Jatopian
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I propose that when someone posts a new thread in the Hints & Solutions board, an icon similar to the "Needs investigating" arrow should appear by their topic/post. Then, they can return to mark their post with an icon similar to the "Fixed" check to show that they have been helped. Anyone who posts in the thread has the option to mark their post with the 'help me' icon or not. If there are any 'help me' posts in the thread, its icon is the 'help me' icon, and otherwise it's the other.
All the above is meant to let persons know when someone needs help, so they needn't check that board's individual threads so often, which means that persons with less free time can help and persons don't go forever without help.
I've tried to think of something simpler, but nothing decent coalesces.

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TripleM
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That sounds quite good to me, if its easy enough to implement.

gamer_extreme_101
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Well, as an idea to Schik, if bug-tracking was enabled in that forum, I'd be willing to moderate and keep as active as possible with those squares. Just an idea, of course.

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Kevin_P86
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That's assuming the person who is asking for help knows and/or remembers to change the icon when their problem has been resolved.

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NiroZ
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Kevin_P86 wrote:
That's assuming the person who is asking for help knows and/or remembers to change the icon when their problem has been resolved.

I agree, Its a great Idea, but its probably too prone to errors/too complex for people who just jump onto the forums to ask for help.

zex20913
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It's also a problem when other people have trouble in the same room, and post for help there. They can't control the icon, and they need help too, so this system is rendered useless for them.

I think, as a whole, we're a pretty responsive group to the H&S. A red folder is usually enough.

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Kevin_P86
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Jatopian wrote:
Anyone who posts in the thread has the option to mark their post with the 'help me' icon or not. If there are any 'help me' posts in the thread, its icon is the 'help me' icon, and otherwise it's the other.

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zex20913
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Doh!

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Jatopian
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Kevin_P86 wrote:
That's assuming the person who is asking for help knows and/or remembers to change the icon when their problem has been resolved.

And that's why I tried to come up with something simpler. Still, I think it's feasible if users are given little reminder messages when posting and in the FAQ (when it's finally updated), when one considers the competent tendencies of both our community and our mod staff. We could even (I think) make some of those who're frequent givers of advice the power to change thread icons.

zex20913 wrote:
I think, as a whole, we're a pretty responsive group to the H&S. A red folder is usually enough.

That's often true, but when I wrote the below quote, I thought of much personal experience...

Jatopian wrote: persons with less free time can help and persons don't go forever without help.

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 10-27-2006 12:46 AM : It's important to punctuate "who're"...]

Syntax
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I think this is great idea. Whenever I feel helpful, I spend ages looking for a thread where help is still required.

Maybe an alternative would be to mark all unread posts "orange" or some such colour for the H&S board, but only mark them "red" iff the last post in that thread does not contain secret tags. This would generally be a new post, or an additional post asking for further help...

NiroZ
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Syntax wrote:
I think this is great idea. Whenever I feel helpful, I spend ages looking for a thread where help is still required.

Maybe an alternative would be to mark all unread posts "orange" or some such colour for the H&S board, but only mark them "red" iff the last post in that thread does not contain secret tags. This would generally be a new post, or an additional post asking for further help...

Which means people who go

'I have figured out this much

But I'm stuck after that.'

Will be neglected.

I think that if we really need to improve the H&S thread, which works fine as it is, what Jatopian suggested is a good idea. I will go back on my previous post however, and say that if anyone is allowed to set it to 'Solved' and then the posts author can, if he/wishes, can set it back to 'Help Me'.

Thus the brilliant feature of this forum that enlightens people right after they post, combined with human forgetfulness, means that you don't get posts where people simply forgot to mark their post as solved.

Syntax
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Well... it might be better then to allow posters to set their post to "unsolved" with any subsequent post signifying a solution. If not, the original poster should repost as "unsolved".

In that way no-one will forget to mark their posts as solved as it's not required.