What's the opinion on Admins marking a specific post as a topic's solution?
We can do this, but I for one, haven't exerted those powers yet, as it feels a little intrusive to be the one who gets to do it :)
But looking specifically at all the many threads that have just a handful of replies, and it's very obvious which one was the solution; It would be great to get all of those into the "Solved" category to improve the results that people get when looking for help.
Do we need some guidelines for this? E.g., "A topic needs to have at least a week of no activity" etc. ?
Great question, I've often wondered the same thing and have occasionally marked the obvious solution for just the reason you mention, Chriztian.
But that isn't sustainable. There aren't enough admins to do this even if we wanted to.
I seem to recall some years ago that the OP would get an email reminding them to mark the answer. I guess that doesn't happen any more but maybe it should.
There would need to be a fair amount of logic before sending emails including:
OP's post got at least one reply (even if from the OP who might answer the question themselves)
The post has gone quiet with no new activity (maybe after 3-5 days with no activity?)
No part of the conversation has been marked as a 'solution'
What else?
That would help, I think, without bothering forum users too much and would gradually educate people to mark solutions even before emails get sent out.
What other thoughts are there for how to get more/most topics marked with solutions when they are provided?
Basically, yes, it's a great idea. Especially when stumbling across quite old topics, where it is obvious that the discussion is over and an acceptable solution has been found.
The time of inactivity needed, though, is an interesting question.
I do think though, that is should be clearly visible for users, if a topic was marked as solved by an admin. Perhaps the OP should receive a notification as well. I guess that would be the other way around Lars-Erik's suggestion.
Improving the tools available for non-admins could perhaps help the admins more easily identify topics ready for solved-marking. There is already a "Flag as spam"-button, perhaps we could introduce a "Mark as answer"-button ..
We used to have an automated email that we would send out after activity on a topic ended and it was not marked as solved. I think we have a task to re-enable that one (it als gets people to come back to Our and maybe they'll find something else that interests them).
And maybe we can actually add something to the notifications on the site as well, could be a good idea or could be annoying, I'm not sure yet. What if you've asked a bunch of questions and never got a good answer, but there's a notification each time: hey, make sure to mark the correct answer.
@Seb - notifications could work using the same logic as the email, though that kind of duplication of both notification and email seems a bit over the top.
As for what should the email say the OP should do if the conversation has dried up but there is still no solution is an interesting one with no great answer I think. Whatever we say, the goal should be to give the OP a sense that the community wants to help --- suggesting perhaps people don't understand the question and so aren't sure how to reply, or the question is in a very unique area that few people have any real expertise to share?
Could h5s help as a metric? On StackOverflow they sort threads by votes, don't they? That means that the obvious answer most often would be sorted on top anyway. Otherwise, I guess h5s could trigger a mail too. - "An answer in your thread has n high fives. Should you tag this as the solution?"
I guess sorting works on SO because all answers are viewed as independent answers. On Our, often, answers are part of a conversation. Sorting would break that conversation. But the "h5 notifications" is an interesting idea.
This is actually something I am working on in MVCForum right now, and my thoughts are a combination of a few things.
Firstly, yes I think admins should be able to mark posts as solutions.
Secondly have a task that emails the author if no answers are marked as the solution for say 2 weeks (Or whatever your criteria is).
Then, after that email is sent and still nothing is marked. After an X timespan (Maybe 3 weeks) the answers are ordered by H5's (Votes in my case) and then by date?
I think if I was looking at a thread and saw a solution marked, knowing that admin's could potentially make that decision, I'd be interested to see if it was a thread owner or someone else that selected it and if it was someone else then why didn't the thread owner choose it.
So some sort of indicator flag on the solution with a small note would be useful.
Something similar would be useful for the package forums as well.
As a package developer I'd like the option for selecting an answer as the solution, or perhaps a way to close a thread without it having a solution, which can make sense in some cases.
Then a small info box could be shown:
This topic has been closed by the package developer: reason for closing.
A similar info box could be shown when an admin has closed a topic or marked an answer as the solution as Nik points out.
Taking it a bit further, topics could perhaps even be automatically closed after a certain amount of inactivity. Replying to a thread that been closed, would simply re-open it. A closed topic could then also have a lower score in search results.
Definitely better to encourage better user behaviour than more authoritative admins.
A trigger like an email is a good way to do this, would be great too to see package admins given an automatic admin status for their package forum too.
It would be great to see the new notification icon used better for this too. I only ever have one notification that I can't seem to clear (apparently my picture is too small) but a notification that you have new posts in a thread you started or subscribed too and another if that thread does not have a solution yet (maybe after 72 hours). Email is good but in context notifications are better. Especially if it can link to a documentation page that shows & explains best practice.
I agree that notifications are cool and in context, but that also assumes people come back to Our regularly, not everybody does. So we would probably need a bit of both.
The irony is of course that I foolishly asked a second question on the last line of my post, which makes it hard to actually pick a "solution" for this thread :-)
I'm going to leave it open for a couple more days, to maybe get some more views/opinions, though...
Okey-dokey - this thread has had no activity for just about a month, so I'm posting my own answer to the original question:
Yes, it seems we think that's okay, given some prerequisite conditions - and I'm going to list my own:
Topic has a reply that clearly answers the question (e.g., the OP has replied with "Great - that did it!" or similar. Or it may just be very obvious, given the context. Humans are surprisingly good at figuring this out :)
The topic has not been updated for at least 2 weeks
That should take care of a lot of topics that are just floating around.
Should we (Admins) be marking topics as solved?
What's the opinion on Admins marking a specific post as a topic's solution?
We can do this, but I for one, haven't exerted those powers yet, as it feels a little intrusive to be the one who gets to do it :)
But looking specifically at all the many threads that have just a handful of replies, and it's very obvious which one was the solution; It would be great to get all of those into the "Solved" category to improve the results that people get when looking for help.
Do we need some guidelines for this? E.g., "A topic needs to have at least a week of no activity" etc. ?
/Chriztian
How 'bout encouraging peeps to tag solutions to their own question. I'm sure a lot of people don't even know you can or should.
Might be an idea to say something like "Did you get a nice solution? Remember to mark it." when OPs answer in their thread?
Great question, I've often wondered the same thing and have occasionally marked the obvious solution for just the reason you mention, Chriztian.
But that isn't sustainable. There aren't enough admins to do this even if we wanted to.
I seem to recall some years ago that the OP would get an email reminding them to mark the answer. I guess that doesn't happen any more but maybe it should.
There would need to be a fair amount of logic before sending emails including:
That would help, I think, without bothering forum users too much and would gradually educate people to mark solutions even before emails get sent out.
What other thoughts are there for how to get more/most topics marked with solutions when they are provided?
cheers,
doug.
Basically, yes, it's a great idea. Especially when stumbling across quite old topics, where it is obvious that the discussion is over and an acceptable solution has been found.
The time of inactivity needed, though, is an interesting question.
I do think though, that is should be clearly visible for users, if a topic was marked as solved by an admin. Perhaps the OP should receive a notification as well. I guess that would be the other way around Lars-Erik's suggestion.
Improving the tools available for non-admins could perhaps help the admins more easily identify topics ready for solved-marking. There is already a "Flag as spam"-button, perhaps we could introduce a "Mark as answer"-button ..
We used to have an automated email that we would send out after activity on a topic ended and it was not marked as solved. I think we have a task to re-enable that one (it als gets people to come back to Our and maybe they'll find something else that interests them).
And maybe we can actually add something to the notifications on the site as well, could be a good idea or could be annoying, I'm not sure yet. What if you've asked a bunch of questions and never got a good answer, but there's a notification each time: hey, make sure to mark the correct answer.
@Seb - notifications could work using the same logic as the email, though that kind of duplication of both notification and email seems a bit over the top.
As for what should the email say the OP should do if the conversation has dried up but there is still no solution is an interesting one with no great answer I think. Whatever we say, the goal should be to give the OP a sense that the community wants to help --- suggesting perhaps people don't understand the question and so aren't sure how to reply, or the question is in a very unique area that few people have any real expertise to share?
Could h5s help as a metric? On StackOverflow they sort threads by votes, don't they? That means that the obvious answer most often would be sorted on top anyway. Otherwise, I guess h5s could trigger a mail too. - "An answer in your thread has n high fives. Should you tag this as the solution?"
I guess sorting works on SO because all answers are viewed as independent answers. On Our, often, answers are part of a conversation. Sorting would break that conversation. But the "h5 notifications" is an interesting idea.
This is actually something I am working on in MVCForum right now, and my thoughts are a combination of a few things.
Firstly, yes I think admins should be able to mark posts as solutions.
Secondly have a task that emails the author if no answers are marked as the solution for say 2 weeks (Or whatever your criteria is).
Then, after that email is sent and still nothing is marked. After an X timespan (Maybe 3 weeks) the answers are ordered by H5's (Votes in my case) and then by date?
Looks good, @Lee. And since sorting is already being looked into, I bet adding an option to sort by this or that would be a breeze to add. :)
I think if I was looking at a thread and saw a solution marked, knowing that admin's could potentially make that decision, I'd be interested to see if it was a thread owner or someone else that selected it and if it was someone else then why didn't the thread owner choose it.
So some sort of indicator flag on the solution with a small note would be useful.
Something similar would be useful for the package forums as well.
As a package developer I'd like the option for selecting an answer as the solution, or perhaps a way to close a thread without it having a solution, which can make sense in some cases.
Then a small info box could be shown:
A similar info box could be shown when an admin has closed a topic or marked an answer as the solution as Nik points out.
Taking it a bit further, topics could perhaps even be automatically closed after a certain amount of inactivity. Replying to a thread that been closed, would simply re-open it. A closed topic could then also have a lower score in search results.
Definitely better to encourage better user behaviour than more authoritative admins.
A trigger like an email is a good way to do this, would be great too to see package admins given an automatic admin status for their package forum too.
It would be great to see the new notification icon used better for this too. I only ever have one notification that I can't seem to clear (apparently my picture is too small) but a notification that you have new posts in a thread you started or subscribed too and another if that thread does not have a solution yet (maybe after 72 hours). Email is good but in context notifications are better. Especially if it can link to a documentation page that shows & explains best practice.
Thanks John for uploading a new crisp image! ;-)
I agree that notifications are cool and in context, but that also assumes people come back to Our regularly, not everybody does. So we would probably need a bit of both.
Thanks all for some very valuable inputs!
The irony is of course that I foolishly asked a second question on the last line of my post, which makes it hard to actually pick a "solution" for this thread :-)
I'm going to leave it open for a couple more days, to maybe get some more views/opinions, though...
/Chriztian
Maybe an admin will close it for you ;)
Okey-dokey - this thread has had no activity for just about a month, so I'm posting my own answer to the original question:
Yes, it seems we think that's okay, given some prerequisite conditions - and I'm going to list my own:
That should take care of a lot of topics that are just floating around.
/Chriztian
is working on a reply...