How to encourage askers to tell the end of the story?

Question

English Student makes a very good point in this answer:

Less than 5% of OP's even post an update, I think. It would be nice to know how their problem turned out.

On the main stackoverflow, or the electronics one, the asker will usually try proposed solutions and experiment, then post feedback. For example, "This solution offered best performance" or "this was what my problem was all about", stuff like that. Often a dialogue takes place, until the solution is found. This is very valuable, as anyone who has the same problem and googles the same Q&A later on will find this information very useful. People who answer also learn new things from this process. Negative feedback helps, too: someone with the same problem will be interested in not losing time researching solutions which did not work. My point is: the asker will usually provide feedback on answers, based on actually trying them.

This Q&A is quite the opposite. It feels a bit like opening a book at a random page. Someone tells their story, introduces some characters, then asks for help. People post answers, which are then voted up/down based on everyone's experience and/or subjective opinions: "Yeah... I think that would work."

However, only the asker can tell how they handled their problem in the end, if it worked or not, what they wished they could have done better, etc. This would actually be the most valuable information for anyone coming later to view the question, but it simply isn't there... Using scientific vocabulary, each answer is a hypothesis, but only the asker can perform experimental validation and decide which one worked.

Therefore: How to encourage askers to leave feedback and tell the end of the story, so this Q&A becomes more useful to future visitors?

This would also provide closure to people who write answers, and more important, allow them to learn from the results of their advice and keep them motivated. I still wonder how Tycho's cat situation turned out... It is nice to wonder how to write such feedback, but this doesn't address the issue that almost no-one bothers to actually do it. And even if they did, the answerers wouldn't be notified.

I'd suggest adding a timed reminder email which would be sent say, 2 weeks after the question was asked. Maybe a reputation bonus for motivation? Notifying the ones who answered? Other ideas?

EDIT

For a quick example, I grabbed a random question from stackoverflow about a rather common SQL error. This example is interesting for several reasons.

• Some of the answers are wrong.

• Someone proficient in SQL will have no trouble solving this and telling which answers are wrong. However for a beginner, this will not be the case. The error message is pretty cryptic if you see it for the first time, and the wrong answers will lead them off track. Some are wrong for rather tricky reasons.

• The accepted answer provides two solutions, one is right and safe, and the other may be a trap depending if the asker told the whole story or not.

Thus the asker took a minute to write a comment on the accepted answer to say that it solved its problem, which makes the whole thing a lot more useful for people with the same profile encountering the same problem.

This can be transposed to IPS: often answers will contain tons of suggestions. Simply accepting doesn't record which one worked for the benefit of future readers...

TL/DR: This is valuable feedback. How to get more?

Answer 1

No. I don't think we should do anything programmatically to request this.

We're already asking people to share their private lives to some degree when asking the question. Prompting them to come back by emailing them or somehow having the system pinging them on the network seems invasive. In cases where it went well, no harm would likely be done... but think about cases where they are in a very fragile or stressful situation. Reminding them about their question here and asking for an update could hurt them - unintentional though it may be. And offering special reputation rewards for it seems crass.

If they choose to come back, we have guidelines for how to share this information but, otherwise, I don't see any reason to ask the Stack Exchange developers or CMs to create a feature to do this on a system basis, particularly not if the intention is largely to satisfy the curiosity of the users here.

• If they used one of the answers, an accept (possibly with a comment) is simple enough.

• If they used a combination of the answers, they can write a new answer or note that they used a combination of those two answers in the comments on them. An example of this can be seen in the comments on some of the top answers here.

• If their solution is vastly different from the ones proposed, they can answer the question themselves and potentially earn reputation from upvotes to the answer, so I don't see any need for specific bribes to these users in the form of reputation.

I'm also not sure how this is particularly different than other sites... If someone asks a question on SO or Cooking, surely there's still some question about whether the solution actually worked for them... the difference here is that people are more interested about what happened because it's someone's personal life rather than a computer program or fixing a recipe.

Please, let's give people some privacy. I actually worry that doing this sort of thing would inhibit people from posting at all, not wanting to be pestered for "how did it go".

If users can encourage it themselves as Jefromi describes in their answer, that's fine with me, but I do not support asking for a programmatic change and I'm pretty sure the CMs would refuse such a request, anyway.

Answer 2

I think that when you see this sort of feedback frequently on a site, it's more of a cultural thing than anything about direct encouragement/incentives.

With that in mind, the best way to encourage feedback from those willing to provide it (see Catija's answer for why not everyone will be willing, and why pressuring is bad) is simply to be receptive to it, and to lead by example where possible.

So:

• If you ever ask a question, and you have feedback afterwards that you're comfortable sharing, do so!

• If you see good feedback from the OP, upvote it! (Note that if they wrote their own answer, this is the reputation reward.)

• If you get feedback from the OP on your answer, incorporate whatever you can into the answer, so they see how valuable it is.

• If you see feedback from an OP, don't take it as an opportunity to give further unsolicited advice or to cast judgment, or anything else that might make them uncomfortable. Be appreciative of their time and their willingness to share.

• If you ever interact in comments for any purpose (not just this sort of feedback), be friendly and constructive, so that the OP is more likely to feel it's safe to interact in comments.

Again, even with everything going perfectly, many people won't have the time or desire to share further, and that's totally fine. But a supportive, encouraging environment will let you get what you can.