Help others to solve their issues

Lina DABASINSKAITE · ‎2023-07-18

“Accepted solutions” are much more than a simple green checkmark next to a subject. They are instrumental in helping community members find answers to their questions faster and more effectively. The “Accepted solutions” mark also helps community members move up the ranks in the ST Community and become known as true experts in their field.

Here is how you can use “Accepted solutions” to reward the community members who have taken the time to help you, and to contribute to the growth and quality of the ST Community, benefiting all members, including you.

1. Post your question in the community following the instructions from our “How to Post” tutorial
2. Wait for a reply from one of our experts, a community member, or an ST employee.
3. Continue the conversation if needed until a solution is found
4. Once your question has been fully answered, click on "Accept as Solution" on the post, which solved your issue or answered your question:

Threads marked as “Accepted solutions” stand out from the discussion threads and help you and others find a solution more easily:

If you accidentally chose the wrong post as solution, you can always revert this action by clicking "Not the Solution" and choose the correct one again:

Important: to apply the action of "Accept as Solution" or revert to "Not the Solution" is permitted only to the author of the the post and the community moderators.

If you face any difficulties, please mark the post "Report Inappropriate Content" and the forum moderators will take the respective action.

Thank you for helping us make the ST Community an even better place to get answers and solve issues.

Andrew Neil · ‎2024-07-05

@Lina DABASINSKAITE wrote:

4. Once your question has been fully answered, click on "Accept as Solution" on the post, which solved your issue or answered your question

If there isn't a single post which solved your issue or answered your question, then write a post which summarises the solution - and mark that post as the solution.

Yes, you can mark one of your own posts as the solution.

Tesla DeLorean · ‎2024-07-05

I do find this One Question / One Answer model highly flawed. Most of the time there's a focus on the wrong thing, and problem solving is about getting to the details and the actual issue, and frequently not the symptoms.

>>If there isn't a single post which solved your issue or answered your question, then write a post which summarizes the solution

Personally, I'd like to see this in any case to get some closure, and up voting the best answer(s) that led to a solution.

>>and mark that post as the solution. Yes, you can mark one of your own posts as the solution.

I'm not a fan of this, unless none of the responses were on-point or on the path to the final answer/solution

Andrew Neil · ‎2024-07-05

>> I'm not a fan of this, unless none of the responses were on-point or on the path to the final answer/solution

It's most useful when the OP finds their own solution - possibly before anyone else has replied.

BarryWhit · ‎2024-07-05

> It's most useful when the OP finds their own solution - possibly before anyone else has replied.

on at least one occasion, after I took some pains to provide a detailed answer, the OP created a new post which simply repeated the detailed solution I suggested, then added a single step which was not necessary according to the original question, and finally accepted their own solution. I did not appreciate this - I thought it was quite rude. There wasn't even a thank-you.

On another occasion, the question was "How do I do X?", and the answer was "You can't do X". However, since this is not the answer OP was looking for, they simply ignore it, or try to "bargain" their way around impossibility. In such cases, the helpful thing to do is to hold their hand while they emotionally process their disappointment. Like Delorean says, this is quite common.

Tesla DeLorean · ‎2024-07-05

>> I did not appreciate this - I thought it was quite rude. There wasn't even a thank-you.

Yes, forums can be a thankless place, with a lot of expectations. I wouldn't take this personally, but it is pervasive and depressing.

Unfortunately how the metrics and scoring work here tend to reinforce the bad experience for those who contribute to answers and content. I have little confidence that this will change.

BarryWhit · ‎2024-07-05

> Unfortunately how the metrics and scoring work here tend to reinforce the bad experience for those who

> contribute to answers and content. I have little confidence that this will change.

It's a moral hazard of Gameification - you introduce shallow external rewards in order to encourage people to engage, but end up decreasing people's motivation to engage when the promised rewards fails to materialized or become boring. Or are boring to begin with.

Psychologists describe this as replacing Intrinsic rewards (i.e. I enjoy playing the piano, I like helping people and discussing technical issues), with extrinsic rewards (if you practice your piano for an hour, I'll give you a cookie). It can turn highly-motivated individuals into apathetic one who eventually stop engaging in that activity. Though to be fair, some people (and especially kids), have a hard-time self-motivating but respond very strongly to extrinsic rewards.