Questions and announcements
Asking about the activity, one round or one problem, and reading what the organisers publish.
Questions and announcements is one list holding two kinds of thing, told apart by a badge:
- a Question, asked by a participant,
- an Announcement, published by the organisers.
The entry is only there where the organiser switched the module on. A course legitimately has none.
Reading
The table carries Topic, Author, Series, Problem and Date. Rows you have not read are bold; a reply icon marks a question that has been answered.
The list arrives sorted by Date, newest first. Clicking Series, Problem or Date sorts by it, descending; clicking the column already sorted flips the direction. Topic and author are deliberately not sortable — nobody looks for a question by the first letter of its subject.
Filter by a search over the topic, by kind, by series and by problem. Filtering and paging both happen on the Server, ten rows to a page.
Clicking a row opens the whole thing: the body, and the answer underneath with who wrote it and when. An unanswered question says Not answered yet.
Read state is yours and lives on the Server, so a question you opened on one machine is read on the next.
Asking
Ask question opens a form. The first thing it asks is what the question is about, because that decides who ends up reading it:
| Scope | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Whole activity | anything general |
| Series | one round, week or class |
| Problem | one problem |
Only open rounds, and the problems inside them, can be chosen. A problem in a round that has not started is not something you can have read, so it is not something you can ask about — a general question still works.
Then a Topic and the question itself. Both are required.
You cannot post an announcement. That is a manager's act, and the form does not offer it.
Staying current
An answer, a question published to everybody, and a new announcement all arrive while the page is open. You do not have to reload to see them.