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#1 2008-06-13 03:51:34

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Marking threads as [SOLVED], after a solution has been found will help others to find an expedient solution for their own issues. Please be considerate and mark those threads when an answer is found.
Simply edit the original post by clicking on the 'edit' button at the lower right corner of it and prepend [SOLVED] to the title.
Thanks.

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#2 2008-06-20 00:19:28

cmlr
Member
From: Rochester, NY, USA
Registered: 2007-04-18
Posts: 99

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

It might be good to mention that only the author of a thread can mark it as solved.  He or she should edit the original posting and change the title.

Last edited by cmlr (2008-06-20 00:25:59)

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#3 2008-06-20 03:13:54

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

And also please, for the love of god, if you find the solution to your own problem post it in the thread.  This makes the lives of everyone with the same problem easier when searching the forums.  I think most people are pretty good about that here, but I just want to reiterate because it's really important.


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
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#4 2008-11-15 06:48:56

Leigh
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2004-06-25
Posts: 533

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

The newbie readme sticky's are growing. Might be better to organize them into one (Please read before posting) sticky. Perhaps be more convenient, and probably more of a chance that all the info would get read by newcommers?


-- archlinux 是一个极好的 linux

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#5 2008-11-15 10:32:33

Mr.Elendig
#archlinux@freenode channel op
From: The intertubes
Registered: 2004-11-07
Posts: 4,092

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Leigh wrote:

The newbie readme sticky's are growing. Might be better to organize them into one (Please read before posting) sticky. Perhaps be more convenient, and probably more of a chance that all the info would get read by newcommers?

It's a know fact that only 0.0003% read threads named: "Please read before posting in this forum" (or similar)
hmm

Sidenote: It would be nice if the stickies was a fontsize or 5 larger than the normal threads. That might help.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2008-11-15 10:34:47)


Evil #archlinux@libera.chat channel op and general support dude.
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#6 2008-11-15 11:26:14

MindTooth
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2008-11-11
Posts: 331

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

There should have been a button that does the above automatically.

Birger smile

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#7 2008-11-15 12:10:14

Xyne
Administrator/PM
Registered: 2008-08-03
Posts: 6,963
Website

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Mr.Elendig wrote:

It's a know fact that only 0.0003% read threads named: "Please read before posting in this forum" (or similar)
hmm

Change the title to "Arch Noodz". This has a proven effect of increasing traffic by several orders of magnitude. If you have a moral problem with misdirection, you can always post a suggestive shot of Phrakture lifting a sports car.


Seriously though, yeah, organizing all the threads into a single post would be a good idea.


My Arch Linux StuffForum EtiquetteCommunity Ethos - Arch is not for everyone

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#8 2008-12-09 08:24:45

Hiz
Member
Registered: 2008-11-04
Posts: 40

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

MindTooth wrote:

There should have been a button that does the above automatically.

Birger smile

yes, I totally agree you. The problem is ... too hard to find out HOW-TO rename thread for newbie at PunBB.
I spent much more time to find out how-to rename thread than i got my answer the question.

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#9 2009-01-22 08:44:32

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Hiz wrote:
MindTooth wrote:

There should have been a button that does the above automatically.

Birger smile

yes, I totally agree you. The problem is ... too hard to find out HOW-TO rename thread for newbie at PunBB.
I spent much more time to find out how-to rename thread than i got my answer the question.

There should be a button to mark a thread "Solved" without actually editing it / the title, this would also avoid bumping the thread up (it does that i believe?).

Since there are these nice little squares in front of the thread titles in the overview, how about using these to color code them? For now, only a light green one for solved would be great, which would also make the whole title layout cleaner without the big ugly [SOLVED] texts. It would also make searching/filtering for solved threads easier, if it were added to the search engine.

edit:too many edits sad

Last edited by litemotiv (2009-01-22 09:07:14)


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#10 2009-01-22 22:16:22

vogt
Member
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 2006-11-25
Posts: 389

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

It appears that this one was mistakenly marked [solved], since it's still a problem sad

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#11 2009-02-23 01:54:08

joan
Member
Registered: 2008-09-20
Posts: 20

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

So how does one actually add [SOLVED] to the title?

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#12 2009-02-23 01:56:11

SamC
Member
From: Calgary
Registered: 2008-05-13
Posts: 611
Website

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Read the first post. It's not hard.

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#13 2009-02-23 02:04:18

joan
Member
Registered: 2008-09-20
Posts: 20

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

You mean "Simply edit the original post by clicking on the 'edit' button at the lower right corner of it and add [SOLVED] to the title."? Well, yes, it sounds easy but how do you mark the title for editing

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#14 2009-02-23 02:09:30

SamC
Member
From: Calgary
Registered: 2008-05-13
Posts: 611
Website

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

1) Log in
2) Scroll to first post of your thread
3) Click "Edit" in lower right corner
4) Edit post title, prepending "[SOLVED]" to it
5) Click "Submit"

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#15 2009-02-23 02:19:08

joan
Member
Registered: 2008-09-20
Posts: 20

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Thanks!

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#16 2009-05-11 11:25:11

cb474
Member
Registered: 2009-04-04
Posts: 469

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

I am going to offer a counter-intuitive argument against marking threads [solved]. If it convinces no one, I can live with that.

1) My experience, from participating in many different forums for different distros, is that the vast majority of people do not mark threads solved. So in the end, it doesn't really add that much order and value to the forums. The result is very hodge podge. (And it seems very unlikely that people's behavior with respect to being more conscientious about this will change.)

More importantly:

2a) In actual practice, when I find a thread marked solved, more often than not it turns out to describe a problem I'm having, but the solution offered does not work for me.

2b) But when I post a further question to that thread, it is ignored because, hey, the problem has been "solved," so why should people be interested in this thread.

2c) After having had this experience over and over, I tend to look at threads marked "solved" as the least likely to be useful to me, and I'm usually (though certainly not always) right.

So in the end, even though it's counter-intuitive, I think marking thread's "solved" ends up undermining, rather than enhancing, their usefulness.

That said, I realize it is the policy of the forum to request people to mark threads [solved] when appropriate. So I'm not trying to give people an excuse for not doing this. I just think the policy is worth reconsidering. I have never seen it work well anywhere.

Last edited by cb474 (2009-05-11 11:43:20)

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#17 2009-05-11 12:26:49

whoops
Member
Registered: 2009-03-19
Posts: 891

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

Hi!


I think about the same about that. Imho when it comes to such things, that try to make some sort of "long term order", the effort - no matter how small it might be - would generally be more wisely invested into a (/the) wiki than a (/the) forum.

People who can maintain tags for their treads (be it just "[solved]" or even more complicated ones that some communities might try to "force") are likely to be at least a little help to the wiki instead if probably encouraged (even if it's just adding a link to their most importent topics somewhere, so others get encouraged to extract relevant information).

People who aren't able to do at least little changes to the wiki will most likely contribute to making the forum tags almost useless anyways.

Last edited by whoops (2009-05-11 12:27:41)

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#18 2009-05-11 12:28:31

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

cb474 wrote:

2a) In actual practice, when I find a thread marked solved, more often than not it turns out to describe a problem I'm having, but the solution offered does not work for me.

2b) But when I post a further question to that thread, it is ignored because, hey, the problem has been "solved," so why should people be interested in this thread.

2c) After having had this experience over and over, I tend to look at threads marked "solved" as the least likely to be useful to me, and I'm usually (though certainly not always) right.

In this case, the thread was solved.  If the solution does not work for you, post a new thread rather than reviving the old solved one.  You could include a link to that thread in your new one saying you've attempted solutions given there and they did not work for you.


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
--
http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#19 2009-05-11 12:59:29

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

rson451 wrote:

In this case, the thread was solved.  If the solution does not work for you, post a new thread rather than reviving the old solved one.  You could include a link to that thread in your new one saying you've attempted solutions given there and they did not work for you.

Thumbs up.
Exactly.

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#20 2009-05-11 19:51:53

cb474
Member
Registered: 2009-04-04
Posts: 469

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

rson451 wrote:

In this case, the thread was solved.  If the solution does not work for you, post a new thread rather than reviving the old solved one.  You could include a link to that thread in your new one saying you've attempted solutions given there and they did not work for you.

That may be the case sometimes. And perhaps I'm just wrong about this. I'm just drawing on my impressions and experiences.

But what I often find is that the thread wasn't solved. What happened was a solution was found that appeared to solve the problem in the thread, but it actually turns out to be a workaround to some other larger underlying problem. But by the time it becomes clear that the problem really wasn't understood correctly in the first place, the original author of the thread has long ago abandoned it. Perhaps they found the real solution themselves and never posted it. Or they just gave up when their first apparent solution turned out not to work.

So now there's a thread that's in a sense halfway worked through and abandoned, but no one is going to pay attention to it, because it's marked "solved." So then I start another thread on the same thing and the whole forum becomes that much more cluttered. Anyone searching on this problem in the future will find a series of threads that partly address an issue, which they have to slog through and piece together trying to understand. Wouldn't it be better to post my further question to the same thread and keep the issue all in the same place? Rather than have a whole bunch of threads that partly address a question that all really go together?

It seems to me that one needs to make a distinction between how the forum would ideally work in principle and how it actually ends up working in practice. A forum rule/policy ought to be effective in practice and not just embody an ideal of how people would like the forum to be.

Still maybe in the case of marking threads "solved," I misunderestand how people see a forum like this and they find it more appropriate to keep having new threads on similar or the same topic and the old threads are just considered no longer relevant. I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected.

Last edited by cb474 (2009-05-11 20:06:00)

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#21 2009-05-12 00:21:11

litemotiv
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2008-08-01
Posts: 5,026

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

if [solved] is considered [finished], then solving a thread should also cause an auto-lock (see button suggestion earlier), with the possibility for people to request reopening if they provide solid reasons for it (using a reopen button/form of some sort). this keeps things clean and more easily findable through the search, should be pretty easy to implement too.

even better might be a threaded system where topics are attached to packages, launchpad style.


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#22 2011-01-28 06:26:09

vikrang
Member
Registered: 2010-10-07
Posts: 67

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

I second lifemotiv...Instead of opening new threads everytime , there should be a facility for the creator of the mesage to reopen

Ideally it would be gr8 if it works this way

1.After creator marks it as "[SOLVED]" , then others should not be able to reply to the thread.. A link could be provided to mark the thread as "SOLVED" which is available only to creator and moderator
2. Reopen facility should be to the Moderator and creator only , This would enable reopening of the thread if a new problem arises due to the fix..This will save typing time and also have all the replies originally made as reference..To open a new thread for an old problem ,you have to summarize the entire thing and revisit history..

Just a thought.. I know there are practical difficulties in implementation though!

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#23 2011-01-28 07:06:41

ngoonee
Forum Fellow
From: Between Thailand and Singapore
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 7,354

Re: README: PLEASE Mark solved threads as [SOLVED]

vikrang wrote:

Just a thought.. I know there are practical difficulties in implementation though!

This. If anyone feels strongly about this feature please bring it up with fluxbb upstream, that's the only way it gets to our forums.


Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
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