Something I Haven't Seen Before.

[Brown David]

Just saw this for the first time.

Sort by date or sort by votes buttons under the first post.

What is that about?

 

[cpratt]

This is something I've just touched on in a couple of early posts. When you create a new post, you can click either Discussion or Question. If you click Question, it categorizes the post as a Question. With a question, the person asking the question can vote on the best answer and others I believe can (though I didn't know we had that turned on). It's a completely new concept to all of us though I've used it heavily on technical forums. The person with the most correct answer will usually get the highest votes and the person asking the question can select one of the posts as the "answer" to their question.

This is a very good way to organize question and answer threads, but I assumed it would not be something most YT people would accept so I haven't advocated using it.

It also may not sort correctly with Threaded View.

 

[Brown David]

Okay.

I see the option to choose when creating a new thread now.

I looked on a couple of other sites I frequent that use XenForo, their options are Discussion or Poll.

No big deal, just wondered what it meant and why it showed up in that thread only. At least it's the only thread I've seen it in. Might be in others I haven't read.

Thanks again for your work.

 

[cpratt]

I think a couple of posts have been started that way but almost none. It's something for others to discuss as to whether it becomes a thing or not. As mentioned, it works very well on technical forums I am on, but the down side is that there are more than one answer that sometimes can both be correct, and occasionally, it's the composite of all or many responses that form the complete answer.

It would strike me that how people want to approach this is something that needs to be decided in the future, though it also may be that people can use it if they like in some questions, while most come in as discussions. In other words, the two features might be able to coexist amicably.

 

[Brown David]

In other words, the two features might be able to coexist amicably.

I don't see why not.

 

[cpratt]

I don't see why not.

If you would like to test this out, I will go to the test forum and ask a question. I will include your @Brown David in the text so it sends you an alert. You answer the question and I go in an select that as the answer. If it auto closes (or schedules the thread for auto close), this would suggest it would work for the type thread you posted on the Tractor Sale to allow you to close such a thread at the time you felt you had your answer.

 

[Brown David]

If you would like to test this out, I will go to the test forum and ask a question. I will include your @Brown David in the text so it sends you an alert. You answer the question and I go in an select that as the answer. If it auto closes (or schedules the thread for auto close), this would suggest it would work for the type thread you posted on the Tractor Sale to allow you to close such a thread at the time you felt you had your answer.

Okay, lol.

I saw your post in the test forum before this one.

Now I know what you were talking about.

I posted there so your test should work.

 

[cpratt]

I marked your answer as the solution. I was still able to reply but I want to see if it closes it automatically. If not, I will find out if that is a system wide setting that can be turned on.

 

[Brown David]

I marked your answer as the solution. I was still able to reply but I want to see if it closes it automatically. If not, I will find out if that is a system wide setting that can be turned on.

Lol. We're playing tag now in two different threads.

Probably my fault.

 

[cpratt]

Lol. We're playing tag now in two different threads.

Probably my fault.

That happens with testing!

 

[used red MN]

This is something I've just touched on in a couple of early posts. When you create a new post, you can click either Discussion or Question. If you click Question, it categorizes the post as a Question. With a question, the person asking the question can vote on the best answer and others I believe can (though I didn't know we had that turned on). It's a completely new concept to all of us though I've used it heavily on technical forums. The person with the most correct answer will usually get the highest votes and the person asking the question can select one of the posts as the "answer" to their question.

This is a very good way to organize question and answer threads, but I assumed it would not be something most YT people would accept so I haven't advocated using it.

It also may not sort correctly with Threaded View.

I was just about to ask the same thing about this post. JD forum post FYI, on a phone the bar is below each post. I think when the switch was made I was starting a few more threads than normal and I now remember the option. I thought it was called “polling” though.

 

[cpratt]

I was just about to ask the same thing about this post. JD forum post FYI, on a phone the bar is below each post. I think when the switch was made I was starting a few more threads than normal and I now remember the option. I thought it was called “polling” though.

That gets a little confusing because Question/Answer threads have polling and voting has polling, and they aren't the same thing. If someone sets up a poll, it's usually clear, you vote on the question and move on. With Question/Answer threads, the Question is asked by the OP, people answer it, and the answer that is the solution for the OP, he or she tags as "the solution" by checking a box. The polling comes in there because every post trying to answer the OPs question can be voted on by everyone else. That polling can be used by someone else reading the thread to see if what the OP thought was the best answer actually is, or if the community's voting of the answers points to a different answer.

For example, if someone posts a question "My tractor suddenly won't start, what should I look at first". One person comes back and says "check your valve clearance". The OP says "Great, thanks" and clicks that as the solution, then runs out and pulls his valve cover off. In the meantime, someone else sees the thread and says "Always check your tune up parts first, check if you have spark". Someone pipes in with a post saying to "check if there is fuel flow". Others can then vote those responses as the real correct response (depending on what's worked for them), and probably no one will vote for the selected solution as a starting point. Op comes back into the thread after adjusting the valves likely didn't fix it, tries the other solutions and may change his selection of the solution. More importantly, folks wandering into the site later after asking that question of the search engines, is going to see the weighted responses and probably not get his hands quite so dirty as the first guy, because the community up voted the second reply higher.

This kind of thing may be too new of a concept for YT, but it does weight and organize replies based on the votes of several knowledgeable people rather than one answer. Whether people will use it or not sort of depends. It's not the default right now, so most questions will just be regular old discussions. But if the community likes the concept, we can make it so posts in the Manufacturer forum will default to the Question/Answer type thread and you'll see a lot of them. New people coming in will be more familiar with the Question / Answer type of forum and may occasionally pick to start the thread that way.

This has become very common in highly technical forums because people have bad, mediocre, and good answers, and the concept separates the wheat from the chaff. Some technical questions don't lend themselves to this though. Some are better served by Discussions, which is how YT has always been and will remain for now. It's up to the community whether this fits well and if so, it can be made the default for tech questions. One problem that could arise is if people just upvote their friends answers rather than someones answer who they don't like, in other words, ignoring the facts and voting on personality.

Try it on test forum and see what you think. When you select to post a new topic, stop and look at the tabs at the top, you can pick Discussion (the default), a Poll topic, or a Question. Or you can play with the one Brown David and I were playing with.

 

[john in la]

I marked your answer as the solution. I was still able to reply but I want to see if it closes it automatically. If not, I will find out if that is a system wide setting that can be turned on.

FYI
It did not work on my end.
The only post that is locked and can not be replied to is the one you marked as the correct answer.
All the other post in the thread can be replied to.

 

[cpratt]

FYI
It did not work on my end.
The only post that is locked and can not be replied to is the one you marked as the correct answer.
All the other post in the thread can be replied to.

That's a bummer, it didn't lock. I will see if there is an addon for that.