Shouldn't there be an indicator for the old threads that are bumped up to the top of the list only due to a fellow post ???
Though the date(or time) is already mentioned below the thread title, it generally get unnoticed and many used to post on it again. What I was thinking of was a visual indicator like we already have for New, Read, Posted, Popular (etc.) threads, so that there won't be any confusion in identifying that its a dead thread post...
What do others say ???
Jump to PostWhat you are talking about is a word I coined a few months back and that is Necroposting...
Necroposting has been discussed before and the current suggestion or last suggestion to prevent this is, if the last post is greater than 30 days old do not show edit field …
Jump to PostSee, I agree with ardav about the fact that people do need to put some effort into trying to find their solution prior to posting a new thread... However, if people did that... 90% of the new questions posted wouldn't be and my post count would be around 100 instead …
Jump to PostThe number of solved threads is meaningless. That count includes all threads marked solved in which you participated, whether you solved the problem or not.
As you begin to post in more threads the ratio of solved threads will go down. Take mine for example. Only 10% of the …
Jump to PostHearing these responses about voting to close etc. Sounds like daniweb should migrate to StackExchange ;)
Jump to PostI'm personally a big fan of the way StackOverflow works. The voting system, the volunteers, the moderators etc. fit in so naturally. For a forum system wherein everything is dictated by the community, it is working out surprisingly well. Of course, there might be problems with the approach used by …
What do you consider an old thread? One hour, a day, month, year? Seems to me it would be better just to close them, but that topic has been discussed here before.
You can sort listings by thread start time instead of last post time.
Sorry, if the topic is already discussed before, as i haven't checked for that.:(
But, according to me, we cannot decide about the thread by the starting date alone, because it is possible that a thread might be readily posted and viewed throughout a whole year, like a poll or something.
What can be seen is the gap between its previous and current post, and if it is crossing the limit (say some months or whatever decided by community) can be indicated to be an old thread. But after that, further posts should not change the status, as again the gap will be less.
What do you say...is there any other way...or its not basically required...??? :?:
Personally I'm curious as to why it's such an issue if an "old" thread is bumped to the top of the list. It only takes a moment to open, look at, and decide that a post is 'out of date' and it's not something I see happening all that often (in the forums I'm reading anyway).
The only situations where I've seen an "old" thread pop back up are:
In the former situation it's no biggie, someone usually answers the new question or the thread gets ignored as "out of date" and disappears back into obscurity again... In the latter situation, no biggie, once the offending post is deleted the thread drops back to where it was in the first place.
Either way, is there a reason to go through the hassle of coding the back end of DaniWeb to make a new marker just because someone bumped a thread? Not trying to shoot the idea down just not seeing the point :twisted:
Edit: As a side note, what would be nice would be the ability to 'vote to mark solved' for threads that are obviously resolved but the original poster never 'solved' it (never came back after asking their question and getting their answer or was just lazy). Perhaps something where a user can initiate the vote and after X number of users agree it gets moved to solved instead of staying unsolved forever :) But that's just cus I like seeing my solved count go up and has no other 'serious' reason behind it... well, that and it helps others to realize that no further 'work' is required on those threads... then again, they (like all old posts) will vanish into obscurity eventually anyway :twisted:
Hi Lusiphur ,
As per your first situation, I would like modify it a bit:
- People will search for a problem and will get a similar DaniWeb thread post as search result and will post to that without checking the post date.
Now as you said
it's no biggie, someone usually answers the new question or the thread gets ignored as "out of date" and disappears back into obscurity again...
In case if it is a new question it should always be recommended to start a new thread.
I have seen several(,several and several) cases where people used to comment and also provide solutions to the thread and get negative reputation points and comments for bumping up an old thread (so its a waste of time for both the poster and the voter)...
It brings up a general mistake as it is not always usual to check the date of the initial post and thats where I am pointing to...
If there is any kind of indication to that (let it be a warning message, to say at least) then these situations would not happen.
Tell me if I am wrong, anyway...
I can see your point, really, but I still say it'd be more hassle to code than it'd be worth for the amount of times I've seen the scenario occur. Granted you've been here longer than I have but I honestly don't see that many threads being needlessly bumped.
As for an indication about posting new threads, if the thread is marked solved then there IS a statement that says the thread is solved and recommends creating a new thread. The problem there is that it only shows up on solved threads (leading back to my edited point in my last post :twisted: ).
Granted you've been here longer than I have but I honestly don't see that many threads being needlessly bumped.
Its not a question of staying longer as I am active from just a few months back...
But if you still dont see the case I would like you to check the C forum page now(and next pages also), you will surely find more than 7-8 threads falling in the slot. And in many of them you will find us (problem solvers) to put comments to the fellow posters for posting on an eventually dead thread.
As per solution, we can even restrict to posts in such an old thread, if we really feel that there's no need for anybody, anytime hence to post to the thread.
What you are talking about is a word I coined a few months back and that is Necroposting...
Necroposting has been discussed before and the current suggestion or last suggestion to prevent this is, if the last post is greater than 30 days old do not show edit field but instead show closed statment. Now, I would like to alter that close statement so it has a start a new thread button and link back to this thread so when it is pushed, the title is filled in for user who can change it, and there is a in reference to this thread filled in for user in the edit box. Also, if the last post is between 30 and 90 days old, only the OP can resurrect the dead...
Presently, report the necroposting and or highjacking if such is going on and request the new post be split from the old post and put into a thread of its own...
As for your sig, I hate bugs, you gotta love this one... :)
I would like you to check the C forum page now(and next pages also), you will surely find more than 7-8 threads falling in the slot.
What you are talking about is a word I coined a few months back and that is Necroposting...
Y'see, there's your problem right there :twisted: out-of-date dead language promotes "necroposting" ((just kidding, really!)) I guess I just didn't see it as an issue because I haven't been seeing it happen much in the forums I regularly hit ((C#, ASP.Net, Web Development)). Admitedly I don't spend much time on the other forums so I can't speak for the 'site-wide' point of view.
The resurrecting of old threads is something I've complained about for some time. All too often a thread will have run its course and come to a natural end and then a fool adds 'yeah me too' or some glib offering just to promote links in his signature.
On the other hand, I've found that the same old tired questions keep on getting asked over and over again on the php forum (I'm sure this applies to other forums too), so much so, that I've pretty much stopped posting there.
So we've got the worst of both worlds - crud resurrecting old posts and lazy thread starters not prepared to search for answers.
There are forums out there which close duplicate threads ASAP thereby preventing replication of effort and so on. After all, as you said, there is no point in regurgitating the same stuff time and time again.
See, I agree with ardav about the fact that people do need to put some effort into trying to find their solution prior to posting a new thread... However, if people did that... 90% of the new questions posted wouldn't be and my post count would be around 100 instead of where it is now since I wouldn't have anyone to help :twisted:
Fair point L, however, once you've told somebody how to resolve the same e-mail sending problem 100 times, I suspect you'll end up becoming transcendental and only post to community forums, where your god-like status will be accepted by the other deities. :icon_twisted:
Ok, I'd like to reiterate my earlier point about having some sort of 'vote to solve' option! :icon_twisted:
It's very frustrating seeing my solved count go up slowly when about 2x as many threads have actually been solved but 1-2 post newbies refuse to come back and mark the thread solved after getting the answer they needed.
Oh and Ardav, I'm not quite at godlike status yet... but with ~1/3 of my posts directly associated to solved threads and another 1/3 associated to threads that should be marked solved... And about 1/5 of my posts related to personally started threads (discussions and questions alike)... Ya, I'm getting there :twisted:
The number of solved threads is meaningless. That count includes all threads marked solved in which you participated, whether you solved the problem or not.
As you begin to post in more threads the ratio of solved threads will go down. Take mine for example. Only 10% of the threads that I have participated in were marked solved. My guess is that only 1% of those were solved because of anything I posted.
True, but I like to FEEL like I'm the super-solver-of-all-problems!! :P
That count includes all threads marked solved in which you participated, whether you solved the problem or not.
Really...Is it so...???
But I think only the last poster after whom the thread was marked solved gets the credit. Since in so many cases, though I have given the correct solution and the thread creator is also convinced, I use to miss the creadit due to some fellow posts coming in between...!!!
But I think only the last poster after whom the thread was marked solved gets the credit.
No, AD is correct... If you post (as long as you're not the original poster) within a thread that is subsequently marked as 'solved' all posters in that thread get credit towards the 'solved' status.
It may not have been that way in the past but it has been at least since I joined about a month ago.
Thanks for sharing the information...
If you post (as long as you're not the original poster) within a thread that is subsequently marked as 'solved' all posters in that thread get credit towards the 'solved' status
Also, it doesn't apply if you post *after* a thread has been marked as solved, for obvious reasons... :-)
But it has happened so many times with me...not getting the solved credit as last post was someone else's.
Somebody please check and confirm it...!!!
I'll toss you an example from your own solved list:
You all took part in the same thread at different points in the conversation prior to it being marked solved and it shows up in all your solved lists.
Edit: On a side note, you only get credit towards the thread, not all the posts you contributed to it, so even though you have 30 posts within "solved" threads you only get credit for the 15 actual threads.
I used to look at solved marks as a rep indicator, but sadly it isn't so. I used to get upset that having spent considerable time providing an elegant solution, the OP just didn't bother coming back. Not any more. The solutions provided are there for all, not just the OP. If one can dispense with ego, this issue becomes a non-issue.
As regards to who should get the actual solved mark, that's not as simple as saying the last person should get it. A solution is often the culmination of a number of contributions from a number of contributors, some of which may be dead ends, but these dead ends are as important as the 'headway' posts. A while ago, I used to get shadow posters - newbies that would see where I posted and then post 'yeah, me too' or they would just re-iterate some of my ideas. That doesn't bother me anymore either.
If you take the stance that a contribution is empirical, it is what it is, and no more, you'll feel a lot more relaxed about it.
I think that everybody gets around 10% solved by the laws of probability. If you're good, you'll get slightly more. If you're really good, you'll get hell of a lot less, as you sublime and become a community poster.
Honestly ardav, it's really not so much of an issue for me (the actual solved count). As I said in one of my earlier replies that part is more just me wanting to feel all super and stuff :icon_twisted:
My primary motivation for wanting the "vote to solve" thing as I mentioned earlier is more so that people can actually see that a thread is solved as one more indicator that there's no further need to add to it or further need to investigate on behalf of the original poster.
If I was truly concerned only with my solved count and reputation and not with actually just being there to help others then I would've stopped posting when I saw how (realistically) useless those stats were and I wouldn't be sitting at ~500 posts (mostly in reply to other peoples' questions) in under a month :twisted:
Right about now, at least until I find myself some gainful employment, I've really got little else to do with my day than to put my knowledge to productive use trying to help others when and where I can :) Though I hope to be as helpful once I find work in whatever time remains to my day at that point.
*shrug* I'm not even sure why I brought it up in the first place though as it'd likely be as much of a pain to implement as the original concept that this thread started with anyway lol.
*shrug* I'm not even sure why I brought it up in the first place
Glad you did though, as it's been an interesting discussion as far as I'm concerned (he says emerging from the lurker shadows)
As I said 17 hours ago Solved thread count is a useless statistic. I wish Dani would just get rid of it because it means absolutely nothing.
I had suggested in the "Who Does It Better" thread that she change it to a MSDN type approach where people can propose a particular answer or answers as a solution and the OP has the final veto power. Moderators can approve an answer after a period of time if the OP takes off. That way everyone gets the credit and there's no tangling up of who solved what.
Of course a system like that makes more work for coding the site and more work for mods but it addresses these concerns.
(Just figured I'd reiterate since it was pertinent)
Hearing these responses about voting to close etc. Sounds like daniweb should migrate to StackExchange ;)
I'm personally a big fan of the way StackOverflow works. The voting system, the volunteers, the moderators etc. fit in so naturally. For a forum system wherein everything is dictated by the community, it is working out surprisingly well. Of course, there might be problems with the approach used by them, but they aren't glaringly apparent. :-)
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