Outstanding questioner awards?

[Stephen Tashi]

Would it be useful to have awards and badges that recognize members who ask good questions?

Perhaps we can discuss what makes a question "good".

 

[jedishrfu]

Interesting idea!

Perhaps we could nominate the best questions on novelty, elegance and depth of understanding. Advisors could nominate from questions they've seen and answered.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Good questions are important to recognize. I wonder how easy it will be to track over time.

 

[Bystander]

"Computer assist." The bookmark function you have so thoughtfully included. I tend to notice/pay attention to thought provoking questions.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

"Computer assist." The bookmark function you have so thoughtfully included. I tend to notice/pay attention to thought provoking questions.

You should be nominating them to be featured

 

[OCR]

The bookmark function you have so thoughtfully included.

Maybe I'm blind ?... what bookmark function ?

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Perhaps we could nominate the best questions on novelty, elegance and depth of understanding. Advisors could nominate from questions they've seen and answered.

and people who actually complete the homework template well are exceptional.

 

[berkeman]

Would it be useful to have awards and badges that recognize members who ask good questions?

Good questions are important to recognize.

Maybe we could post a few examples here in this thread, to start to get an idea for how often they happen, and what qualities go into a great question to start a thread...

I'm off to search for some examples...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Maybe I'm blind ?... what bookmark function ?

Gold members and advisors have the function

 

[OCR]

Gold members and advisors have the function

... thanks Greg.

 

[BillTre]

Basically I like the idea.

However:
It would be interesting to compare the results from a survey approach like this with a more functional approach such as like who started the longest (most responses) threads. This should be easy for the computer to do.
Or it could be analyzed like baseball stats: best average with a minimum number of posts.
Or maybe likes/thread.

Or maybe this could include questions that are non-starters, that is in posts internal in the thread (pun, sorry).

This would contrast what might be considered functionally the best:
- by number of responses elicited vs.
- a crowd sourced selection based on some set of intellectual criteria.

I think some of the starting questions might lead be not well posed, but to long threads to sort it all out. If it all ends well, this could be a considered a good question.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Maybe we could post a few examples here in this thread, to start to get an idea for how often they happen, and what qualities go into a great question to start a thread...

I feel that some of icakeov's threads in the biology forum are good examples. While their initial questions help to start productive discussions, what makes them stand out are their thoughtful follow-up questions that show they are thinking deeply about the material and learning from the thread. Here are a few examples:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...e-expressed-in-every-cell-in-organism.889107/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-many-times-does-an-average-protein-fold.886855/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/do-amino-acids-spontaneously-bond-within-a-cell.893683/