Question answering

[TheDestroyer111]

I think there should be a different system to mark questions as answered on the forum. Right now there are lots of answered questions that don't have a best answer (as the person who asked the question didn't vote for any) and for the first glance they look like unanswered. There are also many gameplay and technical support questions that are already answered, but they aren't marked as so, and instead turned into discussion threads.

[Red Iron Crown]

I agree that OPs are not as diligent in marking best answers as they should be. What sort of system would you suggest?

[Trann]

How about

 

if ( ! BestAnswer ) then floatTop( thisThread(MostLikedPost) );

 

EDIT: Due to my ultra wide window, I have just noticed those types of threads have a Sort By Votes toggle so this feature may be a moo point.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Trann

[TheDestroyer111]

I suggest that if any answer gets a certain amount of votes (at least 3 maybe, i mean votes not only by the user who asked the question), the question should be marked as a question with at least one best answer (if the user who asked the question votes for an answer, the question should still immediately be marked as answered). I think it should also be possible for moderators to mark questions as ones with a best answer regardless of how many people vote on an answer.

[Red Iron Crown]

It is possible already for moderators to mark best answers but we refrain from doing so, mainly because that is meant for the OP to do (and also because some moderators answer a lot of questions, a bit of a conflict of interest). It appears that once an answer is marked best it cannot be unmarked, so we're very hesitant to mark answers for others in case they come back and would like a different one marked. Plus a moderator may not always be qualified to choose a best answer (I certainly fall into this category in the tech support forums).

Still, it does seem like few users bother to mark their threads, which makes it harder for those who want to help them. Not sure what the best way forward is with this.

[r4pt0r]

We have the notification system @Red Iron Crown, could you do anything like this?

"It has been 3 days since you asked _____, please change thread to answered if you recieved the help you needed."

"Posting error: You have 2 question threads currently open. please mark them as answered before posting another question"

[Red Iron Crown]

1 minute ago, r4pt0r said:

We have the notification system @Red Iron Crown, could you do anything like this?

"It has been 3 days since you asked _____, please change thread to answered if you recieved the help you needed."

That's a pretty good idea, I'll have to check with the admins to see what is possible.

1 minute ago, r4pt0r said:

"Posting error: You have 2 question threads currently open. please mark them as answered before posting another question"

Personally I would be reluctant to set a hard limit like that.

[stibbons]

I love the format, but I think a significant part of the problem is that it's poorly communicated. There's nothing obvious telling users that this part of the forum behaves differently to others, or that these posts aren't supposed to be conversation starters, rather specific questions. 

One reason for this, and my personal bugbear, is that long-running threads have been shoehorned in to this format. The Linux support threads, for example, aren't questions that have a single answer to be voted on. They're long term threads that should be treated like the rest of the forum. 

So this is only a partial answer. Draw a clear line between specific questions and broader discussion. Move the discussion out of the Q&A forum. Make it clear that the Q&A forum is for very specific questions, and what we expect from askers and answerers. Those last bits are where I get hazy, because it's hard. :-(

[TheDestroyer111]

On 8/26/2016 at 3:05 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

QUOTE

That's a pretty good idea, I'll have to check with the admins to see what is possible.

QUOTE

Personally I would be reluctant to set a hard limit like that.

Bump.

Did you check it with the admins?

[Red Iron Crown]

7 hours ago, TheDestroyer111 said:

Bump.

Did you check it with the admins?

Sorry, forgot to update after I talked to Kasper about this. It's not something that is directly supported by the forum software, unfortunately.

[TheDestroyer111]

9 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Sorry, forgot to update after I talked to Kasper about this. It's not something that is directly supported by the forum software, unfortunately.

 But i think that another way to help with this without going outside of the boundaries of forum software is simply having moderators (or maybe a specially made bot account?) PM people if a question thread is not marked as answered but is inactive and looks like answered.