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Marking Your Own Responses as Answers???? RRS feed

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    I started a thread and discovered that, among two other people, my own response was an answer - and I had the option to mark it so.

    That seems a little bit weird to me.

    In my case (if you read the thread) it was correct, but I do believe it's counter-productive for community recognition (points).

    I don't think that removing marking your own post is necessary, but maybe not applying the full 10 points (I think they were applied to me, I'm not sure).

    Just a suggestion.
    Friday, June 27, 2008 3:41 AM

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    Oliver:

    I also do not like this ability to mark your own post as answer, but I not believe you obtain recognition points by doing it. If you do, that would be a serious bug.

    But for me this ability of the OP to mark his/her own post as answer is not so crazy as the ability of the OP to propose a reply (his/her own or another) as answer. This is quite pointless, IMHO, and its use almost invariably is caused by confusion/error on the part of the OP.
    David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP
    Friday, June 27, 2008 12:22 PM
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    Well, I just marked another one of my posts as an answer (since I figured it out myself), and I think you're right. The system says I have 2 answers (the first and this), but I'm still at 20 points - no 10 point increase.
    Friday, June 27, 2008 4:45 PM
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    I don't have a problem with an OP marking his/her own response as the 'Answer' -if it provides a solution to the problem posted. Sometimes, while waiting for help, the OP will find a solution. There is nothing wrong with posting that solution and getting credit for doing so.

    If your concern is about the potential for someone to 'pump' his/her scores -yes, that could happen. But I think that it is really a minor issue, and one that will be noticed by moderators.
    You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
    Sunday, June 29, 2008 7:26 AM
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    Arnie:

    You do not get credit for marking your own post as answer, so that is not an issue.

    However I think this is a common cause of not giving credit to responders, in cases where responses helped the original poster to reach the answer without actually spelling it out in "do this, do that" fashion.

    Perhaps the solution here is user education in the use of "Vote as Helpful", an almost totally unused feature as far as I can tell.


    David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP
    Monday, June 30, 2008 10:22 AM
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    You know the Forum FAQ? It's really long, and I don't think a lot of people think to read that before posting.

    I believe it would be better if, when you joined the forum, before you could post, you were presented with a shorter FAQ that outlines the key rules and suggestions (including mark as answer, propose as answer, vote as helpful, points calculation, etc.)
    Take a chance. Prepare to be surprised.
    Tuesday, July 1, 2008 4:41 PM
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    davewilk said:

    But for me this ability of the OP to mark his/her own post as answer is not so crazy as the ability of the OP to propose a reply (his/her own or another) as answer. This is quite pointless, IMHO, and its use almost invariably is caused by confusion/error on the part of the OP.



    David, we all agreed. I just made the code change today so the Thread Starter can not proposes answers. It'll be part of the next release.

    Thanks for the great feedback :)
    Rob J, Forums Dev
    Wednesday, July 2, 2008 12:45 AM
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    Thanks, Rob. Getting rid of OP using Propose as Answer will remove the most damaging aspect of this feature. Non-moderators will now either be able to Mark as Answer (OP) or Propose as Answer (others), but not both.

    For me, I would also like to remove the ability of a responder to propose his/her own reply as answer.

    But actually, I would like to get rid of Propose as Answer altogether, and replace it with a more accessible version of Vote as Helpful (a feature which is currently virtually unused, as far as I can tell).

    Did you read my other post People don't vote ?

    David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP
    Wednesday, July 2, 2008 3:07 AM
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    David, I did read your post. I agree that anything we can do to encourage voting would be a good thing and we want to look into ways of accomplishing that.

    Our idea behind Proposed Answers is to help OP/Moderators/"Answerers" identify Questions that "may" have been answered and are ready for validation. That's why we also allow the replier to propose their own reply as an answer. Fundamentally it's correct and ok to do. I replied, I think this is the answer, can you validate it. Whereas before, you'd have to wade through any "me too" posts along with possible answers. We're definitely listening and as we see if/how features are used we'll refactor accordingly.

    Another consideration we're always trying to balance is button/icon soup by having too many things all over the place. That's pretty much where some of the menu's came from to consolidate. And as we localized the text space became an issue quickly.

    Thanks for all the input thus far. Keep the feedback coming. I try to read both bugs and suggestions forums daily and respond as much as I can.
    Rob J, Forums Dev
    Wednesday, July 2, 2008 4:24 AM
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    Rob:

    Thanks for the reply.

    I don't think Propose as Answer does encourage the OP to Mark as Answer because most OP's do not understand the feature. In fact I think it has the opposite effect, because they see it as having dealt with the issue already.

    I agree that Propose as Answer could be useful to moderators, but I think that Vote as Helpful could do that also (and also give recognition points for the post in question). We just need to promote Vote as Helpful to a first class citizen (now it is completely unused, as far as I can tell).

    David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP
    Wednesday, July 2, 2008 12:01 PM
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    Like I said. I think a short post sign-up mandatory FAQ is appropriate for this purpose.
    Take a chance. Prepare to be surprised.
    Friday, July 4, 2008 2:02 AM