Closed Bug 397703 Opened 17 years ago Closed 16 years ago

"Question answered" status for forum threads

Categories

(support.mozilla.org :: Forum, task)

task
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: jason.barnabe, Assigned: jason.barnabe)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: sumo_only)

Lets users mark the questions they pose in the sumo forums as being answered.

-Provide some sort of UI (radio buttons?) by the reply box users can use to indicate that their question has been answered.
-Only the original poster can mark a question as answered. The OP must have been logged in when they originally posted and must be logged in when they're marked it as answered.
-Indicate in the forum thread list that a particular thread has been marked as solved. This could be an icon or simply the word "solved".
-Provide the ability to contributors to filter threads - all threads, solved threads (useful for creating KB content), unsolved threads (useful for directly helping users)
-There is no requirement to let users unmark a thread they previously marked as answered.

In the future, we may let contributors mark users' threads as solved or auto-solve threads after a period of time, but this isn't required at the moment.
As a short term solution, we would just manually edit the thread title, like prepending [Fixed]. I will add this to the technical specification.
That works, as long as that you would be able to create filters based on that.

We may also have additional statuses in the future, such as "needs documentation".
(In reply to comment #2)
> We may also have additional statuses in the future, such as "needs
> documentation".

If we need that, it should be filed as a separate bug. However, I'd like to discuss our needs more specifically before getting web developers' attention.
(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > We may also have additional statuses in the future, such as "needs
> > documentation".
> 
> If we need that, it should be filed as a separate bug.

Definitely. I'm just saying there may be more statuses in the future, which may affect the way this is implemented now.
Target Milestone: --- → 0.5
Blocks: 398606
Target Milestone: 0.6 → 0.7
We should be able to use the "type" column as a stop gap. We should be able to add an "answered" type that moderators etc can set.  Users won't be able to mark threads as such unless there's some way to allow the original poster rights to certain types.

I don't see a way to add a type from the admin panel, but this should be fairly simple otherwise.
I was planning on using the "type" column, but I think the ability for the OP to mark it themselves is the main thing here.

This would be nice to have soon, and definitely before Firefox 3, but I don't feel it's particularly pressing to have for sumo day.
I disagree.  The point of the OP marking it as answered isn't to benefit the OP, it's to benefit others searching the forums (which is unlikely currently though might be much more useful if we actually have these marked) and to make it easier for forum contributors to spend their time where it's needed. 

I think we can count on an OP to come back and say "that worked, thanks!" as much as we could count on them coming back just to mark the thread answered - they'd probably come back to say thanks and in doing so see the UI to mark as answered, or miss it anyway.

There are going to be several cases where we'll want logged in users to have access to this:

1) OP comes back and says thanks but doesn't actually mark as answered
2) OP doesn't come back but we know from their symptoms that the answer given is almost surely correct (can be undone if OP comes back and says didn't work).
3) OP comes back, but *can't* mark as answered due to lack of cookies or whatever mechanism tracks OP

I think there are also real benefits to not having the OP do it themselves actually.  They might get bad advice and mark a thread as answered.  We don't want that answer being used again, eg deleting the profile when it was probably an extension issue. A user might also refuse to mark a thread as answered if we determine the problem is with 3rd party software.  So collaboration between the OP and contributors might in the end be the best way to go.

Besides that though, I think there is real benefit to having the function partially enabled, especially when it's so trivial. If it makes it easier for forum contributors to be useful it's probably worth doing just for that, IMO.
(In reply to comment #7)
> I disagree.  The point of the OP marking it as answered isn't to benefit the
> OP, it's to benefit others searching the forums (which is unlikely currently
> though might be much more useful if we actually have these marked) and to make
> it easier for forum contributors to spend their time where it's needed. 

I agree with that, so I'm not sure how you're disagreeing with me there.

The problem with having people other than the OP mark it as answered is that they might be wrong, especially if they do it when the user hasn't answered back. Thinking of how it would work for end users, I'd prefer to have a thread that has been answered not marked as such than have a thread that has not been answered marked as if it had been.

The problem where users don't/can't mark it as answered is a valid one. I'd like to see how often and in what situations this happens before making any code changes to fix the potential problem. It's possible that allowing moderators to change the status will come automatically or easily by adding the type.

From what I can see, the difficult part of this patch is adding the type and handling it correctly all over, not adding the UI to mark it.
So we set guidelines.  Either don't mark it as fixed unless the user has confirmed, or handle it like WFM.  Mark it answered but leave a note to the user asking them to come back and let us know that it didn't work.  

The only harm is that we have a bunch of threads that we are assuming are caused by x but are being caused by y, but we'll never know because the OP is never coming back anyway.  Solution to x is still valuable if it suits the case to a T, like can't connect after update.  If all the symptoms match, then someone finding the answer in that thread is going to be helped out, or it won't work and then they'll start a new thread saying they tried it and it didn't work.

Or just tell people not to mark them answered unless the user says the solution worked.
> 
> From what I can see, the difficult part of this patch is adding the type and
> handling it correctly all over, not adding the UI to mark it.
> 

AIUI adding the UI is the same thing as adding the type.  You simply add it to the selector and then call the icon.  If we want it to behave different from a normal thread then that's where we'd need to duplicate or change harder code, for instance if we wanted answered threads to be locked, though I believe that would be a matter of saying if type is "locked" or "answered" do x rather than simply if type is "locked."

The uses who should have the ability to mark a thread as answered are moderators and the original poster. I don't think it's a good idea to let anyone who registered to mess with that, as they could potentially do lots of damage in a very short time.
Yes, but there's a lot of damage logged in users *could* do, but we're trusting our community to be competent.

Though I do agree, if it's simple enough to give OP the access, then it does make sense to leave it with Moderators. Personally I believe we can trust our designated contributors with this, and the moderators have better things to do. I guess this depends on how many OPs come back to say "thanks it worked!" but don't mark the thread as answered, and how many moderators we end up with.
Blocks: 436878
Bikeshed time: is this text good?

Do you have the answer you were looking for?
(*) No, I'm still looking for help.
( ) Yes, my issue has been solved. Thanks!
Assignee: nobody → jason.barnabe
I think the question as phrased is ambiguous.  Someone might have been looking for a different answer, but still got one that solved their problem. The question should be as specific as possible, though I really like the No and the Yes options.

Maybe "Do you have an answer to your problem?"
I made it ambiguous because they may not have had a "problem"; they may have had just a question about a feature and didn't consider their request to be a problem.

Maybe just "Did you get an answer to your question?" ("Question" being how we refer to problems/issues elsewhere on the site.)
Yes, I see what you mean. At the same time if we say it as worded in comment #15 we may run into people who get confused as this phrasing can simply mean "I got a response."  The wording in the yes and no options might be enough to get around that.

Maybe we can use the word resolution or resolved? "Is your question resolved?" "Did you get a resolution to your question?"
I don't think you can "solve" a question. Since you like the option wording, I just reused that - "Is your issue solved?"

Checked in trunk as r14721 and available on support-stage. Try it out there and let me know what you think. Keep in mind that support-stage will send out e-mail notifications to real users, so be careful where you post.

Known issues:
-Just like the other filters, the pagination doesn't reflect the correct number of threads
-A thread can't be both solved and something else (locked, sticky, etc.). I don't forsee this to be a problem.
-The icon for "issue solved" and the icon for "issue solved with posts you haven't read" is the same
-This only works for registered users.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Checked in r15000 for production and r15001 for 1.1.
Now in production.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Whiteboard: tiki_feature
I would really need to have a database with populated data to understand how this feature was implemented.

I see that a tiki_comments_metadata table was added. What is it used for? It could probably be brought one level up. I can see other features that can use meta-data.
Whiteboard: tiki_feature → tiki_feature tiki_discuss
Whiteboard: tiki_feature tiki_discuss → tiki_feature
Duplicate entry as far as I am concerned, I'll just consider it as part of AAQ
Whiteboard: tiki_feature → tiki_feature, tiki_depend
Whiteboard: tiki_feature, tiki_depend → sumo_only
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