The trouble with 'Answered'

https://community.logos.com/discussions?statusID%5B0%5D=1

Great question. For questions, the platform features Answered and Accepted. Answered is great, but accepted means that one of the responses was accepted as an appropriate answer.

I visited "Recent Posts" and filtered the posts by their statuses to create the following results, and their corresponding links:

Unanswered

Answered

https://community.logos.com/discussions?statusID%5B0%5D=2

Accepted

https://community.logos.com/discussions?statusID%5B0%5D=3

@Jason Stone (Logos) I think what Scooter might be getting at is that he asked a question and you gave a reply which was not the answer but he is question now show as answered.

Scooter writes:
I ask a question, and it's answered. BUT, I asked poorly. I rewrite the question. But the front matter says 'Answered.' No, it's not + never gets.

How does a question get the status answered?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/243533/re-publish-option-on-homily-builder

Here is another example of the same

MJ asks a question.

You replay and say “Is the following the document that you are referring to?”

MJ says “NO”

but the thread is now marked answered.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/243528/color-code-the-title-or-subject-of-my-notes

Here is another example. Tim asks a question, Jonathan makes a reply, but it is now an answer to the question, and now the thread is marked answered. It seems strange to mark a thread as having an answer which does not fulfil the request.

scooter

Antony: This is exactly what I mean. 'Answered' may swerve people by my post, when I hope they will dive in + show me how what I need is properly done.

Steven MacDonald

Good points made. On some of my questions, I may be open to different answers and all of them may be good. I like to hear from everyone in some cases. Not a fan of "Answered"

MJ. Smith

Note that in the case mentioned, I did not mark it answered. I did mark a couple of threads answered because of a satisfactory reponse from an Logos employee.

👍

This is helpful; maybe something like "Responded to" would be more appropriate than "Answered" — we can keep thinking on that. I do think that once "Accepted" becomes a more common, that may change things a bit but we can definitely keep tabs on how the community receives or does not receive "Answered". We welcome the feedback! This is good.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1343919#Comment_1343919

You're placing your finger on an inconsistency here. I didn't even know that "Accepted" was a thing, because it really doesn't show anywhere that I have seen except for being buried in the filter. "Accepted" actually shows as "Answered" with a check mark next to it. If you were to ask for my suggestion, here it is:

Question with no answer: "Unanswered"

Question that has received a comment: "Pending"

Question that has received an accepted answer: "Answered" with a check mark. I think the check mark adds a nice effect.

Donovan R. Palmer

I think 'Pending' is clearer. It means answers have been provided, but its acceptance as the correct answer is still yet to be determined. 'Solved' is another possibility for Answered, but every question may not be asking for a solution.

danwdoo

'Responded to' seems redundant to me as the post count clearly shows if a post has been responded to so I would prefer these tags only appear if there is a genuine answer (if at all). When every post has a label then no posts have a label when scanning so these should be reserved for when they are most meaningful.

Bruce Dunning

"Answered" is still confusing to me. What if there is disagreement on whether it is answered or answered in a satisfactory way? What if there are multiple aspects to a question or multiple questions asked?

Justin Gatlin

Isn't "unanswered" the language that Community Server used too? If I clicked "Unanswered," it gave me posts that had no reply, and so I missed the ones that had been bumped. It isn't a new problem. But since there is not a way to filter by "no accepted answer" there is still not an easy way for me to find people who still need help.

Maybe "Unresolved" would be more helpful than "Unanswered" ? 🤔

Question Post Type

[No Comments]
Unresolved : Comments, but no accepted answer
Answered ✓ : Comments, with accepted answer(s)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344905#Comment_1344905

Yes, please! Are you proposing that there be only 2 categories? A post would be unresolved from the moment it was posted to the moment it is marked as having an accepted answer? (I suppose "unresolved" would then cover two categories of posts: those with no comment, and those with comments, but no accepted answer). Unless you want "No Comments" to be a category as well. I guess I could see how that could be helpful, especially if posts are not being promptly marked as officially answered.

As my 12-year-old son would say, "that's totally big-brained!"

I really like that, and will see what we can do here in hopes to improve Q&A.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1344937#Comment_1344937

We already have an effective notification to see if there are comments or no comments. We don't need another reference for that. All we need to do is turn off the automated 'Answered' notification. We don't need to find another purpose for the feature. Oh I just got a badge saying I have been promoted to level three. I hope that's a good thing and it's not level three trouble maker.

Dave Hooton

Here lies an ambiguity. If you filter with Post Status you will only see Questions, and Post Status disappears if you select a Discussion! This thread is a Discussion, and they deserves to have a Post Status along the line discussed above.

DAL

You have to manually go back and change it to Not Answered. That’s what I did with one of my posts that hadn’t received an answer.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1346000#Comment_1346000

I agree. Logosia isn't reputed to be disciplined (removing post instructions, tagging, and an answered switch to boot).

I'd recommend just an optional Not-Answered flag … after everyone ignores the question and it's 3 pages later. The poster gets out the not-answered flag!

In hopes to clarify some confusion, here's a summary of posts and their statuses.

There are four Post Types in the community, and this will take some getting used to.

Poll: Create a poll and allow members to cast their vote while discussing in the comments.
Questions: Start a post that once responded to has a status change to "Collecting Answers" until a response is selected as a sufficient answer and the status is changed to "Answered ✔️"
Ideas: In the feedback portion of the community, members can make suggestions and while other members upvote to raise awareness. Staff and administrators can update idea statuses to communicate what phase the ideas is in.
Discussions: These are open-ended and on-going. Discussions do not have statuses unless a community manager moves the discussion to closed to restrict additional comments.

To filter and review of new community activity

For Questions: There's a quick link for "Open Questions"
For All Post Types: There's a quick link for "All Post Types" that is sorted chronologically
For a more granular view, consider adding filters or even using advanced search beyond those two.

I like how you changed the "Questions" status from "Answered" to "Collecting Answers". Very nice.

I like how you changed the "Questions" status from "Answered" to "Collecting Answers". Very nice.

Thank you, @Aaron Hamilton.

DMB

I recognize the types. But I doubt questioners will depart their comfy discussion forum for a 'question' forum. I didn't know you were supposed to. I just hit the '+'.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1348654#Comment_1348654

I just think there should be a LOLS post type, thats all I am looking for. The flags could be Looking For Lolls, and Lolled.

Kevin Houghtaling

Perhaps I missed this but can at least the OP go back and change the status to an ‘unanswered state’ so that discussion can continue?