Closing threads

[schwede]

I've been giving some thought to a way to seperate the threads the community is still working on and the ones that are used as a reference.

I feel that the extreme activity on this board leads to many posts beeing shoved down on to the next pages and never answered. Of course you can show all unanswered posts but many questions are not closed after one answer.

My idea: move all closed threads to the end of the forum and let the thread starter close his/her thread when he/she feels the question is answered. The closed threads would still show up in the search. Even more, you could quickly see that the question has been answered in the search results.

What do you think?

 

[Barrie Davidson]

That is a great idea!

For what it's worth - I support the thought.

 

[Von Pookie]

*looks at calendar* Yeah, I guess it's about time for this topic to come up again.

This has been discussed many, many times in the past. It would be nice, but it simply would not work very well with this particular board--one reason being due to the phpbb software we use.

As for this being brought up before, there have always been people for and against the idea, all with valid reasoning behind their stance. If you perform a search in this area of the board for the word "solved," you will find the previous discussions on this.

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/search.php?search_keywords=solved&search_forum=9

 

[schwede]

Sorry, I didn't search the board before posting. Guess I was hoping for this to be my sole brilliant idea...

Seriously, I figured that this would be difficult to implement in phpbb.

Another idea would be to create more forums, for example to split the excel forum. i.e. vba, charts, data, beginners, etc. I know, finding fitting categories would be quite a hassle and there are probably lots of post that would go into several different ones but still...

Showing more threads on each page would help a bit...

 

[Von Pookie]

Seriously, I figured that this would be difficult to implement in phpbb.

Well, there's that issue in general, plus the fact that there are already so many mods that have been added to this board. Other than being a pain to add anything else that wouldn't be absolutely necessary in some way, it is possible it could work against us and slow the board down.

Another idea would be to create more forums, for example to split the excel forum. i.e. vba, charts, data, beginners, etc. I know, finding fitting categories would be quite a hassle and there are probably lots of post that would go into several different ones but still...

That's been discussed before, as well
That's something that *could* be done, but would be more work maintaning than it's worth. A while back, it was set up this way, actually--with a general Excel and separate forum for macro questions. It's not so much that posts would fit in multiple categories, it's more the fact that many of the questions asked can have multiple *answers*.

In the long run, it simply works out better to have all the Excel questions--be it macros, formulas, charts or whatever--in one forum.

Showing more threads on each page would help a bit...

Eh, I'm not sure on that. Not to say that it wouldn't help, I'm not not sure if it would work out very well. I believe that is something that needs to be done in the code of the board itself, so that's not too feasible. Plus it could hurt loading times.

Don't get me wrong, they're not bad ideas you've got. They've simply been looked at before

 

[schwede]

Grrrrrr

Have their been any suggestions to the "time zone problem"? If not, it actually works against you if you live in CET and post early in the morning. Lazy (but very helpful) Americans and Brits don't get their a**es out of bed until late and your post is gone by then. J/K
Problem is, it really makes sense to wait until later before I post if I want quick answers. That's a bit odd I think. Then again, most posters are on GMT and US time(s). And I'm not seriously suggesting we should make the world turn differently. I'm all for XL and all that but that might be streaching it a bit...

 

[Von Pookie]

As far as I know, there is no fix for the time zone issue

It can be frustrating at times, though there's not much to do about that one!

 

[schwede]

I guess the board will continue to work like it does. There is a German saying that goes something like: "Your success puts you in the right". You would probably say: if it's not broken don't fix it.

I will make further suggestions if I have any that haven't been discussed yet though!

 

[Zack Barresse]

That's not a bad suggestion. Although I am of the opinion that it would not work with the sheer size of this board. Smaller boards? Yeah, probably work. I run VBAX and we have a mod which allows a user/mod/admin to mark a thread Solved (it just preceeds the thread Title with "Solved: ". Currently we don't move them to another forum, but we could if we wanted to. It's a nice feature and the user's seem to like it.

What I would suggest in the interrim, for the issue you are talking about, is to charge the Original Poster of the thread to keep up on it. If they are not receiving the answers they are desiring, give it a gentle *bump* post to get it to the top of the list again. It's just one of those things about a FIFO forum like this.

 

[Smitty]

As far as I know, there is no fix for the time zone issue

Could you change your system time? :wink: I know what the time differentials are (especially after having lived in Australia), so I check through at least the first 3 pages of posts (time permitting), when I first check in.

I do like the VBAX method of marking a post as "SOLVED", but like Zack said it's still up to the OP to check up on their own post. The onus is on them; they posted. Not to sound harsh, but if they give up because of lack of an answer (or satisfactory answer), it's up to them to do their due dilligence to follow up.

It's like asking my Boss for a new PC every few years...If I don't press it, he doesn't do anything... :wink:

What I don't necessarily like about the "SOLVED" part is that it might deter some folks from reading a post and "possibly" providing an alternative answer, but that's up to the viewer, not the poster, so it's kind of a moot point.

My 2 cents...

Smitty

(Heya Kristy! How's the house? Zack...Skye OK?)