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I have spent hours searching on the forum for basic questions, hoping to find threads marked "solved" to save a little time. But now I'm having a fantasy about being able to search the forums and see how often a question gained responses, and whether the "solved" showed up so I can really move forward in finding solutions.

I see the various symbols for "discussion locked" and such, but find these inadequate while searching. Seeking an answer to issues should be able to be weeded out more easily... maybe I am a dreamer.

If there was a way to add these "solved" issues to the FAQ as well, it would be awesome and intelligent, and push a lot of us struggling with varying issues into the next level of development.

I am going to move this to the Official Joomla! Websites - Feedback/Information board.

It would be helpful too maybe for you to state what questions you had that you couldn't find through searching.  Perhaps your questions haven't been asked before which is why you couldn't find threads relating to them.

cf_perez -

It's hard to tell if someone is really new or not...even when they only have one post. So, permit me to offer this resource -- it contains many well written guides by various community members that many of us have found helpful as we get started. Absolute Beginners Guide to Joomla! < http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,47524.0.html > If you really are new, you cannot go wrong walking through this material.

Your points are good ones that have been raised before. We do not have a good process for "closing" posts that are solved. Some people just say "thanks," others notate "[Solved]" in the title, others do that and mark the status of the thread. It is inconsistent most likely because it is very difficult to catch people at exactly the point of solving a problem to teach them what to do. < But, we do need to work on this. >

Another good point you raise is the benefit to combing through the posts and making FAQ items. Of course, you understand the trick is finding a group of volunteers with time to comb through 400,000 posts < It is another excellent idea. >

Searching has also been a sore spot for some. Personally, I have honestly not had problems if I use the advanced feature. But, I also have hung out here for 7-8 months and have an idea of what we have and what words yield good results. MANY people use Google and swear by that process. Try that and see what you think.

Now, if you need help, please post your question on the forums after attempting a search. If you end up sitting too long (more than a day or two), feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will try to help.

Good luck! Amy

I like threads marked "solved" as well. I've already done a test in the upgrade forum. A sticky is created, explaining how to mark threads "solved". This didn't help. The second option is to tell people that marking threads solved is a good option. The negative about this, is that there are going to be hundreds of threads with "can you mark this as solved?". The last option is to let moderators mark threads solved, don't think i need to explain the impact of that.

I agree, Tonie. This is not an easy task and relying on community members doing this is impractical. Working on this problem, as you obviously understand, could provide benefits. With the right planning, we could not only end up with posts marked as complete and improved FAQ resources, but we could also begin to extract useful data for process improvements.

For example, it might be good to understand:

Status of the thread: a) resolved by community b) resolved by topic starter c) no answer / abandoned d) closed by moderation (duplicate post, spam, whatever) e) open ... (more?)

Type of resolution: a) user error b) software error c) training issue ...

SMF: Changes would have to be made to SMF for each thread to allow rating for a few categories. In addition, SMF would have to be changed to provide the forum admin ability to define the categories and valid item choices. The data could be extract from the MySQL database for analysis.

We would also need to increase the FAQ work group (maybe part of the documentation group?) and their job would be to walk the threads, update the status and extract FAQ material.

In addition, we could implement a policy to remove all threads that are "closed" and older than XX months. (I assume SMF provides this capability?)

Another huge side benefit would be the ability to more readily find posts not yet answered.

That would at least be a step in the right direction. I would be willing to help with this myself. Thank you for reading my ideas.
Amy

There is a mod (http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=245) that may be useful. The mod will search the specified boards for topics with no replies.