Answered Marking Question as Answered

[RandomVAMUser]

*looking at stats* ...i'm sure 2/3 of those are already answered

never had need to post any questions (inside Q&A)
Q1: How hard it is to mark your question as answered?


*while writing this post* ...i can see an option to change prefix/status (inside thread title)
Q2: Is that how you supposed to use it? (by editing OP afterwards?) EDIT: lol nevermind... that answers that one...

*guess i'll find out after i post this?*


Q3: What happens if i post without "question" option toggled? (under more options)

*i guess by leaving it on changes (no prefix) > Question*
EDIT2: ↑ Since you can't change it later, i guess it only dictates if there is up/down voting nonsense or not (regular posts).
There are some answered threads without it (example: https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/camera-is-slowly-rotating-how-to-stop.658/)
EDIT3: ↑ nevermind... you can change it, but you have to edit thread (3dots) and not OP. ↓

...when you uncheck it the voting system is gone for good, you can't re-enable it by toggling back to unanswered thread.


a sticky post inside Q&A section would be useful, (to help users use that Q&A section more 'properly')

EDIT: That is one confusing system, no wonder there are so many unaswered questions...

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Yeah, I think I'm the one to blame... at least partially In the early iterations of Hub, I thought a model like StackOverflow would have been useful because the same questions get answered over and over again, and it's much better to find existing answer than scouring forums for the nth post containing a part of the answer or people not bothering to post their own conclusions. What I underestimated though is how much moderation this requires, and indeed the feature is an add-on to the forum; it's great but not perfect. I still think that the StackOverflow model is by far the best way to maintain a Q&A section, although it's kind of broken at the moment it at least _pushes_ towards avoiding conversation and focusing on questions & answers.

 

[RandomVAMUser]

Initially when i saw this Q&A system reddit was first thing that came to mind, but on reddit you can reply to a comment.
Comparing to stackOverflow it makes sense, but still hard to compare it to a small "portion" on forum.
Users on stack are used to it (the way it works/how to use it/overall what to expect).Different mindset...

what's wrong with Q&A? (many things...but here are my observations so far)
1) compared to other forums(sites) hub activity/community is small
2) moderator(staff) team is even smaller (to provide guidelines, prevent discussions, lock answered thread,...)
3) users use General / Q&A / Help categories the same way (as discussion threads)
4) for this system to "work", first user needs to pick useful & informative title (not something like 'noob question'),
to make sense when someone else is searching for a similar question
5) answers requires some thoughts (also to make sense in case it gets up voted...if part of discussion qouting helps)
when you have discussion running inside Q&A with 10 answers and 2 of them are upvoted...that thread is no longer fun to navigate,
even worse when some rando comes and sprays up/down randomly
6) some users don't understand the system (example: using upvote as 'like' reaction, not "closing" thread when answered or picking top answer)
7) as of right now it's only safe to upvote on first reply (to preserve discussion)

 

[Acid Bubbles]

Yep, I'd also add the ability to comment on answers and a clearly written and enforced set of rules. I'm not sure whether the category hurts or not, at the moment while it's clearly not as useful as StackOverflow, I feel like it doesn't hurt either. Like you said, it's a small community with few moderators, they already made a miracle with the current platform IMHO So, I try and upvote things that I believe are the answer, and I tend to look for the upvoted one first when I look for an answer.

 

[vamurai]

I feel like I have marked questions as answered, but I am also certain I have no idea how to do it on mobile, which is where I usually browse this forum.

Never mind! I looked at the screenshot above and sorted it. TIL!

 

[RandomVAMUser]

All i can say is this system is finicky af, based on my experiment above and what i've seen so far...plus forum stats won't update everytime.
-if you post a new question (with voting enabled) it adds new unanswared question (inside forum stats)
-but if you mark it as answered (right away), it removes question from stats (it doesn't count as new answered)

Only time it's counted/marked as answered (from my understanding) is if:
a) voting system is enabled and someone else posts reply(answer)
b) answer (from someone else) is upvoted and marked as "best answer" (upvote alone is not enough)
c) manully marking thread as answered is hit & miss (when it comes to stats)