How do I mark who and what post exactly resolves the thread?

[riahc3]

Hello

I answered my own thread and marked the thread as solved but it gave another user (which really didnt help at all) the "solved post". How can I select who and what post solved the thread?

[ChrisHunter]

It just marks anyone who has posted in the thread as having contributed to solving the thread.

People hardly mark threads solved as it is so getting people to mark posters as having been the one that solved the problem would probably happen even less, especially if more than one person helped.

Plus someones input may be helpful but may not have been taken into consideration. by this I mean post "like take a look at this like", which don't give you the answer (which the rules state posters shoulden't do) but point you in the right direction.

[deceptikon]

I answered my own thread and marked the thread as solved but it gave another user (which really didnt help at all) the "solved post".

Everyone who replied prior to the thread being marked as solved gets credit for participating in a solved thread. We're aware that unhelpful people will still get an increment on their solved threads metric, but things tend to balance out such that a completely unhelpful member can't get a high solved threads count without also being given a lot of negative votes/rep.

As far as the list of names on the solved bar, the author of the thread isn't included as there's an implicit assumption that in asking a question they won't also answer it. The same goes with the solved threads count; your count doesn't include threads you started.

How can I select who and what post solved the thread?

At present there's no feature for marking a single post as being the solution, aside from voting and adding reputation to that post, of course. It's in the cards, just not implemented yet. ;)

[riahc3]

At present there's no feature for marking a single post as being the solution, aside from voting and adding reputation to that post, of course. It's in the cards, just not implemented yet. ;)

Which I also cannot do; Rep my own post. Would people abuse it? Would a doubt. But solving my own question and not giving rep, would be a good solution....

[deceptikon]

So what I'm reading is that you want to get credit (in e-peen points) for solving your own problem, and possibly even deny credit to others because they failed to solve your problem?

p.s. Yes, I'm trolling you a bit with that second part. Yes, I'm a bit of an ass. ;)

[ChrisHunter]

@deceptikon I reckon you're spot on.

You wouldn't walk into a school, punch a 7 year old in the face and say "Everybody come and see how good I look". Wanting to rep yourself and not others shows arrogance and ungratefulness towards others that have taken the time to try and help you.

[riahc3]

I understand that repping/solved by yourself it is not implemented because it can be abused....

The universal solved is probably the fairest system. Contributors that seed an idea for others to develop may not get an individual 'solved' as the OP may not realise the inspiration behind subsequent posts. That could lead to disgruntled contributors and a 'sod you then' attitude. It's funny how hung up we can get on personal affirmations, however trivial they may be. We all have egos to stoke. :)

[~s.o.s~]

The universal solved is probably the fairest system

But is still open to abuse. SO system also has problems since it can award just a single person with the correct answer. I think the way it is done on MSF (Microsoft forums) is the best; you are allowed to mark multiple answers as the correct answer. In such cases, the OP can mark all answers which helped him/her inch closer to the solution without causing problems like starvation (only one contributor gets the solved count bumped) or mass distribution (everyone who posted in the thread has his count bumped up).

This also gives a bit more meaning to the solved post count since I have seen a lot of folks who like to post and are absolutely off-the-mark when replying or trying to help out someone. Not a bad thing mind you, but I really don't feel comfortable looking at numbers which might be the result of a collateral-reputation-shower. :)

[adam_k]

I know that I'm a bit late for this discussion, but:

Everyone who replied prior to the thread being marked as solved gets credit for participating in a solved thread. We're aware that unhelpful people will still get an increment on their solved threads metric, but things tend to balance out such that a completely unhelpful member can't get a high solved threads count without also being given a lot of negative votes/rep.

I have to disagree with deceptikon. I've seen users get Posting sharks by just posting "Please mark this thread as solved" after others have spend time and effort trying to help OP.
I am not interested to start a war or build tension, so no names - but it does happen.

[deceptikon]

I am not interested to start a war or build tension, so no names - but it does happen.

No doubt that it happens. But my point was that it doesn't happen often enough such that one person will have a high number of solved threads when they didn't actually participate in any significant way.

[mitrmkar]

At present there's no feature for marking a single post as being the solution, aside from voting and adding reputation to that post, of course. It's in the cards, just not implemented yet. ;)

In that case, would it be possible to have a feature so that only the reply/replies providing the solution would be displayed (i.e. a kind of new viewing mode)?

[Reverend Jim]

But then someone has to go through all replies to all posts to rate how relevant each post is to the question. If the OP doesn't provide full background and someone posts

You need to provide more details such as

1. The exact text of the error messge
2. The line of code where the error occurred
3. The structure (including types) of all database tables and columns
4. The database being used (mySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, etc)

Do you consider that as relevant even though it doesn't answer the question, even though it is very useful in getting to the root of the problem? When others are browsing the thread they are reminded to post complete information when asking a question. In that sense, the post is relevant to all questions.

In that case, would it be possible to have a feature so that only the reply/replies providing the solution would be displayed (i.e. a kind of new viewing mode)?

That assumes the OP has the relevant knowledge to be able to discern a valuable post in the first place. As I mentioned in a previous post, some posts may seem uninformative at face value, but 10 posts later on, one contributor has picked up on a little crumb and helped to provide an elegant solution. Now, excluding the previous poster from a 'solved point', would be to my mind, an inadvertent slap in the face due to the ignorance of the OP.

It's been mooted that an SO (Stack Overflow)-like system be adopted, but that site is primarily for 'provide an immediate solution' as opposed to helping an user to help himself/herself. So, should a 'solved' be given to a person that blindly does an SO-type post or should a person trying to teach/nurture a noob be equally/more derserving of a 'solved' point?

That's where I get a little uncomfortable with choosing 'solved' contributors. That's where the rep system comes in, IMO.