Enable Discourse Solved plugin for the US category?

ezekielf · 2023-01-17T16:33:52.089Z

The Help and support section of this site uses the Discourse Solved plugin for posts to be marked as solved. There has been some question about why this feature is available in some categories but not others as noted here:

"Discourse Solved" plugin clarifications? 🐞 This forum issues and requests

@Ezekielf and I wonder how either he (as US moderator) or the topic Hwy 1 from Santa Cruz to San Francisco is expressway=yes? originator @EvanSiroky can offer a “Discourse Solved” (green checkbox) to what is currently the last post of that topic (mine). Zeke was unable to find a simple method using the Discourse Solved - plugin - Discourse Meta plugin that he might assign to my post, saying he believes only the originator @EvanSiroky can do this, or perhaps that may be doable only in certain to…

For context, I believe the reason this is only enabled in certain categories is that the Help and support section is intended to eventually replace help.openstreetmap.org, while all the other categories are a replacement for forum.openstreetmap.org. The old forum site has no such “solution” feature, while the old help site does. Many times a forum discussion may twist and turn in various directions without a neat and clean solution, but other times a problem/solution or question/answer structure may exist. Regardless, the German community requested to have the solved feature enabled for Deutschland (Germany) and we could do the same for the US category if we like. How do folks feel about this?

One thing to note about this feature is that only a topic creator is able to mark a post as the solution. Global moderators and Trust Level 4 users can also mark posts as the solution, but category moderators cannot do this (unless they are Trust Level 4).

Discourse Meta – 20 Apr 22

Trust Level Permissions Table (inc Moderator Roles)

documentation users

trust-levels getting-started reference

This aims to be a comprehensive list of Discourse features, marked by Trust Level, and including the relevant admin settings which influence them. If you spot something that’s missing or incorrect please leave a comment below. 🙂 👍 Trust Level...

Reading time: 6 mins 🕑 Likes: 190 ❤

stevea · 2023-01-17T16:44:11.680Z

I’m a big fan of acknowledging helpful posts that actually “solve” a question or problem someone might post in a forum like this, so I’ve given your question a “heart” reaction. Others might decide on a “thumbs-up” if they agree; of course, both are positive feedback.

So, even realizing the caveats about Trust Level and only-the-topic-creator may offer this, “Yes! Enthusiastic positive feedback!”

ElliottPlack · 2023-01-18T02:28:05.099Z

I’m good with this as long as dorks don’t start putting it in their signature to “please mark this response as solved if this resolved your issue,” for the fake internet points.

ezekielf · 2023-01-18T17:05:25.195Z

I’m not too worried about adding more fake internet points . Default Discourse leans into that concept pretty heavily already. What makes me a little hesitant about the solved plugin is that many conversations are not straightforward problems/questions with simple solutions/answers, but instead discussions with differing opinions about how things ought to be done. Perhaps the presence of empty “unsolved” checkboxes on every topic will encourage topic creators to pick a solution even when there is no clear consensus. Perhaps readers finding such a topic will assume there is consensus because a post is marked as the solution. In the event this happens, global moderators can remove a problematic solution marker, but there seem to be very few global moderators with full permissions on this site. We US category mods do not have permission to do this.