For example: When need a solution: what is more valuable?
* idented topic ?
* solution of topic collected to the head?
How difficult is it for the person who started the topic to collect the solution he got from community, after he just have tested it?
How difficult would it be for him to attach a code snippet?
What can forum leaders do, to encourage people to do this?
The person who started a topic, can edit the header of it already (some people add "Solved" to it), and the initial message too. So the technology exists.
Now assuming:
- the answer fits into the topic header.
- and there is only one answer. Often there are many, out of witch one may be good for the original enquirer, but for each later person searching the same question, another answer may be good. In this case adding the (one) answer, will make it worse by hiding many answers.
See stack-overflow: "good answers" are voted to the top, yet often the answer I need, is several down.
Question is, how to I get the person to add the "answer" into the header (or into the initial post)?
What do I do, if they don't do that?
And if it could be done, it still depends on finding volunteers in the moderator team.
While (some) moderators can/could edit posts of other users, I am strictly against doing that on a general base (other than fixing missing code tags, or the like). There may be extreme cases, where it may be needed for a moderator to use that power. But that must be kept the exception (and always made clear, if it happened)
Then moderators can, like anyone, only add posts to the end of the thread.
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I do not know how well the boards/sub-boards in the forum are used (and how much is in "general" section). I only use the "recent" view, where this does not matter. So I do not know if a stricter "sorting by moderators" would help. But that also would mean the need for more manpower.
At least it would not require editing existing posts.
About adding new sub-boards. That is done occasionally, but usually it requires the pre-existence of sufficient topics that will fit the new board (and will be moved) showing that there indeed is a need for such a board.
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Above is my opinion. I may have to confer with other mods, before enacting anything.
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This thread is a good example of one of the issues.
It started about one issue, that had a to generic header, and now is a mix of various issues...