Broken reply allowed to Q&A answer

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1

What and who is affected by this issue/request?

Help section. For anyone somehow discovering how to do this.

Where on the platform does it happen?

I have a question regarding the rules for applying Korea's BRT to OSM - #6 by skyper A reply appeared to my answer. It’s not shown in the list of “answers”. The jump-to-comment arrow button shows it’s #6. Clicking it has no effect, other than going to the last visible “answer”.

How do we replicate the issue?

I don’t know. Need to have @skyper answer.

Expected behavior (i.e. solution)

If allowed, at least it should be visible and navigable. Or this behavior should be disabled.

Other Comments

The unread page is broken too. Keeps showing 1 unread for that thread, likely from that reply.

2

There are various issues with the Q&A system we’re using, and we are planning to retire it and archive the existing content: Archiving of help.openstreetmap.org - 1st March 2024

3

For info, I got the notification of the same missing answer by email

4
  1. Select some part of an answer and use “quote”.
  2. Write your reply and be surprised that discourse does not accept it.
  3. Copy your reply to buffer
  4. Use the reply button on the original question and paste your reply from buffer which includes the quote and the corresponding header.
  5. Upload your “answer”
1 Like
5

But the currently used mixed form on discourse is not working properly, either.

6

Oddly, I’ve done that more times than I have “odd unread answers that I cannot read”. There are only two of the latter for me - the BRT answer 6 (being discussed here) and one from a global moderator about commenting being turned on in the first place.

It just looks like a bug - replying to an answer by “reply” is blocked, but replying to an answer by “quote” is not.

Edit: Added link to the other topic that shows the bug for me

1 Like
7

Let’s face it:

  • replying to an answer is blocked by the disabled reply button and internally as my reply with the quote was block on upload but I should have never got there as replies are blocked.
    • quoting should result in a new answer (hopefully with a hint for the user that this is a new answer and not a reply).
  • adding an answer with a quote like [quote="Kovoschiz, post:4, topic:108584"] is currently added as a reply but instead it should be an answer.
    • it would be still appreciated if the quoted answer has some link to the answer which includes the quote.

A bit off-topic: The current commenting system does not work with only a single level as replies to comments are almost impossible and do not end up directly below the original comment nor is it possible to quote comments.

Overall this mix of systems, atm, is quite confusing and annoying as there is no strict separation between the two systems and last but not least a lack of documentation and help for the “normal” user. I would expect a button for instructions on how to use the two different systems and a better system message explaining why an action is denied instead of An error occurred: You are not allowed to create a post in reply to another post.

2 Likes
8

@admin
Well, now my reply is gone for good. :disappointed:
It should have been moved from the comment section to a new answer. Any chance for restoring it?

9

A little off topic, but does the workaround here work for “odd unread answers that I cannot read” posts?

1 Like
10

It seems to, yes - I’ve tried to find those in the (long) “unread” list, and can’t see them currently.

Edit: Er, not quite. It works for threads with other answers other than “close”, but not for this one which was closed without any answers. There’s no option to switch the answer display order if there are no answers.