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Rails Forum - Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum » Forum Support & Suggestions » open/closed threads?
I've noticed over the past few months that the support forum is getting crowded and messages are getting lost. Any thought to having the ability to close out a thread once the "solution" is reached? That way those trying to help (which I try to do), can filter out those who's problems are solved and those who are still looking for support.
Just a thought.
-matthewvb
There's a big problem with that though: what if I have an even better answer than someone else has provided in a thread, but it's been closed by a user?
If the absolute best solution has been reached in a thread and the thread poster wants it closed, just write "mods close thread please" in the thread or email one of us. 
Yah - that's a good point. Just trying to think of some way to filter though the thousands of posts.
Thanks for considering it.
We used to have the Rails forum broken down into two forums: Beginning and Advanced ... but unfortunately, those were too subjective and we found people posting the same sort of things in each forum (i.e., what's advanced to someone using RoR for 3 months might feel like a beginner topic to someone using RoR for 2 years). So we merged everything into one forum, which admittedly makes the forum move very fast.
The best answer I can give for now, is to attempt to use the additional category forums we have now as much as possible where appropriate. (That is, anything about databases, for example, put in the databases forum even if it has to do with rails+databases.) I think if we can get more people thinking about where to post, and taking advantage of the forum structure, instead of just immediately posting in Rails, then we'll alleviate the problem a little.
If you have any more suggestions, we're certainly all ears.
How about an option for thread OP to put a mark saying "Solved", it may be not the best solution, but the thread would still be open and people would know that it's solved somehow.
Like on Apple support forums;
....Just a though >.>
I like that idea -- could have a little graphic or color mark on the main forum pages so we know if the person has declared something solved. would still allow people to post better solutions, but those who are looking to help out with problems know that something's been fixed.
now, the hard part is getting those with problems to be sure to mark things solved and not just leave them hang.
Glad to hear You like the idea.
Well...If the mark will be recognizable enough(distingushable from thread list, yet pleasant for eyes) then i think word will spread quite fast.
As a suggestion...in safari the maximized railsforum.com page has some unoccupied space on the 4th column in say "Rails Programming" section, maybe a "checked" sign with 3/4 of thead row height wound fit.
I think it's great idea to allow topic creator to mark his/hers topic as "answered" or "solved", or maybe even a particular reply as "answer", which would mark the whole topis as "answered". It would really help more advanced users to find topics that still need to be solved and users looking for a solution for their problem could choose to view the whole topic or go directly to the reply that is marked as "answer".
Okay, how about this for a compromise:
I changed settings so now members can edit their own thread title indefinitely. If you're the original poster and you feel the thread has been answered in a satisfactory way, just go back in and add [ANSWERED] to the beginning of the thread title.
I don't really want to hack punBB too much at this point, so we'll see how this works out. I may have to remove this option if people abuse it (i.e. changing their title to a spam topic a month after the fact) but I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt
We used to have the Rails forum broken down into two forums: Beginning and Advanced ... but unfortunately, those were too subjective and we found people posting the same sort of things in each forum (i.e., what's advanced to someone using RoR for 3 months might feel like a beginner topic to someone using RoR for 2 years). So we merged everything into one forum, which admittedly makes the forum move very fast. SNIP!
If you have any more suggestions, we're certainly all ears.
Would a 'voting' box that has all of the other forums listed help the moderator workload? Logged in users would see a dropdown with the other forums then be able to pick the right one. So if a DB question shows up in Rails then the masses would be able to 'vote' it into the right forum.
...just go back in and add [ANSWERED] to the beginning of the thread title.
Good idea, but sometimes there's not enough space to add anything to the title
Would a 'voting' box that has all of the other forums listed help the moderator workload? Logged in users would see a dropdown with the other forums then be able to pick the right one. So if a DB question shows up in Rails then the masses would be able to 'vote' it into the right forum.
Interesting idea, maybe something for future considering. As Vinnie said, we don't want to hack up PunBB too much, since we are still planning to move to a RoR-based forum eventually. (Real life [i.e., work] has gotten in the way of the move so far.)
Cool Guys! Thanks for being open to new ideas!
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