2016-10-05 06:27:59

Hi. I was thinking, a lot of the posts we see coming across the forum on a day to day basis are questions. My proposal is that if you ask a question, you have an option to mark the thread resolved. This way, either mods would know to close it, or have it be closed automatically. My reason for this proposal is that it would keep things running more smoothly, keeping discussions on topic, and not allowing certain posts to get out of hand. We don't really see a lot of this type of issue, or, well that is an assumption on my part, who knows what the mods see and get rid of before we traverse it.

It's just my opinion, but if you create a post asking a question, or stating an issue, then marking it resolved would put an end to the discussion, plus give a quick and easy way for anyone in the future who may have the same problem. The status flag resolved would show next to the post title to let everyone know a solution  has been found.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2016-10-05 11:23:21

This is an interesting idea, though again we'd be waiting on Richard and Sander to either custom program something like this or find a PunBB module that does so, because there is nothing directly in the admin settings that would allow for such a status flag currently.

The one thing I do wonder though, is what sort of questions? and when would a thread get closed? It's one thing if someone says as Mirage did in the topic further down this page "the core exiles entry has a dead link" and I remove the link and fix it and then it's done, it's however quite something else if someone asks a question that then leads to a discussion. For example, someone the other day asked about the max pain superliam mod and how to install it. I attempted to answer but either the user might want clarrification, or some other people might chime in with their thoughts about the max pain mod or superliam or side scrollers or any of the usual issues that discussion topics get into, and that of course is not something we'd want to discourage.
Likewise, suppose someone turned up in a year or two with the same question, would the fact that the question had previously been flagged "resolved" actually have any baring on them asking the question anew? considering that by then the original topic would be buried somewhere in the pile.

Or did you just propose this as part of the "Site and forum feedback" area rather like bug reports? Since myself and the other mods manifestly do! check that area anyway and respond to threads, and again we prefer not to close topics unless there's a really good reason to do so.

So while I'm certainly not against the idea I think we'd need to consider firstly if it's possible, and secondly when, where and how on the forum it might be helpful.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-05 18:23:54

oh I thought I replied to this but it didn't go through.

I see what you mean about the mix of discussion plus question and answers, so instead of marking a resolution to an issue force closing the thread, then it could just be a status flag only. This way a user could search the forum for a question and if there is one, be able to see if it was ever resolved from within the search results page, or when browsing, within the topic list per thread.

Also I see what you mean about programming challenges, I bet PunBB uses php for its modules and back end so someone with php experience could assist, but I am uncertain if this is indeed the case.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2016-10-05 23:08:22

Well I do know a lot of the site and forum is written in php including the intigration of the news and front of site, and certainly Richard and Sander have experience in that.

The problem however is even if we did! have a resolved flag that could be used for answered questions, in practice I don't think many members actually use the search function to look up program answers too often, ---- not judging by the number of times certain questions get asked, ---- heck I am sometimes not exactly sure how often the faq gets written, one purpose of which is! to answer the most frequently asked questions.

This isn't a complaint, I think that's just par for the course when running a web forum on any subject, and probably if the function already existed I'd enable it anyway just on the offchance it might be handy, but whether someone should spend time programming a custom feature like that which may or may not be used I'm not sure, after all there are probably other features  hier on the priority list (I'd love to see the ability for people to actually add reviews and walkthrus to the database ala gamefaqs, aside from the descriptions on the pages).

So as I said while I'm certainly not against the idea I'm not %100 sure of it either.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-05 23:44:06

I see what ya mean

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united