Feedback on new CS Q/A forum

With respect to the coders and designers of the new CS question forum, there are some old features that did not get carried over, and some less than desireable new responses.

RE: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/d

One helpful feature that did not get carried over was the question filter that sat at the top right of the questions list.  The filter included options for: Answered, Unanswered, and All.  With the default setting being Unanswered.  Without that setting all questions are shown, including those that have been answered.  At times of high posting rates, unanswered questions could be pushed down and obscurred by a long list of answered and unanswered questions ahead of it.  The return of the filter would be helpful.

Another feature that was helpful (but not necessary) was the thumbnail image of the program the question came from. It was easy to tell at a glance if the program was a course project or a user generated program, plus allow for a larger area to serve as a link to the program.  A nice to have, but not really needed....

Under the old design, clicking to comment or answer a question did not cause the page to flicker.  There are now several occasions that cause the browser to reset to the top of the page and then scroll down to the newly added edit box.  When viewed from one of the last questions on the page, that response can be quite surprising for users of Internet Explorer.  I did not see the flicker when using Chrome.

As it is, there is a question paragraph followed by a vote, comment, flag line, followed by an answer paragraph (if present) followed by an edit box to add an answer to the question, and finaly a couple links to additional answers and sometimes a link to Answer this Question.  Each question listed has all or some of that info. Clicking on the comment link smoothly drops down a box that has a button to answer the question, and an edit box to add a comment.  Clicking on the button, or on the Answer this Question link causes the flicker.

That makes 3 different places where the visitor is given the opportunity to answer the question.  Had it been up to me, I would have suggested that each question paragraph be only followed by the vote, comment and flag line, with the addition of a link to the thread for answers.  After that the next question would be listed with its flag line, and then another question with its flag line and so on. Such that the format would be:

<question text>
<vote stats>  # Answers  # Comments  Flag       <question info>

<question text>
<vote stats>  # Answers  # Comments  Flag       <question info>

<question text>
<vote stats>  # Answers  # Comments  Flag       <question info>

   ... etc. ...

Clicking on the Answers link would drop down an edit box followed by the list of answers ordered by votes, and clicking on the Comments link would drop down an edit box followed by the list of comments ordered chonologically.

Each answer and comment being the start of their own thread of responses, as is currently done.

In that format, the visitor would be afforded several more questions listed per page and can see by the # value how many answers and comments there are.  It may help to keep in mind that this forum may be rarely viewed by students asking the questions, in that the responses are routed to the program's own web page.  It is probably more often viewed by people looking to help answer the questions and as such; targeting that as the primary use would be helpful to many who actually do visit the forum.

Something to think about...