It would be useful, if one could mark one’s topic as solved. Easier for people who afterwards seek help for the same problem.
I second this. It would be very helpful for people who search the forums for answers and instead find a 6-page long topic but they don’t feel like weeding through to find the solution. So instead they just start a new topic about something thats already been answered 100 times before.
Being able to mark a post as a solution to the problem, and then being able to go to that solution would be a great addition to the forums.
We must also keep in mind that the forum software might not support this functionality. If that is the case, disregard my response. 
On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:26:01 +0000, srschifano wrote:
> I second this. It would be very helpful for people who search the
> forums for answers and instead find a 6-page long topic but they don’t
> feel like weeding through to find the solution. So instead they just
> start a new topic about something thats already been answered 100 times
> before.
>
> Being able to mark a post as a solution to the problem, and then being
> able to go to that solution would be a great addition to the forums.
>
> We must also keep in mind that the forum software might not support this
> functionality. If that is the case, disregard my response.
This suggestion comes up about once every month - the problem is that not
everyone is going to mark their threads as solved, so then the
functionality becomes useless.
Further, sometimes you get an additional side discussion that isn’t
resolved (or is), so at what point does the thread get marked solved?
When the original issue is resolved? What if the secondary issue becomes
the main point of discussion?
The only way to have it done consistently is for the moderation staff to
ensure threads are properly marked “solved” when the thread is solved.
Do the mods want to do this? If I was a mod, I might not be willing to
do this (though mostly because I access via NNTP and any functionality to
“mark as solved” is likely to be only in the web interface, which I
dislike using because it’s not as fast as using NNTP).
Please search the earlier discussions on this topic for other opinions
about it. As I said, this “idea” comes up about monthly, if not more
frequently. 
Jim
That’s a bit OTT (IMO). It’s come up before, but hardly monthly. The problem of not marking has already been made i.e. the party line. It ignores the fact that other functionality for marking stuff is not used frequently or effectively, but is included for the benefit of those who do enjoy using it. Again I pointed this out in an earlier post. If you read the thread, you must have noticed some posts discussing the benefit enjoyed by other forums using it, and how their members remind each other to mark posts as solved. Why should it fall upon the Mods to do it?
lol! NNTP users are already excused from using other forum techniques. Maybe this one would escape you as well.
Further, sometimes you get an additional side discussion that isn’t
resolved (or is), so at what point does the thread get marked solved?
When the original issue is resolved? What if the secondary issue becomes
the main point of discussion?
It’s called “going off topic” or “hijacking a thread” 
It doesn’t matter because the OP would decide when it is solved. The secondary issue becoming the main point is the definition of a perfect hi-jack! Apparently it’s not very good forum etiquette. 
It’s called “going off topic” or “hijacking a thread” It doesn’t matter because the OP would decide when it is solved. The secondary issue becoming the main point is the definition of a perfect hi-jack! Apparently it’s not very good forum etiquette.
Haven’t thought much about this before, but maybe if threads were able to be marked solved by OP, it might encourage others to start their own threads. They could still add a link to the old thread if they thought it was relevant.
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:26:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> hendersj;2020934 Wrote:
>> This suggestion comes up about once every month - the problem is that
>> not everyone is going to mark their threads as solved, so then the
>> functionality becomes useless…
> That’s a bit OTT (IMO). It’s come up before, but hardly monthly.
Exaggeration for effect. It comes up periodically, then.
> The
> problem of not marking has already been made i.e. the party line. It
> ignores the fact that other functionality for marking stuff is not used
> frequently or effectively, but is included for the benefit of those who
> do enjoy using it. Again I pointed this out in an earlier post. If you
> read the thread, you must have noticed some posts discussing the benefit
> enjoyed by other forums using it, and how their members remind each
> other to mark posts as solved. Why should it fall upon the Mods to do
> it?
Because the benefit is not for the user for whom the problem is resolved,
but for people looking for solutions.
But in order for the “mark as solved” idea to be beneficial, every thread
that is solved has to be marked solved, otherwise how does one actually
use it to find solutions? Is a thread that’s not marked “solved”
considered “unsolved” if the OP never comes back and says “great, that
fixed it for me, thanks!” and marks it as solved? What if they come back
and mark it as “solved” but don’t comment - did the actual advise given
help solve the problem, or did they find some other way to solve it that
the given solutions pointed them in the direction of?
And even more to the point, how many users actually search before posting
a question to see if the answer is already there? In an ideal world,
they would, but in my rather long experience in using forums of all
sorts, it’s not common practice because it’s “hard” to search and “easy”
to just ask the question again. Those who search are the minority use
case.
> lol! NNTP users are already excused from using other forum techniques.
> Maybe this one would escape you as well.
I’m not sure what’s funny about that per se - but here again, if the
benefit is for people searching for answers, then it’s got to be
consistently done or the value simply isn’t there.
>> Further, sometimes you get an additional side discussion that isn’t
>> resolved (or is), so at what point does the thread get marked solved?
>> When the original issue is resolved? What if the secondary issue
>> becomes
>> the main point of discussion?
> It’s called “going off topic” or “hijacking a thread”
Welcome to the wonderful world of forums. Sometimes the “side” topic is
actually related to the original. Say for example, the OP starts a
discussion about problems with sound and it turns out it’s Pulseaudio
that’s messed things up for them. So then they switch to using ALSA and
have a related issue that turns out to be related to the sound hardware
rather than either sound daemon, and the discussion turns to ALSA-related
matters or HW related matters.
Now as a user coming into the discussion (as a result of a search on a
problem I’m having), I see the recommend to use ALSA so I try that and
run into a problem - is it “hijacking” the thread to say “well, I tried
switching to ALSA as suggested but it did something weird - here’s the
detail”. IMHO, no, because it’s related to the suggested solution and
applied to the 1st person’s original issue and proposed solution.
> It doesn’t
> matter because the OP would decide when it is solved. The secondary
> issue becoming the main point is the definition of a perfect hi-jack!
> Apparently it’s not very good forum etiquette.
Depends on the forum. There are places where “thread drift” is perfectly
acceptable and a standard practice. Discussions evolve.
Jim
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:26:01 +0000, deano ferrari wrote:
>> It’s called “going off topic” or “hijacking a thread” It doesn’t matter
>> because the OP would decide when it is solved. The secondary issue
>> becoming the main point is the definition of a perfect hi-jack!
>> Apparently it’s not very good forum etiquette.
>
> Haven’t thought much about this before, but maybe if threads were able
> to be marked solved by OP, it might encourage others to start their own
> threads. They could still add a link to the old thread if they thought
> it was relevant.
I don’t think “marking as solved” has the same connotation as “closing
the thread”. Closing threads that are marked solved seems a bad idea,
for one thing, as an NNTP user, how am I to know a thread is “closed”?
Today, I keep an eye out for the mods participating in a thread and if I
see one of them, I’ll check to see if they’ve posted that a thread is
closed before posting. If any user can close a thread as a part of
marking it solved, there has to be a standard way to KNOW that the thread
is closed that doesn’t involve reading the whole thing - a tag in the
subject line saying [Solved] would be sufficient. But that’s not a
standard part of vBulletin, so it would require custom coding, and custom
coding comes at a price of manageability when upgrades are done to the
system.
Jim
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:26:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> That’s a bit OTT (IMO). It’s come up before, but hardly monthly.
8 threads in the past year. OK, not monthly, but it has come up
periodically (as I said). Kinda makes my point that people come to the
forum and don’t search ahead of time to see if a topic has been discussed
previously or not, though.
Jim
> 8 threads in the past year. OK, not monthly, but
uh, that is eight threads initiated
but i guess if you check you will find that someone unwilling to
read a 6-page long existing thread on the ‘solved’ topic to SEE if
there is a policy decision already made, and will post another support
for change…well, i’d guess if you count those you could say it
comes up TWICE a month…or more.
lets face it: most (many?) people will NOT search the forums for
existing forum policy decisions or solutions…
it is part of the instant gratification malady…
–
goldie
It would make the forum more efficient. The quicker you can find a good solution for your problem, the better.
This seems quite simple to me, I’ve seen a few mods say they don’t mind editing solved into a title, a search will show this…
=0&childforums=1&titleonly=1&showposts=0&searchdate=0&beforeafter=after&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending&replyless=0&replylimit=0&searchthreadid=0&saveprefs=1&quicksearch=0&searchtype=1&nocache=0&ajax=0&userid=0"]Solved](http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php?query=solved&exactname=1&starteronly=0&forumchoice)
So like anything I bet if the demand exceeds the time spent to do it a solution will be found. As for the tooing and frooing the minority isn’t always wrong. The community is made up all waifs and strays those that see benefit those that don’t nntp user and forum users alike.
When viewing via todays posts via the web interface with update problems this will stop duplication. But as few have mentioned its not a solution, it will be self policed just as thread drift and necro posting is. No one is implying a a policy to mark threads solved…
I personally find it demeaning that we’re not allowed to edit and yes I know the reasons, but many reasons rest on 2 things I’d like to think the majority of forum users have some maturity so would rule out one(Also would expect them to be banned). Then solved could be edited in.(But this is just my opinion and I accept that)
pjotr123 adjusted his/her AFDB on Monday 03 Aug 2009 10:56 to write:
>
> It would make the forum more efficient. The quicker you can find a good
> solution for your problem, the better.
>
>
I do not think it would make it much easier to find a solution as ( as I see
it ) you would be asking for a double search criteria?
such as:
nvidia drivers solved
Now the results might get you to a page with thousands of results if all
solved posts have been marked as such, if you take into account the amount
of posts on these fora over say 6 months the solved base would be massive.
You would then still need to narrow down you search for your specific card
model ( geforce, tnt, etc…) plus the version of SuSE 10.3 upwards, kernel
versions…
The variables huge.
If you just entered a single search pattern of something like:
solved Nvidia gfx8800 composting not enabled on boot with OpenSuSeE11.2rc4
kernel 2.6.31
You would not get any results.
So now where do you go?
Instead you can just go to the forum and look yourself or ask which is a lot
quicker.
Also do not forget the burden put on the moderators, this would involve them
reading every single thread and all pots in that thread to see if the solved
was in fact correct and then marking it so.
Now these guys/gals who moderate do not get paid they are people like me and
you and do it in their own free time for the love of it ( trust me I know )
many will not think of looking at a thread that they have limited knowledge
of, for example I know very little about wireless on linux I have it and it
works because I bought an adaptor that I knew was supported so I do not
answer in that group, I do look at some of the posts to further my personal
knowledge but that is it, so why should a moderator “have” to spend time
reading threads he/she has no input on instead getting on and helping where
they are good and saving there valuable time.
HTH
Take care.
–
Mark
Caveat emptor
Nullus in verba
Nil illegitimi carborundum
- pjotr123 wrote, On 08/03/2009 11:56 AM:
> It would make the forum more efficient. The quicker you can find a good
> solution for your problem, the better.
>
As Jim said, just tell a mod when a thread has been solved and we’ll mark it as such.
Uwe
At least someone who looks for a solution would narrow it’s search down to those that were marked as solved. That would make life easier for all contributors also
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:15:23 +0000, goldie wrote:
> lets face it: most (many?) people will NOT search the forums for
> existing forum policy decisions or solutions…
That’s kinda my point.
Jim
Oops. That’s gotta be worth a couple of these
rotfl!rotfl!rotfl! (three may be a little OT, but I mentioned a couple).
I can’t believe how much naysaying and contrived “what if’s” are coming from people who won’t use it anyway. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, surely.
As @BBR said:
At least someone who looks for a solution would narrow it’s search down to those that were marked as solved. That would make life easier for all contributors also
He does a fair amount of “Help” section posting.
And that’s kinda my point.
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:26:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> I can’t believe how much naysaying and contrived “what if’s” are coming
> from people who won’t use it anyway. It doesn’t have to be all or
> nothing, surely.
Adding a “solved” qualifier is used to restrict a search in order to find
answers to problems. If the “solved” qualifier doesn’t help find actual
answers, then it’s use is very limited.
That’s not particularly a matter of opinion, that’s a matter of fact. If
you have a term/flag/whatever that is used to restrict a search and the
term isn’t used consistently, then the term/flag/whatever has little to
no value.
Jim
An existing way would be to start adding solved as a tag along with what the thread is about. Then people could just search tags for solved and any search term they are looking for.
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:16:01 +0000, 69 rs ss wrote:
> An existing way would be to start adding solved as a tag along with what
> the thread is about. Then people could just search tags for solved and
> any search term they are looking for.
Yeah, that would work similarly, but only as well as the community
actually follows that idea - but if the idea isn’t followed consistently
then people searching would end up doing two searches - first with the
solved tag, and second without it when they find no results because the
poster in a thread where the issue was solved didn’t tag it as such.
Jim
Also raised here:
New category proposal: security - openSUSE Forums
1 vote from me for solved threads.
Whatever the consequences are, but we have to accept it will help users somehow. It has no -ve points, except +ve points it have.