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Test IE Standards/Quirks Mode
I'm writing dhtml which will be included on pages out of my control. How do I test to see whether IE is in standards mode or quirks mode?
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ASKER
Thanks for help Cd.
I don't understand your second comment. I'm not intentionally trying to abuse anything. I'm not even sure exactly what you mean by grading pattern. This question was simple, the answer is straight forward, you answered it quickly and adequately, it's an open and close case as they say.
I've found EE to be a good resource for answers that I can't find in Google Groups. Obviously I don't want to make those giving the answers upset. I would genuinely appreciate an elaboration on what you see as my fault.
I don't understand your second comment. I'm not intentionally trying to abuse anything. I'm not even sure exactly what you mean by grading pattern. This question was simple, the answer is straight forward, you answered it quickly and adequately, it's an open and close case as they say.
I've found EE to be a good resource for answers that I can't find in Google Groups. Obviously I don't want to make those giving the answers upset. I would genuinely appreciate an elaboration on what you see as my fault.
One of the fields in the public part of your profile is a listing of your last 10 grades. Most user on the site will have about 70% A grades in there. A user who is not having very good luck with their questions may sometimes get as low as 50%. Going into the question you were showing 20%. When we see that pattern, especially when it includes C grades it almost always means:
A -- The user does not place much value on people who "work for nothing"
B -- The user think the grading is like school and they are the teacher.
C -- The user has higher expectations then are reasonable for a forum like this
or
D -- No one has explained to them how top-experts view grades.
I prefer to assume that D is the case until I know better so...
For most top-experts the points are less important than the way the question turns out. We try to post A quality all the time. Getting anything less than an A is therefore a failure. Sometimes I come up short and deserve no more than a B. When we see a very low percentage of A grades, it sends the message that a normal A effort is not going to get an A. We are not paid for this, so if B is a normal grade for a user why give any more than a B effort.
There are some user of this site that I and a lot of other experts will work very hard for, and some who will get very little effort; and the difference has nothing to do with points. It comes down to past history. Everyone looks at the grading guidelines and comes up with what they think is a correct grading approach, and sometimes they seem to miss something. The points spent on a question are not altered by the grade. For a questioner nothing is affected when they select a grade... except the experts' perception on them. That is not to say that an A should be given automatically, because if you are an easy mark, experts will learn they don't have to work very hard for you; but it is better to be on the high side of the curve, and to be aware of what your profile looks like to experts, because the experienced experts use profiles to prioritize, and adjust work effort.
In addition to being an expert, I am also a page editor. One of the responsibilities of page editors is to try and help users have a good experience with getting their problems solved, helping them learn how to maximize the resources. That's all I'm trying to do with my comments about grading. All I can do is point out what may be a problem for you over time; and hope that it gets taken in spirit it is given.
Cd&
A -- The user does not place much value on people who "work for nothing"
B -- The user think the grading is like school and they are the teacher.
C -- The user has higher expectations then are reasonable for a forum like this
or
D -- No one has explained to them how top-experts view grades.
I prefer to assume that D is the case until I know better so...
For most top-experts the points are less important than the way the question turns out. We try to post A quality all the time. Getting anything less than an A is therefore a failure. Sometimes I come up short and deserve no more than a B. When we see a very low percentage of A grades, it sends the message that a normal A effort is not going to get an A. We are not paid for this, so if B is a normal grade for a user why give any more than a B effort.
There are some user of this site that I and a lot of other experts will work very hard for, and some who will get very little effort; and the difference has nothing to do with points. It comes down to past history. Everyone looks at the grading guidelines and comes up with what they think is a correct grading approach, and sometimes they seem to miss something. The points spent on a question are not altered by the grade. For a questioner nothing is affected when they select a grade... except the experts' perception on them. That is not to say that an A should be given automatically, because if you are an easy mark, experts will learn they don't have to work very hard for you; but it is better to be on the high side of the curve, and to be aware of what your profile looks like to experts, because the experienced experts use profiles to prioritize, and adjust work effort.
In addition to being an expert, I am also a page editor. One of the responsibilities of page editors is to try and help users have a good experience with getting their problems solved, helping them learn how to maximize the resources. That's all I'm trying to do with my comments about grading. All I can do is point out what may be a problem for you over time; and hope that it gets taken in spirit it is given.
Cd&
ASKER
Thanks for the detailed explination.
When I joined EE I don't recall there being any guidelines for grading being made an openly obvious read. Unfortunately the web site is a bit cluttered and I tend to skim over a lot of the details here in order to save time. So it's possible that it was presented at some point and I just didn't catch it. As a result, I interpreted the grading system not as a grade for the amount of effort someone put into a question, but rather the degree to which I feel my problem is solved. Under the guidelines you just described to me, it's obvious that the last question you answered for me deserved an A. I can almost always find the answers I need in Google Groups. So usually when I ask a question on EE it's something that is not common or doesn't have a simple answer. Many times people will take stabs at an answer but I may come away with an anwser that is not as clear cut as I would have liked and that's usually when I gave B grades. Sometimes I don't get any applicable answers at all and that's a problem because simply ending a question that has no answers is not simple; I have to post another question (in a special forum) to remove the first and it's much easier just to give the person who took the best stab the points and a B.
I was also unaware that the grade was more important than the points and the severity to which even a B is looked down upon.
Thank you for taking the time to point my problem out to me. I don't suppose there is a way to go back and change grades?
When I joined EE I don't recall there being any guidelines for grading being made an openly obvious read. Unfortunately the web site is a bit cluttered and I tend to skim over a lot of the details here in order to save time. So it's possible that it was presented at some point and I just didn't catch it. As a result, I interpreted the grading system not as a grade for the amount of effort someone put into a question, but rather the degree to which I feel my problem is solved. Under the guidelines you just described to me, it's obvious that the last question you answered for me deserved an A. I can almost always find the answers I need in Google Groups. So usually when I ask a question on EE it's something that is not common or doesn't have a simple answer. Many times people will take stabs at an answer but I may come away with an anwser that is not as clear cut as I would have liked and that's usually when I gave B grades. Sometimes I don't get any applicable answers at all and that's a problem because simply ending a question that has no answers is not simple; I have to post another question (in a special forum) to remove the first and it's much easier just to give the person who took the best stab the points and a B.
I was also unaware that the grade was more important than the points and the severity to which even a B is looked down upon.
Thank you for taking the time to point my problem out to me. I don't suppose there is a way to go back and change grades?
>>> I don't suppose there is a way to go back and change grades?
There is, but it would require posting the request in Community support and having a moderator do it; and they would not want to back too far.
Let me correct something I might be misleading on.
>>>I interpreted the grading system not as a grade for the amount of effort someone put into a question, but rather the degree to which I feel my problem is solved.
The number of points offered has two components; difficulty and urgency. The grade is similar there are two components: effort and quality of the solution. In some cases there may not be a good solution; there might not even be a good work around.
In a question like this there is a solution, so it grading is relatively easy. What if there was not solution. Would an answer like: "sorry but there is no property that contains that information" be worth an A. No if it is a correct answer then it is worth a B, because somtimes the solution is to understand you can't do something and so you look to a change in the design.
On the other hand an answer like: "sorry but there is no property that contains that information; but you could derive it with <25 lines of script> most of the time"; is probably an A answer, because of the additional effort of trying to find a workaround even if it is imperfect.
The better alternative to a C grade is generally to let the experts know that nothing they are offering helps and that you would prefer to delete it rather than give a C. If the content is that poor, it probably has very little value in the database anyway, and those of us who really care about the site, worry about the trash that sometimes ends up there because it is easier to just award the points to get it closed than it is to delete.
Thing about hard questions is that experts love them for the challenge, but they may not always go the way the questioner like, and it makes it difficult to give a grade when yu did not get all you had hoped for, but sometimes you have look and say well I'm further ahead, knowing it won't work quite the way I thought. I have 15 or 16 forums that I visit. None of them comes up to the level of EE; and sometimes that is a negative because sometimes members assume that EE has an answer for everything. Sometimes we don't and then "you can't do that " might be the only correct way to answer something; and it is better to know that than to continue trying to get a square peg in a round hole.
Cd&
There is, but it would require posting the request in Community support and having a moderator do it; and they would not want to back too far.
Let me correct something I might be misleading on.
>>>I interpreted the grading system not as a grade for the amount of effort someone put into a question, but rather the degree to which I feel my problem is solved.
The number of points offered has two components; difficulty and urgency. The grade is similar there are two components: effort and quality of the solution. In some cases there may not be a good solution; there might not even be a good work around.
In a question like this there is a solution, so it grading is relatively easy. What if there was not solution. Would an answer like: "sorry but there is no property that contains that information" be worth an A. No if it is a correct answer then it is worth a B, because somtimes the solution is to understand you can't do something and so you look to a change in the design.
On the other hand an answer like: "sorry but there is no property that contains that information; but you could derive it with <25 lines of script> most of the time"; is probably an A answer, because of the additional effort of trying to find a workaround even if it is imperfect.
The better alternative to a C grade is generally to let the experts know that nothing they are offering helps and that you would prefer to delete it rather than give a C. If the content is that poor, it probably has very little value in the database anyway, and those of us who really care about the site, worry about the trash that sometimes ends up there because it is easier to just award the points to get it closed than it is to delete.
Thing about hard questions is that experts love them for the challenge, but they may not always go the way the questioner like, and it makes it difficult to give a grade when yu did not get all you had hoped for, but sometimes you have look and say well I'm further ahead, knowing it won't work quite the way I thought. I have 15 or 16 forums that I visit. None of them comes up to the level of EE; and sometimes that is a negative because sometimes members assume that EE has an answer for everything. Sometimes we don't and then "you can't do that " might be the only correct way to answer something; and it is better to know that than to continue trying to get a square peg in a round hole.
Cd&
ASKER
Thanks all the information. I think I have a much better perspective on it now.
I understand that keeping trash in the database brings the value of the site down each time and that's not a good thing. I also understand there is a process that needs to happen to remove a question in order to thwart abuse. What would be nice is if we were given an easy way to initiate that process. People are generally lazy. Education helps to some degree, but it doesn't compete with convenience.
I understand that keeping trash in the database brings the value of the site down each time and that's not a good thing. I also understand there is a process that needs to happen to remove a question in order to thwart abuse. What would be nice is if we were given an easy way to initiate that process. People are generally lazy. Education helps to some degree, but it doesn't compete with convenience.
It is the last time I will spend any time helping you if you continue your abusive grading pattern. Someone would have answer this in about 10 minutes for a member with a normal grading pattern. The fact you had to wait this long for something this simple probably indicates that I'm not the only expert who thinks it is a waste of time offering you help.
Cd&