-1

I flagged this post as not an answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/977614/760903 and my flag summary says a moderator declined this because they found no evidence to support it.

Here's the details:

  • both Q and A are posted by the same user. I know this is acceptable in this site, so no problems from that alone.
  • the question is essentially composed of two parts:
    1. How to convert text to speech
    2. How to do it periodically
  • the first part is mostly a duplicate, OP even identified the duplicate question
    1. they identified the command in the title of the question and linked to the dupe in the answer: How to text-to-speech output using command-line? (note that they also posted an answer there describing a command that was already listed in an answer from three years ago)
  • for the second part, in the question they say:

    My plan is to have cron jobs speak so I can leave the monitor shut off.

    Beginning with having it do a time announcement each hour. It is OK if it is not perfectly precise to the second.

    And in the answer:

    Set in cron to run at the top of the hour, it does the trick.

    That's all. Nothing about how to set anything in Cron, or how to set it to run "at the top of the hour".

    I wrote a comment describing how nonsensical this is, but it was deleted.

So:

  • part of the question is a duplicate
  • the other part is just repeated in the question and answer without any concrete information

I flagged the answer as not an answer because it should describe how to do it with Cron, since that it can be done with Cron is already in the question.

The moderator who handled it said there's a "second individual". I think they got confused by "muru" editing the post. Or they had many browser tabs open and got things mixed up. What should I do?

6
  • 2
    I think the answer was to use espeak (as mentioned in the linked post) and they even say how to do so for their case with an example. The question says they plan to use cron, not that they need help with cron (which is fairly simple to use and documented elsewhere). This answer may not add much value to the site, but it is definitely an answer imho. If you can edit it to make it more useful, or comment to constructively suggest how the author might improve it, please consider doing so.
    – Zanna Mod
    Nov 21, 2017 at 7:27
  • @zanna in that case, it's a duplicate, isn't it?
    – Olorin
    Nov 21, 2017 at 8:03
  • As for suggesting improvements, after asking them which file they are talking of adding the Python code in askubuntu.com/a/978480/760903, the response I got was "I suppose I could have mentioned that the loggers are located where the data is, de regueur, and that everything is linked by WiFi using a dedicated subnet (router) and that all this communications is happening between the loggers and the mother ship". That user is being intentionally obtuse. I have no desire to suggest anything further to them. But I'm disappointed to see such muddled and half-assed posts being upvoted.
    – Olorin
    Nov 21, 2017 at 8:11
  • If you think it is a duplicate, you can flag the question as such. I don't think it is a duplicate, because it asks for something that isn't mentioned in the other question. Instead of being closed, it should have an improved answer, imho.
    – Zanna Mod
    Nov 21, 2017 at 8:40
  • @Zanna I'm not able to see, so can you tell me what it is that this q asks for that isn't in the other question? It's not the espeak part, that's in the dupe; it's not the cron part, since you say that's not what they need help with.... what is left?
    – Olorin
    Nov 21, 2017 at 8:43
  • 3
    I'm sorry for being unclear. It asks how to do something at a particular time, which is a job for cron. You suggest that to be a good answer, the answer should explain how to use cron to do this particular job. I agree with that; I was only trying to explain why the answer should be considered an answer and not flagged. It satisfied the OP, who apparently did not need help with cron. But answers are not just for OP. (Better) answers could be posted which explain how to use cron and they would not be appropriate answers to the proposed dupe question.
    – Zanna Mod
    Nov 21, 2017 at 8:50

1 Answer 1

3

Partial answers that are missing tiny bits are still answers, as their core solution still says they used cron. The only thing missing from this to make it a great answer is how to implement it in cron. However, just because that tiny bit is missing from the OP's post, doesn't mean the entire thing is not an answer.

They do mention they used cron in their answer, but didn't specify how they set Cron up. That's one missing part, but the entire answer at large still remains mostly a valid answer. Yes it's not the best answer but it's still an answer, because it references how they scripted it, and what they did to make espeak do what they need it to, and that they used cron. That's why I declined your flag.

You don't need to do anything else, but you're more than welcome to write a better answer than the OP's answer for that post.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .