Change the default to ask a question instead of new discussion
What are the current parameters for the answered or accepted answer buttons/tags appearing on comments? It seems to be random. Some questions that have been fully answered by several people do not have the ability to mark as answered and others with only one comment do. Is the difference if they posted it as a discussion vs. question? If so, can you change the default to the ask a question option rather than new discussion on the group pages?
It would be helpful if there was a way for moderators to mark questions as answered, or revert to a question tag if needed so that people can see that at a glance what needs further help/what is completed without having to click through and open each question individually. It would also be helpful to differentiate between an answered button and the accepted answer button. Right now, the only one anyone has access to is the accepted answer option, which is confusing if you are not the original person who asked.
Comments
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I have constantly maintained that nobody but the post originator has the right to mark a response as an "Accepted Answer". It might be reasonable to assume a moderator can form a good idea of whether an "answer" has sufficiently / completely addressed the question / issue, but it is easy for any of us to miss the point the originator really had in mind in their post. I have thought I have provided a really satisfactory answer on more than one occasion, only to be advised (by the poster, in a polite way) that I have misunderstood the issue completely!
In the case of your post here, I do realise your comments extend rather wider than my somewhat "narrow" response, but hopefully others will also contribute their thoughts here on the wider issues you raise.
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You are not alone ...
There are others, like you and 'Paul' ...
For starters ...
Take a look at these posts ...
Ideas
In fact, a post in this SAME "Topic", of the "Ideas" Section ...
Home > Ideas > FamilySearch Community
Poster: @JeffWiseman
Date: 10 April 2020
Who in the World is Marking Answers to My Questions as "Accepted" or not?
And ...
Q and A
Home > Help Center Categories > Other
Poster: @Paul W
Date: 13 April 2020
Moderators - Would you please stop marking my responses as "Accepted Answer"?
You will notice that 'yours truly' had some input into that latter post ...
Just letting you know ...
Brett
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I have seen examples where the "Accepted Answer" marker was meaningless. I am thinking of a post made in one section of the site where a question was asked; an answer made that said only "You need to post on Group XYZ"; that answer was marked as Accepted.
If the Acceptance was done by the original poster, then they have an odd idea of the concept of Answer. The one thing that it did not do was answer the original question.
If the Acceptance was done by a Mod, then that implies a viewpoint far removed from the users of the system, who want to see questions answered. Firstly they cannot and should not say whether the OP's question was answered to their satisfaction (in this case, clearly it wasn't). Secondly, it suggests a statistical analysis going on that we, the end-users, are not interested in. Closing the original question is exactly what a first level support team would be doing - quite reasonably, by the way, I can say as a former IT Support team leader. As an end-user though, I'm not interested in any such analysis - I don't want to see the effects.
(Actually - it occurs to me that "Closing" the original question, is quite reasonable. Alleging that it's had an Accepted Answer is an entirely different thing and not reasonable. Even if it's the OP they shouldn't be saying that they've had an Accepted Answer if they haven't. )
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