MATLAB Answers Wish-list #6 (and bug reports)
Rik
on 14 Feb 2023
Latest activity Reply by Rena Berman
on 7 Feb 2024
This is the 6th installment of the wish-list and bug report thread.
This topic is the follow on to the first Wish-list for MATLAB Answer sections and second MATLAB Answers Wish-list #2 (and bug reports). The third started out as New design of the forum - grey on white and the fourth and fifth also grew so large they are slow to load and navigate.
Same idea as the previous ones: one wish (or bug report) per answer, so that people can vote their wishes.
What should you post where?
Next Gen threads (#1): features that would break compatibility with previous versions, but would be nice to have
@anyone posting a new thread when the last one gets too large (about 50 answers seems a reasonable limit per thread), please update this list in all last threads. (if you don't have editing privileges, just post a comment asking someone to do the edit)
43 Comments
Hi @Dyuman Joshi: As Rik mentioned, AI generate answers are a perfect topic for the new Discussions area. You can consider use the Generative AI channel. If you are not sure, General channel is the best place to start. We will soon transfer these wishlist posts to Discussions but for reference only. Going forward, we recommend create seperate thread for each idea, so it's easy to track and update the status. Use ideas channel for ideas and suggestions.
(Answers Dev) @Dyuman Joshi, @Voss this has now been fixed. It may take a little bit for the identifiers to propagate.
(Answers Dev) @Voss, @Dyuman Joshi, an internal infrastructure update has led to this issue. We are hoping to release a fix for this shortly. It will likely log you out of Answers since the Answers cookie was affected as well. Once you log back in you should be all set.
I am unable to see status (EDITOR or MVP or Rising Star) of contributors on MATLAB Answers.
I can see the Staff tags, but the status symbols are missing for them as well.
Is it missing for everybody or is it just me?
Hi @Rik
I've been enjoying the forum and appreciate the efforts to make it user-friendly. I wanted to suggest a feature that could enhance the user experience, especially when dealing with lengthy codes in multiple updates.
While I'm aware of the Page Up/Page Down keys, I believe it would be beneficial to introduce a "Show/Hide" button tag (commonly known as the "Spoiler" tag).
This button could have the functionality to hide and show lengthy code, explanatory text, or images. Such a feature would prove useful in various scenarios:- Streamlining the user experience by reducing space.
- Making it quicker to scroll through answers and comments.
- Allowing users to reveal code only when they choose to.
I understand if there are considerations to take into account, but I believe this addition could significantly improve the overall usability of the forum. Thank you for considering my suggestion.
I don't think this is unreasonable, especially if it depends on the length of the code section (e.g. automatically enabled when more than 40 lines of code are posted, or something like that).
Please note that I just started this thread and don't control what Mathworks decides to work on. The only thing we can do here is to make our case. As you can see, Mathworks employees monitor this thread fairly actively, so if you make a good case, they may implement your idea.
Thank you for the 'EDITOR' tag and for fixing the issue. I would also like to express my gratitude to @Dyuman Joshi for bringing attention to this matter.
(Answers dev) @Dyuman Joshi, @Sam Chak, it is not dicontinued. I just fixed it for you. It is appearing on question pages now. The Answers leaderboard should be updated sometime later today.
@Rena Berman, Sorry to trouble you, but I have question - Is the EDITOR status being discontinued to be awarded?
I have crossed the 3k reputation points mark, but I have not got the EDITOR tag beside my name.
Thank you for the clear and concise explaination Rik.
I didn't mean to say that AI-generated answers are by definition low quality (although they are probably more likely to be). I meant that answers (regardless of origin) should be treated the same way: a low quality answer tends to attract comments explaining a fundamental flaw or asking important clarifications about the intent. There is no down vote button, so if you recognize something as bad, you need to use a comment to explain what is bad about (and ideally what to do instead).
I will try to remember to post a summary here if anything changes.
@Rik, Firstly, Thank you for your response.
I understand your clarification that the user is responsible for the quality of the answer, as the policy states as well. However, I am not sure if you meant to say that AI generated answers are to be treated as Low quality answers. Also how are Low quality answers to be treated in general?
If you could share any updates from the CAB meeting, that'd be great.
I see.
Is it possible to request the Answers team to consider making a post on MATLAB Answers or highlight on MATLAB Central or adding under the same post for any updats?
Yes, I can take up the task of commenting on the suggestions that have been implemented (to the best of my knowledge), if that's fine.
As for the case of posting these threads on the Discussion section and driving people there, I'd think about it.
(Answers Dev) Hi all, The policy on AI-generated answers (which you can find in the community guidelines) is as follows:
Generative AI
Responsible usage of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, is allowed in MATLAB Answers. You are responsible for the content you submit. This includes clearly indicating when AI generated content is incorporated into any post or submission on the platform, verifying and testing the AI generated content when possible, and ensuring that it is relevant, accurate, and compliant with community guidelines.
[I'm providing this reply as a member of the community advisory board, but I don't represent Mathworks, and I might have misunderstood opinions voiced by others. Take this as you will.] The general consensus seems to be that AI-generated answers are fine, but the user posting it is still responsible. Low quality answers are treated the same regardless of origin. It is, however, generally regarded as plagiarism to not mention the tool used to generate the answer. If I recall correctly, a new discussion on this topic is scheduled for the next CAB meeting, so opinions might have shifted.
Regarding your wish for an announcement: I have been notified sometimes prior to a new feature rolling out, but not always. A nice way to have a sneak peek is to volunteer for UX experiments that sometimes happen. I believe I saw the plans to integrate the GitHub README.md into the FEX about a year before it happened that way. Of course you can't talk about it, but it does provide the opportunity to provide the perspective of an active high-rep user.
My personal opinion is that these threads should ideally move to the discussion section of the website. If you have a good idea how to drive people there, feel free to post it here. A special mark is probably too much time, since it has to be implemented on the whole site for the benefit of only a handful of threads. But you have editing rights, so you can do something like that yourself. In some cases Steven goes through some of the suggestions when a new release solves a particular issue, but there is no rigorous system in place.
I have some queries, which I am not sure where they belong, but I'll just ask them here -
What should be done with AI generated answers?
What is the view of TMW on this? What do the community members think about them?
Also, (imo) it would be better if there was an official TMW post/announcement when a new feature is rolled on MATLAB Answers.
With regard to the Wish Lists threads, is it possible to mark an answer (e.g. Feature has been implemented or something else) if the suggested feature has been rolled out by TMW?
P.S - If my queries does not belong here, please guide me to the proper channel so I can post them where it belongs.
An inbuilt translate feature within MATLAB Answers could be nice.
@Rena yes.
(Answers Dev) In the non-english domains there is machine translation in Answers. @madhan ravi, are you asking for it on the English site?
[looks up]
I know this is a known desire, but it sure would be nice if editor-level users could move comments/answers between threads.
Regarding the probable obstacles to implementation, I don't know either. Still, without knowing why it can't be done, I figured it was time for a contextually-relevant poke.
We've talked about it for years and they know about the need. Evidently it hasn't risen up the priority list enough to be worked on. I also don't know how much work it would take to implement.
Aerospace Toolbox should include the "quaternion" class
I was excited to see that the Aerospace Toolbox now uses the "quaternion" class from rotationslib, but...it doesn't include the quaternion library? We don't have the Sensor Fusion or Robotics toolboxes. Why is some of the Aerospace quaternion functionality locked behind unrelated toolboxes? I'm not sure I've ever seen this kind of licensing before.
Ah, this is specific to "MATLAB Answers," not MATLAB. Very well. Thanks.
@James Sorenson, A gentle reminder that this is a thread about MATLAB Answers, the web forum where we currently are, not MATLAB.
Your response would be better fitting here - https://in.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/556024-what-frustrates-you-about-matlab-2?
Imo, with the specific questions/queries you have, it will be best to directly ask TMW by raising a support request via Contact Support.
I have run across a handful of threads like this one lately.
The pattern here is that we have a very old junk thread, the thread has been closed for years, it's still marked as having been closed, but it's not actually closed, and they show up in the related sidebar links. This goes back to my last post in #5 about the fact that the sidebar is a deep well of junk content. It's literally recommending closed threads.
I haven't been keeping track of the others I've found. Up until now, I've usually just deleted them; after all, I was under the impression that closed threads would eventually be deleted after enough time, but maybe not.
Either way, if there's something messed up going on where closed threads are being un-closed (or not being closed properly in the first place), it should probably be fixed.
(Answers Dev) @DGM, @Walter Roberson, @Rik, I closed a bunch of these. Please let me know if you find any more.
I dredge through old threads for anything of interest, and so I'm inclined to look for related threads when I find a vein I like. The related links do seem pretty reliable at finding chains of duplicate threads, so that's handy.
I have now reported this internally.
I believe the original intention was to delete them after a month, but I'm not aware of actual deletions ever having happened (although I have been around only since 2017).
I believe I did see some usefull links in the sidebar (for an essentially duplicated question), but I must admit I hardly ever pay any attention to them. Reading your post it doesn't seem like I'm missing much.
Another user brought up the idea of being able to source files via URL when inserting images. This is something I thought I've heard it discussed before, but I couldn't find an example. The fact that the image upload dialog has a single radio button kind of implies that there might be intent to include some other options.
While that thread is probably long dead, I did mention my thoughts. I don't think anyone wants to encourage embedding links to offsite resources, but perhaps it would be convenient for the user if they can avoid the necessity to download each image and then upload it again from disk.
Ah. I was hesitant to presume that it was that general.
On Mac, Firefox and Safari both use the native file-picker when you click on the image insert tool and use "choose file". The Mac natie file-picker does not support just pasting in a URL.
That doesn't work for me in Firefox. Might be environment-dependent.
I hardly ever do things like that myself, but it's happened. I'm used to just throwing great drifts of expendable things on disk for the purposes of writing examples, so localizing an image and reposting it isn't a big hassle. The only ugly part is that my upload capabilities are unbelievably bad.
I personally paste the URL in the box for the filename. Chrome and Firefox (so presumable all reasonbly new browsers) will handle that just fine and download the file to tempdir before uploading. Only the actual file name will change. I mostly do this when reverting an edited question.
I can understand not wanting to rely on things that are hosted offsite. It's been a problem for a long time. I've tried to localize offsite images when I find them in old threads, but there are tons of (e.g. imageshack) links that have been lost.
I don't see a huge problem with having a means to "upload" an image from a URL without the user needing to first download it to disk. Either way, file is hosted by the forum. Maybe there are some details that I haven't thought about (e.g. potential obstacles to automated access to certain sites?)
It used to be possible but was withdrawn. If I recall correctly, there were at least three concerns:
- hosting sites disappearing (going down), or removing images
- the possibility that users (or owner) would alter the images afterwards
- hosting sites didn't like hosting what they considered commercial content (because it benefited a corporation) without compensation
People asked at the time why Mathworks did not accept URLs but copy in the images; as best I can recall, Mathworks did not respond to that possibility.
‘... implies that there might be intent to include some other options.’
If I remember correctly, there was, earlier, and it was removed. I don’t remember what the upload site options were for it.
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