Surprisingly fast locking of single thread

[Claudio_González1]

The question in this thread

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1080275?tstart=0

was correctly answered within two minutes by Bill, and his answer was marked as correct and the thread locked, probably shortly after Bill's posting.

What I find susprising is that the Reader forum has hundreds of similar questions and answers (see Pat's complain here http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1079699?tstart=0) , but only a handful of them are marked as Answered. And, without checking, I would say that (almost) none of these threads have been locked.

Bill, was that you?

[Claudio_González1]

I have just noticed that there are several similar threads in this forum that have also been locked but without been marked as Answered. Peculiar.

[John T Smith]

When I see a question in this forum that does not relate to the purpose of this forum, I post a short answer telling the person to find the correct forum... sometimes with a link to help them

I'm not a Moderator so certainly can't lock anything... but I do support the Moderator(s) who DO lock inappropriate questions... once someone has been told they are in the wrong place, and especially if they are provided a link to help them find the correct place, there is no need for further discussion

[Claudio_González1]

I also am in favour of locking threads that don't need any further discussion, but I am  surprised by the difference between what is happening here and what happens in the Reader forum. And I would say that this locking is a fairly recent feature, but may of course be totally wrong.

Finally, it would certainly be more useful to know that a thread has been locked without having to open it. One way (to me) simple way of doing so would be by using the blobs preceding the name of each thread in the list. At present, we have black blobs for unanswered threads and green ones for answered ones. I would suggest something like this:

• black: unanswered, unblocked
• green: answered, unblocked
• blue: answered, blocked
• red: unanswered, blocked

perhaps also automatically removing the last ones after some time.

[mytaxsite]

but I do support the Moderator(s) who DO lock inappropriate questions... once someone has been told they are in the wrong place, and especially if they are provided a link to help them find the correct place, there is no need for further discussion

I don't agree that moderators should lock the thread even if the correct answer has been given because there will be people who may wish to post a supplementary question one month, two months or even three months down the line when a specific solution does not work for them.  The less posts are created the better it is for these forums and so threads should be left open at all times.

[Edited to remove language that is counter to Community Forum Guidelines: http://forums.adobe.com/docs/DOC-2326] whoever thought of this idea should not be in his/her current position at Adobe.  PERIOD.

Message was edited by: TerriStoneCHL

[John T Smith]

>don't agree that moderators should lock the thread even if the correct answer has been given

In PRODUCT forums, keeping message threads open is a good thing

In THIS forum, questions about products... when the person has been directed to a different forum... should not leave threads open

When someone asks about, for example, Premiere Pro... and they are directed to the http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere forum... there is no reason for the message here to remain open

[TerriStone]

I agree, John T Smith.

[Claudio_González1]

I also agree, but not completely. In the Reader forum there must be at least dozens and probably hundreds of threads asking the same questions and receiving the same answers. (for example, about download problems). I see no point in keeping these, as no newcomer performs a search before posting that same question again, and only very few ever come back to say "thank you" and mark the answer as Correct.

[Dave Merchant]

Locking dead-ended threads is one tool we can use to maintain an effective customer experience. Experts on the forum tend to ignore answered questions precisely because they're answered, so thread-hijackers have much less chance of getting help compared to when they post a new question. As Bill and John have said, if someone searches the forums for a keyword and hits one of the threads that were started in the wrong place we absolutely do not want them replying to it.

Locks are applied for three basic reasons:

1. The thread is in the wrong place and couldn't be moved due to lack of information (outright duplicate posts are removed when they're noticed - please report any you find).
2. The thread has deviated from the original topic or has violated the Guidelines (e.g. it's descended into a slanging match).
3. The post is for information only (e.g. FAQ pages).

If there is an active and pertinent conversation within a thread it won't be locked, even if a Correct reply has been selected, but there are some threads which are so old or so trivial there's no reason anyone should reply to them. These forums are used for internal reporting and it assists with that process to have a number of similar-but-separate questions in the database as opposed to one thread with several conversations crossing each other.

There are some forums which are read-only, e.g.  legacy or beta versions of software, but there will always be a new and open forum for current issues if the product still exists.

Current policy is for hosts to assign a Correct status to answers as and when they are identified, allowing time for the OP to make the decision first. Historically we didn't do this so there are hundreds of thousands of old threads which are 'answered' but not marked as such. It's a very long process to go through and retag them - and there's little benefit from doing so.

[Noel Carboni]

You need to avoid locking anything unless it's gotten out of hand, and even then only after warnings.  Anything else comes across as heavy-handed, and makes people feel bad and pushes them away.

I've been on forums where a company runs it as a support site, and moderates virtually everything, editing stuff they don't like and locking threads with messages that for whatever reason they don't want to hear.  It turns people off from the free expression of information, and especially from helping others.  I know I no longer feel like contributing on one SSD site after asking the basic question "why don't your release notes have more detail?"

My suggestion to moderators:  Don't let that bright-as-the-sun background go to your head.

-Noel

[the_wine_snob]

Claudio,

I have seen some similar marking of threads, especially where the poster came here, when they really needed one of the product forums instead.

I can only speculate, but assume that those are being Locked, as we have all seen several similar threads, where the OP does not follow the advice on posting to the appropriate forum, and keeps trying to carry on the discussion here. The Locking precludes that happening, and I assume that one of the MOD's spent a little time insuring that additional discussion would not continue here.

When I point an OP elsewhere, if I know the answer to their question, or have comments, that I think might be helpful, when they do post to the correct forum, I will add those too. Often, it's just a plea that they provide more info, when they post correctly.

I will also often Move a post (from a forum, where I have MOD status), to the correct one, and then PM the OP. However, and especially where I am not certain which forum(s) would be appropriate, I will make several suggestions (maybe it's an Acrobat, or Acrobat Reader question, or maybe either Dreamweaver or Flash, and I just do not know which is correct in that case), for what I think the appropriate forums would be, but do not Move anything.

Just some guessing on my part,

Hunt

[Claudio_González1]

Bill, now that I have found that there are many threads that have been locked,  I find it peculiar that your post in the thread I linked in my opening message is marked as correct while several similar ones in other locked threads are not.

[the_wine_snob]

Claudio,

Again, just guessing, but I'd speculate that the OP in that thread, did the marking, but do not know for certain.

As often happens in similar threads, the other OP's probably just went to the recommended forums, and never looked back at their post here.

Just thinking,

Hunt