Unanswered posts

Before posting any queries that I may have, I usually click on "unanswered posts" to see if there are any problems that I can help resolve.

I sometimes post queries to the forum and quickly get a response, and most of the time this leads to a resolution or a discussion that brings about a resolution - but occasionally the response is not helpful and sometimes even irrelevant.

Unfortunately, if everyone behaves this way about answering posts (I assume this is the case), fewer people will see posts that have been answered compared to those that remain unanswered. In the case where the answer was helpful or somewhat helpful, this is not a problem. My predicament is that I would like to select responses that are not relevant or do not address the issue and flag them as such so that they are not displayed at all or contribute to making the post appear as "answered" - reducing the possible responses that may be relevant and help solve the problem.

Perhaps one way to accomplish this is to have a heading "unresolved posts" - a post may fall into this category if it has not been answered or if all replies have been flagged as unhelpful (a helpful response not necessarily resolving the issue). I am not sure if it is necessary per se, but if you wanted to prevent messages from appearing in this category when they are irresolvable or the poster was stubborn about the quality of the response, you could have all unresolved messages expire after, say, one week...

Thanks again for the good work!

I like this idea because sometimes after an initial answer to a question is given it will generate more questions and this will allow the discussion to continue in the same post while still getting the attention of an unresolved question.

This is exactly like what I have been thinking about for awhile now. I have just been thinking about a good way to implement it.

How I see it being done is this...

Someone posts a question. It is automatically placed in an unresolved state. People answer the post. At this point the original poster can mark the thread as resolved or leave it in the unresolved state. Any administrator can place a post into a resolved state also.

I don't like the idea of expiring. Is a week enough time? A month? Who's to say. With the system above, I would just keep an eye on unresolved posts and if I feel one is resolved, make it as so.

Also, anonymous posts will always start in a resolved status. Obviously, an anonymous poster wouldn't be able to come back and mark a post as resolved. Any better ideas to handle resolved posts?

What a great ideas!!! Glad I thought of it This would also eliminate people saying that posts never get answered. I realize anonymous is important to you but they should not be able to post anonymous. Also by default email should be sent to the posters and respondees. Too many times I answer a post and they never come back to check it. They could turn it off if they want but it should be on by default. You may have already done that.. I signed up many many moons ago when the forum had less that 200 posts and it was not default then.

you can't expect everyone to mark their posts as resolved - nor can admins always "know" when a topic has been resolved. like dorkrawk says, some answers can lead to more questions which could result in threads that never actually go "resolved"

i don't see how this could be implemented efficiently 0_o

[edit: correction, unless topics were locked after they were resolved, and only admins could resolve topics - kinda like php's bug dbase however then this wouldn't really be a forum anymore, it'd be a something else. or something. *shrugs* ..i like the sound of it but i just don't see how personally]

Well, this is the thing. Say we ignore the expiration issue. Forget I mentioned it for a minute - and let's see how a post enters each state:

No replies (new post) = UNRESOLVED.
Upon any reply = RESOLVED.
Post is marked as resolved = RESOLVED.
Post is marked as unresolved = UNRESOLVED (until next reply).

This second state will eliminate the need to mark posts as being resolved. The assumption is that the issue is resolved when someone posts a reply unless the poster specifically indicates otherwise.

Anonymous posters would simply not be able to mark their posts as being unresolved after they have been addressed; this is no different than the current situation, it simply offers an incentive for people to sign in/up before posting, which is a good thing, no?

P

I understand what notepad is saying too. What about an 'ongoing' option? I still have a problem with anonymous posts.. Everyone else makes you sign up, so should CW

okay i stand corrected. i like muganes idea

One more thing how 'bout when an admin marks it resolved the poster gets an email saying it was marked resolved and they have the option to login and change the status if need be??

postal that's unnecessary, cause the topic is marked as resolved upon any reply anyway (if we're going by muganes rules).

plus i think if an admin marks it resolved that the original poster should not be able to un-mark it.. cause you gotta plan for the people who get help, but just want other "opinions" or something along those lines. technically it's still resolved even though they want it to remain open. ja know.

This is good stuff...I am with mugane's last post on this...

I will work on implementing this...

One thing is not clear to me: Can I reply to a post and keep it marked as unresolved?

Often enough, the original post doesn't have enough information in it and the first reply simply asks for more/better information and does not resolve it.

We can handle this situation in two ways.

1) You reply requesting more info and the post is marked resolved. It is resolved until the original poster comes back, adds more info and changes the status to unresolved.

2) You reply and click a 'leave in unresolved' checkbox.

Wow, this is a grrrrreat idea! When is it going to be true?

One question, would this system be on all forums? It's not necessary on this forum for example. Only on php, database, client side and contest forums.

Ok...give it a whirl...

I only have it enabled for the Test Forum at the moment...you can find the test forum on the main forum index...