Will "answers" be obvious?

o.O

Or, if we must have avatars/other stuff along with number of posts and ranking of answers/points, in order to avoid being distracted too much by the actual contents/posts:

Remember to add points/awards for sillies (clown face), jokes (cap with bells and tassles), banter (beer mug/can), niceties (flowers), sarcasm (horns and tail), smartassing (long ears and tail, seen from behind, attacks (bull), counterattacks (snake), rants (dragon), etc.

It could be a nice collection.

>From the discussions it is quite clear that there is absolutely no point in marking answers as anything helpful, answered, whatever.

agree. turn off the "correct" or "answered" feature. turn off the "points" feature.

From the discussions it is quite clear that there is absolutely no point in marking answers as anything helpful, answered, whatever.

Who is to say?

In addition to post #24, which/how many answers should be marked by the OP as right/helpful/the best in this thread?

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b824e2

Often, the answers change/grow/are added to as the OP is being more clear about the actual issue(s).

And geneally, if points are to be given, how should they be distributed among first correct answer(s) and later explanatory elaboration(s) which build(s) on the former? That might lead to the loss of curt and precise answers in favour of time wasting and possibly condescending lectures, unless there are separate points for knowledge and verbal excellence.

>the only sensible way for marking answers would be for anyone to be able to mark any post as helpful.

Agree... but only if that is built into the software as an option. Can't use what you ain't got. I'm not sure whether it's there or not. Have to dig through their docs. http://www.jivesoftware.com/builds/docs/clearspace/latest/

As I've said here, Harbs, "The Big Picture" #200, 5 Mar 2009 5:36 am I think the only sensible way for marking answers would be for anyone to be able to mark any post as helpful.

The thread linked to in this post shows the weakness of Right Answer: dave milbut, "The Big Picture" #140, 4 Mar 2009 7:16 am

And so does this thread: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b81cab, with the following comment:

First there was an answer to the OP question which did not state the actual issue. Then there was a 1st answer which held the convenient workaround to be used once or twice, if the OP wanted to keep a certain setting which is by no means certain. Then there was a 2nd answer which held the most straightforward solution, if the OP did not want to keep the setting, namely to change the setting and no longer need the workaround. Probably the OP was totally unaware of the setting.

The OP was happy with the 1st answer and probably never visited the thread again but might very well have been happier with the 2nd answer. And so might subsequent readers.

With Right Answers and Points the flowering of threads with multiple answers or with supplementary/better/broader subsequent answers may wither.

> who've talked to lazy customer service reps who direct customers here instead of helping them themselves

In addition to what Dov said, sometimes they send people here when they have needs that customer service can't handle, like picking up a dll file from an old version.

> Adobe Technical Support is not supposed to refer callers

yea, we kinda figured that, but someone usually takes pity and helps them anyway. :)