I am quite enthousiastic to create more well funded documentation about topics. Guess the first thing me and @Guanta will start with is the commonly discussed train_cascade. Will get back to you later on this. Thx for your enthousiastic response!

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-04 06:57:17 -0600 )edit

I've made a small tutorial on Bag of words with OpenCV. It's a first one, to try, to see how long and difficult it could be writing a tutorial. I've followed the procedures propose here: http://docs.opencv.org/doc/tutorials/introduction/how_to_write_a_tutorial/how_to_write_a_tutorial.html and send it. If specific tutorials could interest people, why not creating a discussion to ask for tutorials? Or use the bug tracker to ask?

Mathieu Barnachon ( 2013-04-04 11:22:09 -0600 )edit

We should update contacts in tutorial mentioned by you. Could you send it one more time directly to me: admin_delete_@opencv_delete_.org

In what format we should create discussion in your opinion? One of our ideas is create special topics on our issue tracker with tasks for OpenCV community. I don't believe in common forum format, because the most part of info on such sites is trash in my experience. Maybe we should create forum only for developers, but in what way we should choose people for it? Maybe we should create some IRC channel? We think about it, but we don't have any solution right now. What is your opinion?

AlexanderShishkov ( 2013-04-04 14:38:20 -0600 )edit

I guess discussion on bug tracker is good idea. Creating another discussion tracker is maybe not really what you want. It will divide devellopers from beginners resulting in a lower response rate here. A function that could already be of a lot of help is the possibility to send members messages? For now this is not possible, but many times I have been wanting to actually start a personal conversation with people to discuss something, instead of just pushing comments.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-04 15:32:00 -0600 )edit

Indeed, @StevenPuttemans opinion of the ability of a personal communication would be very nice. I agree to @Alexander that a forum is not the best way, irc channel might be a possible solution but it also has its drawbacks. Maybe an own rubric 'hot topics' where we can put links to common answers and their solutions could be placed would be a way?

Guanta ( 2013-04-04 17:17:21 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-02-24 18:41:00 -0600

Rui Marques

1294 ●7 ●22 ●34

This format has proven quite successful with stackoverflow (and in my opinion is somehow successful here). Sure it has its problems, it is hard to balance giving freedom to the users and the overflow of information coming from the intertubes.

My suggestion is for OpenCV team to give more power in this site, if possible, to some trusted members of the community - crowd-sourcing the maintenance of this site. What I mean is the power to close questions, mark as duplicate, and maybe other that we should discuss. These would help mitigate the main concerns pointed here.

I also agree with point #3 of the question, there is some valuable information here, we should make some guides/FAQ.

I will also add that I have been working on converting C++ samples to Android. If I get good feedback (if people find it useful) I will continue to convert more, and maybe also from python samples to Android. You can find them here:

https://github.com/ruimarques

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Hello @Rui Marques! Actually the OpenCV already assigns members like myself the rights to manage to forum as a forum moderator. I have been doing this for about a year now, but do keep in mind that every single moderator does this in his spare time. There are moments where I can do this every day, but from time to time having project deadlines for work, I have to skip the forum for a week or so. We do try to moderate the forum as good as possible however, like for example changing tags to meaningfull words. As to the guide thing, we do encourage people to supply more guides, but it do takes time to put them in the correct formatting. As to your examples, feel free to submit them through a pull request!

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-02-25 02:51:38 -0600 )edit

@StevenPuttermans ok I understand that so probably more moderators are needed.

Rui Marques ( 2014-02-25 10:53:08 -0600 )edit

I have just noticed I can close questions, I am not sure if it is because of my karma or what. It is a petty that it is not very powerful as it does not simplify the process of pointing the original question (for closing as duplicate).

Rui Marques ( 2014-02-25 14:11:10 -0600 )edit

Another thing that doesn't help is how slow this site is now, it takes several seconds to submit comments/answers.

Rui Marques ( 2014-02-25 14:12:21 -0600 )edit

As to closing down and editing answers, that does depend on karma. As for the slow loading of the site, probably because the server hosting it is somewhere in Russia :)

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-02-26 01:44:08 -0600 )edit

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answered 2013-04-08 17:24:04 -0600

HD_Mouse
565 ●1 ●3 ●13

Is there anyway to point to the samples that come with OpenCV source? I frequent the OpenCV IRC channel, and we get a lot of people that ask questions that I think could have been solved if they had seen the samples. The sample code isn't exactly hidden, but it isn't immediately obvious if you don't know it's there.

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Agree to that, basically we need a starters guide :) Going to cook one up in the following days and then asking Alexander to sticky it on top of the forum and maybe make a nice guide from it for docs.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-04-09 01:20:08 -0600 )edit

If you need/want any help with that, let me know.

HD_Mouse ( 2013-04-09 13:04:36 -0600 )edit

@HD_Mouse, the docs have been updated with every sample that is available for the moment. They are linked through extra notes with the location of the sample that goes together with the documents functionality.

StevenPuttemans ( 2013-08-12 16:01:37 -0600 )edit

Excellent!

HD_Mouse ( 2013-08-13 13:18:00 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-02-21 11:46:56 -0600

kbarni

4134 ●1 ●13 ●49

I think that this Q/A page is way too crowded, apart of the tags, it's really difficult to find something.

It should be much more logical to have a forum with subforums for general talk, development, beginner section, compiling/installing, different modules, tutorials, sample codes, a place to contribute new modules, etc.

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The format is doing its work. We have an increase in topics, and by using some simple search guidelines you can almost find anything you need. I don't think people will change the way of the forum quite quickly.

StevenPuttemans ( 2014-02-25 02:53:07 -0600 )edit

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answered 2015-12-19 06:19:46 -0600

pklab

4284 ●7 ●30 ●60

Just reactivate this question for the tag subject again. Use of # is growing, suggestion short list for tags contains almost # because of sorting, this creates a complicate way to use tags.

I think this subject is becoming relevant. As per my previous comment

it should be easy to manage tags and more using Askbot management commands. I think moderators can do this while we can prepare a list as suggested by @sturkmen

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unfortunately, afaik, only @alalek has access to the admin console

berak ( 2015-12-19 07:08:35 -0600 )edit

more a general comment: very annoying are the continiously growing spam messages.

Guanta ( 2015-12-19 07:13:02 -0600 )edit

Hello guys! Thanks for the report. Firstly we are working on the next update of the site. We want to add new captcha method, because we have to spent a lot of time to stop spam now. After this update (it will be at the beginning of January) we start to work on tags.

AlexanderShishkov ( 2015-12-22 01:38:17 -0600 )edit

nice to see. When the time will come please tell us how we can help on rearrangement of tags!

pklab ( 2015-12-22 04:45:34 -0600 )edit

@AlexanderShishkov, thank you for putting in the effort of fixing stuff! It will clearly help to advance this forum. When you succeed in all of this, we should start the discussion again on the Q&A structure :) Keep in touch!

StevenPuttemans ( 2015-12-28 04:08:15 -0600 )edit

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answered 2015-07-03 09:21:15 -0600

sturkmen

6772 ●3 ●48 ●79 https://github.com/stu...

Hi All, i am ready to work on rearrangement of tags. i can create a list of most used tags and their equals that can be replaced with. i think if we have done this will be useful.

    for example :

 image_processing
------------------------        
#image_processing
#imageProcessing
#image-processing
image_processing
imageprocessing
image-processing

findContour
----------------
#FindContour
#findContours
cv2.findContours
cvFindContours
cvStartFindContou...
FindContour
findContours

i wonder. it must be possible to change new tags with old ones via SQL easily.

for test purpose i created a test account on http://sturkmen.askbot.com

need a little help. please someone register and ask one question and give answer. and i will make who wants to be test as moderator. i will try to get sql data and analize it. thanks in advance.

sorry for poor english.

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It should be easy to manage tags and more using Askbot management commands. I think moderators can do this but could prepare a list as suggested by @sturkmen

pklab ( 2015-11-03 13:05:46 -0600 )edit

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answered 2013-04-04 04:29:39 -0600

StevenPuttemans

20029 ●16 ●82 ●207 http://stevenputtemans...

Just giving this a little bump since I did not see any response of the frequent people that answer questions, nor did I see any moderators giving their opinion on this.

Again, if I need to adress others for this, please direct me in the right direction :)

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