[SOLVED] Idea: Create "Unsolved Thread" list.

Jeremy's last email to the public mentioned the addition of the "Mark this thread as solved" option in the "Thread Tools" menu. The email went on to mention the 0 reply threads list, and how answering 0 reply threads is a good service to the Linuxquestions community.

I think that along with the "0 reply threads" list, there should be a separate "Unsolved List" so that thorny technical questions stay on the radar just a little bit longer.

That would work if every solved thread was marked as such. Because we rely on members to return to mark their thread as solved, it means that a great number of unsolved threads are actually solved. If there was a way to be sure all resolved threads are marked as such, that would be a useful addition.

You know, I think a section on 'Sticking Points' or 'Inquiring Minds Want to Know..."

or just add a section that says:"Unresolved Questions"... of course not ALL the unresolved questions, say after a month (or two) they cycle out... I mean distro's and their packages are so speedily being 'obsoleted' it is hard to keep ALL the questions on board.

Originally Posted by XavierP That would work if every solved thread was marked as such. Because we rely on members to return to mark their thread as solved, it means that a great number of unsolved threads are actually solved. If there was a way to be sure all resolved threads are marked as such, that would be a useful addition.

Ok, so we'd need a fair way of selecting which threads could remain in the list. Perhaps

• Every n'th unresolved thread (difficult, because the thread pool is dynamic)
• Choose n new unresolved threads every hour at random
• Choose n new unresolved threads at random, with some weighting factor: number of views, number of replies, number of posts by the originator of the thread.

Or perhaps we don't care much... the unresolved thread list would look a lot like the standard list, only posts would fall off the front page slightly slower.

That would actually be a great idea if everything worked perfectly, but there are a few notes to consider when trying to implement the feature:

1) If a thread is receiving replies, it already stays at or near the top of the page. It's only when the replies stop that the thread crawls to the bottom and 'falls off'.

2) If the thread doesn't receive any replies, it stays on the 'Zero Reply' list.

3) Last but not least, in far too many cases, the OP doesn't bother to return and say if one of the suggestions fixed the problem, never mind marking the thread as 'Solved' or thanking the poster.

Not saying it can't be tweaked, just something to keep in mind.

Cheers

It might be a good idea, maybe it would make more people mark their threads as solved.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H It might be a good idea, maybe it would make more people mark their threads as solved.

Hehehe...

In a perfect world, everyone would post with a useful thread title, thank the poster who helped them, and mark their thread as Solved. But as someone else so poetically stated concerning another potential feature addition:

You cannot fix everyone's laziness with technology.

So IMHO, with or without the 'Unsolved Thread' feature, there will still be some things we'll just have to learn to live with...

Cheers

Originally Posted by dragonslayer48dx That would actually be a great idea if everything worked perfectly, but there are a few notes to consider when trying to implement the feature: 1) If a thread is receiving replies, it already stays at or near the top of the page. It's only when the replies stop that the thread crawls to the bottom and 'falls off'. 2) If the thread doesn't receive any replies, it stays on the 'Zero Reply' list.

My (admittedly limited) experience is that a significant percentage of my posts get one or two replies, but never get solved, and live and die in the never-neverland between cases 1) and 2), in spite of the fact that I always research my questions thoroughly before I ask, and I always give good and accurate titles to my threads. ;-).

Maybe I'm being impatient, perhaps I need to be more aggressive about re-posting questions that didn't get answered (but I'm hesitant about that, because it seems to go against local etiquette).

I suspect that the answer isn't technical, but this problem is a 'nail with threads' to my geek hammer.

Other solutions (technical or not) would be welcome.

Originally Posted by bartonski My (admittedly limited) experience is that a significant percentage of my posts get one or two replies, but never get solved, and live and die in the never-neverland between cases 1) and 2)

Hmmm... didn't think of that one.

Perhaps including a time feature to your other ideas would help. i.e. a thread that's x-days old with only x-number of replies and not marked Solved would be added.

Of course, any solution would most likely require member intervention (reporting solved threads that didn't get properly marked) to keep it tidy, but I doubt that would be a major problem.

Originally Posted by dragonslayer48dx Not saying it can't be tweaked...

Cheers

Maybe setting a minimum age would be useful as well. No need to put threads on the list that are still showing up on the front page of whatever forum that they're in.

bartonski: you can "bump" your thread with a few replies by replying to it with new information:

ie: "thanks respondent 1, I tried that, this was the error code I got trying to do that"

Keeping the replies flowing helps the thread stay alive. (Use with reason of course, don't post *bump* or other such nonsense, keep replies useful.) You're right, we like to keep questions in one thread, so don't post a new one if the old one isn't getting responses.

What you can do:
Use the "report" button to ask a moderator to move your thread to a better forum (ex: Maybe a software problem has turned out to be hardware?)
Reply with what you have tried, what else you have researched to keep the thread floating.

TG

TG,

Thank you. This is just the kind of information that I was looking for, and I didn't even know it. I didn't know the extent to which bumping threads was socially acceptable around here; your distinction between adding useful information and simply bumping the thread for no good reason makes good sense to me.

Using the 'report' button to get a moderator was the answer that I absolutely didn't expect. I always thought that this was a thermonuclear LART button, so I didn't press it.

I still think that having an 'unsolved threads' list would be useful, or at least interesting, but I'm no longer stuck on it as the only solution to my perceived problem.