Now there is something I need to point out.

 

It's the fact that threads in the help & advice forum are now masked answered.

 

I personally think that's very unnecessary.

 

I mean all you have to do is to go to said thread, and if there is a reply from someone other than the one who made the thread most likely they have their questions answered.

 

Furthermore, what if people misunderstand the question and the maker of the thread wants to correct it? What if someone has further questions on the same subject and wants to make another post in the thread?

 

I really don't see the need of that tag.

The need is not for the questions that have been answered, but for the questions that have not yet been answered, those can be hard to spot between the other threads.

We added in the tag to help people see when a satisfactory answer has been provided.  This makes it easier to spot unanswered questions, for example. Some replies are asking for further information or suggesting something but not a surefire answer.  We try to reserve adding the tag for when either:

 

• the original person who made the thread has said thanks for the help and hence we know for sure
• the question was sufficiently unambiguous and the original person has not come back in some time.

If we were mistaken, the OP is able to edit their thread using the 'Use Full Editor' button and remove the tag.  If people have further questions they are welcome to ask, but sometimes it is better to just make a new thread.  Remember it's marked 'answered' but that doesn't stop people from replying further if they wish :).

I actually really like it

I like it, it doesn't seem to be put on any threads that aren't indeed well answered and it makes glancing over the forum for places I might help easier.

 

Besides as pointed out with post editing you can always remove the tag from your post if you don;t feel its been answered.

 

Plus I like that it sort of gently discourages repurposing your thread to ask completely unrelated questions - those kind of threads may work alright for the OP but they don;t do much good for folks searching at later dates.

 

 

Heck I'd quite like to see it go a step further and do what some forums have where a 'best answer' post is displayed at the top of the thread once it has been answered - make it super easy for searchers to see what answer came of it.

Heck I'd quite like to see it go a step further and do what some forums have where a 'best answer' post is displayed at the top of the thread once it has been answered - make it super easy for searchers to see what answer came of it.

 

Hmm interesting but then we'd be judge and jury half the time, if you know what I mean :P.

Alright, your explanations are good I guess.

 

But replies that don't answer the question are extremely rare. So I don't see the difference between that tag and the reply count close to the thread's name being greater than zero. Can someone explain?

 

EDIT: Alright, I see it kinda is already explained in an earlier post, but I still don't see the difference, might just be my ignorance.

I'd like to see an unanswered tag or something to make it quicker to find threads that still need an answer

 

Heck I'd quite like to see it go a step further and do what some forums have where a 'best answer' post is displayed at the top of the thread once it has been answered - make it super easy for searchers to see what answer came of it.

 

Hmm interesting but then we'd be judge and jury half the time, if you know what I mean :P.

 

 

I don't think it would necessarily work for all posts (ie opinion based questions), but in certain cases (ie fact based) where there is a clearly defined answer and 1 specific post covers it concisely its a nice added touch and of course where multiple posts exist all with the same level of correctness, coherence and general explanation covering the point you can simply use first come first served.

 

IE If Hedgehog made a post explaining the answer in some detail and then so did I moments later you'd use Hedgehog's

If on the other hand Hedgehog just put 'No' and then I'd put in some relevant explanation you'd use mine.

^Most of the time websites that have a best answer let the topic starter chooses the "best answer" 

Alright, I totally get the purpose of this now. So yeah, I no longer need any explanation.

Alright, I totally get the purpose of this now. So yeah, I no longer need any explanation.

Pardon my 'ribbing', but you might want to put the "Answered" tag on this thread, then. ;)

 

~D. V. "It's just a thought." Devnull

I like the "answered" function now.

 

But I have a question.

 

How do I tag that in the title itself?

 

Or is that an ability only limited to mods/admins?

You can add the tag yourself but only mods can make it show up as the prefix in front. This is due to technical reasons I believe. Members who are not moderators or administrators only get the option when they first create a thread, for whatever reason.