Is there a De Jure way for the Author of a post to indicate they have their answer

Meta
#1

Is there a De Jure way for the Author of a post to indicate they have their answer when they ask a question.

As a regular contributor if I new a question has being answered already I may be able to not read the thread unless it is of interest or just scan it for gems rather than try and answer.

If there is no De Jure Way, what would be a de facto method and how do we encourage its use?

Should we separate discussion from Questions and/or Issues?
If we did this we may be able to trigger an “Answered” indicator on Questions if not discussions.

Admin: Issues On Topic Closure Timing ... 14, not 3?
Admin: What about posting to Discourse via URL?
#2

There is a Solved plugin that we might consider activating.

I see that one of the community’s major activities is people working together to essentially answer support questions and offer tips and tricks.

So I don’t think picking one answer is necessarily the right thing.

I do think curating, categorizing, and tagging, as well as synthesizing into How To posts, could help in re-use over time.

And maybe loop back into documentation improvements too.

#3

@boris perhaps you misunderstand me a little. It is for the poster of the question to indicate it was solved for them. So for example it is clear what is an outstanding question and what is answered to the satisfaction of the questioner. If people want to they could search only for answered questions or we helpers search for unanswered Questions.

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#4

Reviewing the solved plugin suggests its similar. The advantage being it can be applied only on one Category such as Questions (rather than discussions).

Just food for thought.

#5

@TW_Tones, interesting post! But I think you need to layout what you mean by “DE JURE”. Though the “De Jure” v. “De Facto” thing is familiar to me, I’m not sure it is widely understood?

Sidenote, TT

#6

TT et all.

Sure I did assume (oops)

De Jure is an actual and official rule that applies, in this case the rule that questions can be flagged as answered by the original poster. Boris has nominated the solution plugin which seems suitable, and this would be a De Jure solution. Great given Boris’s response especially if you do not need to nominate a specific reply as the answer.

De facto would be an effective (not official rule) that we apply as a community a bit like de facto relationships are not De Jure (eg married). Perhaps asking Posters to re-edit or tag their questions as answered.

#7

I’ve participated in another forum where the Solved plugin was used, and it seemed to work pretty well.

And I agree with @TW_Tones, this should work like the accepted answer on StackOverflow – doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best answer or the only good one, just that it worked for the person asking the question. Plus, the thread as a whole gets marked as “we got this one.”

#8

Ok! Great to hear that people have had good experiences with it.

I’ll look at getting it installed and we can experiment.

#9

I’ve installed the “Solved” plugin and activated it for the Meta category so we can experiment.

I have also turned on the feature that topics in the Meta category will be “closed” after 72 hours / 3 days if there are no further responses.

It needs to be enabled on a category by category basis.

AND, it can’t be enabled for the default / uncategorized “Discussion” category.

So, what do we want to call a new category for this? Questions, Q&A? Tips?

Note that regular members can recategorize Discussions post easily into a new category. I suspect that most new users will just go ahead and post which will end up in Discussions by default.

Please experiment here in #Meta to see how it works. The original poster (OP) can mark something as solved, and various higher trust levels / staff can also mark something as solved.

#10

Boris thanks.

Can this not close the item ever?. I see no need for that feature. Sometimes someone has a related or extended question, a new version calls for a different answer.

#11

Let’s try it and see what happens.

A related or extended question is the exact reason to have a new post that links to the old one — rather than having a continuous thread that just keeps gathering somewhat related questions, and you can no longer tell which answer solves which question.

With tags and back links, new posts should give us a better variety of answers.

#12

@boris just keep in mind this is contrary to the establish practice in Google Groups for better or worse. My original request was not to nominate the solution, but that a solution was found, no more no less. Basically what you would discourage;

a continuous thread that just keeps gathering somewhat related questions,

Which is the current community practice. For example my comments here, are only possible because this time has not passed (Was it you, not me who marked it solved?).

If a new question is dependant on linking to a closed question it is much harder to collect all the information together and few shortcuts are available to reusing the content.

To put it this way, I think we should avoid solving problems that have not occurred and not making changes that change current practices, at least initially. I also fear we do not have the statistics that would allow us to see if such a change (Timed close) helps or hinder usage, thus I would put that aside for now.

#13

Which is not the case in this system, which is different than GG. You can transclude a link to the original question and answer thread.

“I have a question that is sort of like X, but I also need Y”

Which would then have a solution posted.

But I wouldn’t worry too much about it, these practices will emerge over time.

(Closed only means that new replies can’t be posted)

#14

As I argued against the same in Google, post migration, closing all Threads from replies, I would feel the same here. Keep in mind I am coming from 10+ years experience with the current forum.

However if we feel we consider closing threads as a “best practice” and worthy of adoption I suggest clearly documenting this difference between forums and how to handle this change for all users. As you pointed out transcluding a thread.

There may need to be exceptions such as the recently discussed links from tiddlywiki.com into Discourse.

Finally this thread is a case in point, in some ways, I did not mark it solved but I did raise the question. What if I were away for a week I could come back and find it closed. One of the advantages of the never closing threads is they can continue over a long period, with no need for me to attend to tiddlywiki issues on regular basis. This aspect has helped the community members drop in and out of the community, as needed rather than be as engages as us enthusiasts.

Finally as stated before, if the solved settings exist only on a Q&A Category and so too does the auto close this may be OK, because people may expect a different behaviour in the Q&A but I would not like to see it on the discussion category.

Like here actually.

Yours Sincerely.

#15

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

#16
#17

One thing here on Discourse, a bit different than the GG, is the “organisation” of posts is a lot clearer (especially via the broad “Categories” IMO).
So, on the upside, Discourse will maybe slightly tame our passion to fork conceptually in mid-thread that was often a characteristic on the GG.

Regarding “SOLVED”–TBH all I need see is a Category applied to a post by the OP’s author to know it will be worth reading as it is “solved” already (meaning the “tick-box” pre-pend in a list of posts, though fine, adds nothing but another interface element where a Category would do the same anyway???). Just a comment.

Of course, there are often many ways in TW to achieve the same final outcome so, unless the thread initiator explicitly closes a thread, I’m happy it is left permanently open.

#18

@pmario I think you just recommended to someone that they should show a comment as solved.

This is only enabled for the #meta category for testing.

Do we want to turn it on for #discussion? Any other categories?

#19

@boris can the discussion remain open after solving?

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#20

Yes, I turned off auto-closing discussions.

This is what shows in the preview box on desktop when new comments are added to solved topics:

Screen Shot 2021-09-19 at 1.22.07 AM
Screen Shot 2021-09-19 at 1.22.07 AM2850×898 234 KB

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