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Marking solved threads with [SOLVED]

theova - over 4 years ago -

One of Arch's forum rules is:

Please mark solved threads as [SOLVED]
Marking threads as [SOLVED], after a solution has been found will help others to find an expedient solution for their own issues. Please be considerate and mark those threads when an answer is found.
Simply edit the original post by clicking on the 'edit' button at the lower right corner of it and prepend [SOLVED] to the title.

I think, it would be a good idea to agree on this rule for Parabola's forum as well. (For the exact same reasons). What do you think?


Replies (2)

Marking solved threads with [SOLVED] - bill-auger - over 4 years ago -

this forum is a rather new experiment, suggested by members of
the community; but it should be clarified what a forum is, and
what it is not

web forums are designed for arbitrary open-ended discussions,
for which it is not meaningful or desirable to close them off -
a forum is essentially a mailing list or BBS that can only be
accessed through a web browser

bug trackers, Q/A boards, and help ticket systems, on the other
hand, have built in features for marking issues as "open",
"closed", "fixed", and so on, in a precise, unambiguous way -
stackoverflow, for example has the check-mark image to indicate
the accepted solution; but stackoverflow is not a forum - it is
a Q/A board, and an example of using an appropriate tool for the
intended job

adding "[SOLVED]" to thread titles is a conventional courtesy to
others, in order to compensate for the fact that web forums were
not designed to be used as bug trackers or help ticket systems -
it is only a conventional courtesy though, such as changing your
chat nickname: "me" to: "me-away", in cases where the software
does not offer a precise mechanism to do so - i have never seen
it as a matter of policy - technical solutions to technical
problems should always be preferred to compensating for
inadequacies with guidelines or policies

anywhere you see a forum thread with "[SOLVED]" or "[DUPLICATE]"
in the title, it is an indication that the software is being
(mis)used for a purpose other than for which it was designed -
to make that a matter of policy, would be to acknowledge that
the admins are shoe-horning that specialized use-case into a
general purpose forum, rather than maintaining a dedicated service

i was a moderator of such a forum for a few years; and about 80%
of the time, it was me who added "[SOLVED]" to the thread title
because the OP did not; or "[DUPLICATE]" because the OP did not
read the titles of existing threads before posting

the real solution would be to use a proper help/support ticketing
system or Q/A board; though this is the first time that anyone
has proposed that parabola should have such a system - if there
is anything to discuss regarding this, i would like to steer the
conversation toward that direction

Marking solved threads with [SOLVED] - bill-auger - over 4 years ago -

the first argument i would make though, is that it could lead to
bugs being reported in the Q/A board instead of the bug tracker,
and "how do i?" instructions that are missing from the wiki, or
already are present on the wiki, being duplicated on the Q/A
board, or never making it onto the wiki

the 'trouble-shooting' board on this forum is a borderline case
with the potential to be problematic in that same way - those
topics could remain open-ended though, as long as any substantial
information uncovered, eventually makes it onto the bug tracker or
wiki; because in those cases, the forum would not be presented as
the most reliable resource for users to search for solutions or
FAQs - the bug tracker and wiki would still retain that distinction

a Q/A board could be presented as such a resource; but i expect
that the majority of questions would actually be indicating a bug
or some missing or inaccurate documentation

    (1-2/2)