I have one suggestion about questions not getting answered fully. I beleive, that many people don't look at posts with 3 or more answers. However, the problem has not been solved fully yet (I have seen this quite a few times here)
A possible to solution is to make a thread marked with "Problem Solved" or something so everybody notes that the thread starter is satisfied with the answer.
What do you think about this?

I read this at first and thought, that would be a cool idea. But then I got to thinking, and when I run into a problem, I do a search on here first. Then if I find a similar problem to mine, I will simply 'reply' to this post with my question. I don't always do that, but have done this several times in the past. So if the question were marked 'solved' or whatever, then no one would 'solve' my problem.
But that would otherwise sound like a good idea

well you shouldn't tag your question on anyway, it's bad practise

And if the "problem solved" flag would go live the mods have to make sure the thread is closed afterwards, then posting your questions into solved thread would become impossible, but then I believe we'd see the following sort of posts:
Here I have the situation like this (a link to a "solved thread"), then it's gonna take forever to figure out where it all has started.
So I don't know if it is doable right now. But I'd like to see this feature implemented in the future.
Regards Neo.

I don't think the thread needs to be closed. Many people here start talking about less-related stuff once the main problem is solved. It is there to tell the people that the problem still persists and that help is still required, not that it tells people: this problem is solved, so don't post.

Remember when I suggested a ticketing system over a forum? This is not the first time someone simply points out an argument for my suggestion, by the way.

ok, here's a better idea. each member buys a small rodent. depending on their type of question they need a creature based between a Kangaroo Rat and a a large Buck Hare, as seen in Watership down. Now a large single oak tree is to be planted in the north of Alabama and....

if it ain't broke, don't fix it. "systems" never work. What if someone DOESN'T mark their own thread as solved...? it keeps coming up forever until a moderator has to take time out mark it themselves, ott. everything is fine as it is generally.

...... And after the maple syrup has hardedened it will be seen if the post is indeed solved or not.

Well, when you put it that way, I guess that's not really necessary...

Chris, what the hell do you drink? That's some weird solution to checking solved threads!

Anyway, my 2p (we've not gone euro yet!)...
I think that some method of tagging a thread as 'open', rather than saying it's closed is potentially a good idea, but there'd always be situations where it could be implemented badly. Some posts would obviously never be 'solved' since they're not asking solvable questions, if questions at all, so what would happen with them? Overall, I think that we have a very good system as it is, but perhaps the search feature should be pushed a little more to avoid the same bloody question cropping up every 30 seconds.

Well, even if the search feature is to be advertised more aggressively... I still don't think that an overwhelming number of people would use it. Personally I'd rather do a search on www.google.com/linux first...

Furthermore, I think we even have less chances of people following any kind of posting protocols (for subject lines, for example, marking threads as "solved" or even basic guidelines for providing useful info to the potential tech supporter). Most newbies just barge in here, create an account, and just post a question like "my telnet doesn't work, please help me fix it".

So, as I see it, we have two problems on our hands (question repetition and questions ambiguous enough to render them unanswerable). I think the second (latter) one is more severe than the first (former) one, because if a question repeats, we can just post a link to another thread, but if a question like "my telnet doesn't work, please help me fix it" gets posted, pretty much nobody will be able to help due to lack of information... The best one could do is flame the poster saying "post more detailed info". The only way to "fix" this problem, is by adding more fields to the new thread form, asking people for their technical info (such as distro version, for example). To top things off, a forum system closer to a ticketing system would enable people to clearly mark threads as "open" or "solved". Forums are for discussions, and the primary function of this site is not discussion, it's solutions.

Overall, these problems are not life-threatening. I would consider these features (if implemented) a nice bonus for sure, but not an absolute necessity. Face it, we're providing tech support here, and for efficient tech support, you need a ticketing system.

This is just my two cents...

Check out SourceForge, they have an excellent ticketing system with every project. It sure works!

If someone fails to mark the thread as "solved" (BTW, that should be accessible to both the original poster and the person who replied at least once in the thread), then a week after there's no activity in the thread a cron job could close it for you. If one thinks it over, one always finds a better solution.

Yes, things are fine, but they could be better, that's all I am saying... Of course, this would mean lots of work for the developer of this forum (I'd guess that would be Jeremy).

As I said in my previous post, this is not a burning issue, but it definitely is a "nice-to-have", in my opinion, that's all...

I dont really see the point to this idea.

If no one posts anything into the thread, it moves down the line and eventually off the front screen thread listing. I simply dont see why it would be a bother.

I was just responding to acid_kewpie's comment that a system like that would never work, and also presented him with a solution to his anticipated problem. If each thread (ticket) will have a "solved/not solved" indicator, then having solved problems marked as "not solved", due to the negligence of the people involved would create a mess on this board. That's what acid_kewpie was arguing about...

However, you brought up an interesting idea... In ticketing systems threads (tickets) are not sorted by posting date, they are sorted by priority... But I don't think this would apply here, since we can't favour certain people, it's a totally different system here than a regular corporate ticketing system... but this does not mean it can't be implemented.

Just to argue the other side, not that I actually disgree...

There are people like me who will find a thread related to or actually dealing with a same problem, then it gets dug up and is actually irrelevent (because of a new kernel or whatever) but didn't seem so in the repliers question. Where if the replier would just start a new thread, the answer would be much more tailored to their specific problem.

Remember, before bashing me, I was simply arguing the other side.

I have been away for some time.... sorry, it's time to talk a little more.
It looks like a ticketing system isn't appreciated a lot. But somehow, we need to see whether a problem is answered or not. If a thread has more than 2 replies, people mostly don't look at it anymore, except if a thread is very active.
I mean, any other ideas to solve this are welcome. I have just come up with one idea and there might be many others