General request to all

[Sandip Ghosh]

I ahve noticed for last two months that Peoples are taking help from the forum but they are not informing the forum about their resolution.

We should inform the Forum about

Where the problem was ?
AND
How the problem had been solved?

It will be helpful for all of us. Please let me know whether the idea is good or bad.

Sandip

[Patrick Wallek]

I agree 100%.

While the 10 pt answers can be the solution sometimes, there are some folks that give everyone 10pts and it is obvious some of the responses weren't solutions but requests for more info. Sometimes the solution can be a combination of several responses.

A summary of the solution by the author especially helps people that may look at the post in the future to know what the exact solution to the problem was.

[Darrell Allen]

Absolutely!

To help others in the future the author of each question should:

-Identify the resolution of the issue

-Award points (or N/A) to each reply based on how helpful each reply was

Darrell

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Sandip:

Don't be so timid with your suggestion ;-)

Frankly, it's too bad that there isn't a requirement on the author's part to summarize what ultimately was the problem and what ultimately solved it. Obviously with some questions, this is unnecessary, but with others, especially when points have been awarded during an on-going dialog, this is not only "satisfying" but greatly adds to the knowledge base when later searches are made. [ Obviously, everybody searches before asking a question, right? :-)) ].

I'd also add the reminder authors to remember to include as much information as possible in the initial problem post. Providing the machine model, OS version and the presence or absence of a particular patch in the first place can speed up problem resolution and focus.

Regards!

...JRF...

[S.K. Chan]

To me it's not that much of a big deal with regards to awarding points. I'd rather see "closure" statement if you will so that we know it's a done deal.

[Helen French]

Hi Sandip,

It's a good thing to do. I've noticed that you did it ! but normally nobody deos :((

It is okay if the author is facing a critical issue onsite and don't have time at the moment to conclude the thread. But he can always come back and do these things.

Let DAN decide to have more questions and options while somebody post a question ( like server name, OS version etc..)

Shiju

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi Saudip,

I agree with you and the rest. A summary of how well the answers have helped (or at least point to the one that helped best) along with assigning of points with relevance to the correctness of the solution will be most helpful indeed, especially to those using the ITRC search engine to search for solutions. Not every forumer does this.

And, complement this with tagged bunnies in the ITRC search results and a solution seeker would have a much greater chance of getting a problem resolved reliably and fast. Afterall, the core is problem response.

My 2 cents.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Dave La Mar]

I feel a bit insulted when replying and no resolution is posted.
Makes one wonder if their suggestion was that far off base.
A simple awarding of 10 points
does not always indicate the resolution but may have led to one.
This information is as invaluable as the answers provided as suggestions/solutions.

Just my take.
dl

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

Apart from fully agreeing with assigning points and posting results, I want to add that "negative results" are interesting too, and could even yield rather high points in things like: "Heh, now I learned why it could not work", or look there might be a type in his/her script example, but now I see why /my/ script didn't work the past decennia.

just mt 2 eurocent

[T. M. Louah]

If you are looking for directions .. so are we, so just inform us that this direction took you to your destination .. It `d be a great gesture!

Remember:: Shared Knowledge is Power!

G`d luck
t??

[Josh_13]

I normally do a summary about the problem and how it was solved when making a post in the success thread. that way someone merely needs to read that month's success thread to determine if the problem they have may overlap. i also try to refrain from giving 10 to a question not directly involved with the answer. my latest solution has a number of 10s because as the thread developed other questions arised in the thread and they were solved. when i posted in the success thread for hte month i noted the original question that was solved and said what the others were about. do you feel this is an appropriate way to summarize, or should i be more in depth? when i had netscape issues, after they were solved i came back and posted an response on how since the answer was never given in the thread.

awaiting your opinions,
Josh

[Justo Exposito]

Hi Sandip and folks!!

Yes is a good idea to put the resolution and your experience in the problem.

Perhaps it's needed another boton in the top like reply, new message and notify me, and this new boton can be resolution.

I think that all the people that do this work can obtain points in other list/clasification of users. This clasification tell to the forum members that this person help to the forum with his experience in this problem, isn't it? Because it's important the effort from the people that help, but is important too the experience that a problem reports to the people that open an issue and then for all the forum members.

Regards,

Justo.

*PD: Sorry by my poor English...

[George_Dodds]

Maybe we could have status's for the posts.

Active
Pending
Solved

The forum is a form of helpdesk so why not follow the same assignment codes, and before a post can be put into solved status a brief summary should be written explaining how you implemented the fix.

Maybe points could be automatically assigned to the author for taking the time to do this!

Just an idea!

Cheers

George

[fg_1]

Sandip

This is exactly the same issue that I raised on a posting from Dan at HP for the February problems with the forums. This is a definite problem that needs to be addressed.

I am of the belief that it should be a requirement to put some form of icon in effect that says that the thread has been closed by the user and that the reply received actually solved the problem. We do have an icon for the MAGIC ANSWER. People should start to use this.

There are alot of postings also on threads that go unread because a user has already gotten a reply to their problem, this is also a problem since there could be valuable information that is posted for the user. This is not so much of a forum problem as it is a problem that the user should close out the thread, thus eliminating additional postings.

Good job bringing this to light in the forum.

[Justo Exposito]

Hi Again,

Another Idea is to put a section with the information extracted from the forum by categories, with the explanation about the more typical issues, then the people can search his resolutions there, this is because the issues usually are the same more or less.
Example:

There are a lot of issues about ftp, telnet mount a cd (pfsmount) etc...

Regards,

Justo.

[Frank Slootweg]

Justo, what you are describing is what is commonly called a "FAQ", a Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) list. While, as far as I know, there is no FAQ for the ITRC Forums, there is one for the public Usenet Newsgroup comp.sys.hp.hpux. Because this Newsgroup covers many of the same questions as the ITRC HP-UX Forums, it may be of use to you (and others):

http://faqs.org/faqs/hp/hpux-faq/

I hope this helps.

[Justo Exposito]

Hi,

Thanks Frank!!

Regards,

Justo.

[Sandip Ghosh]

Sorry guys, I am not assigning point to anybody for this discussion.

But I like the idea provided by Justo. Yes, it will be nice if DAN can provide a button of resolution on top, and awarding a fix point for the resolution is also good idea, like you will get 2 or 5 point by default if you write the resolution.

Anyway thanks everybody for your views.

Sandip