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Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - Printable Version

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Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - Mashiro - 01-16-2020

As the title says. Why?

What is the point of me posting a detailed solution to issues when nothing of that is counted towards my post count or my score/points count?

I noticed that long ago but never really bothered until I started to do some really digging into issues of users where I spent hours and posted the solutions in the threads to share with them with everyone. Now is the time to discuss.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - tryp4vps - 01-16-2020

I noticed this issue several months ago too. After that I have not posted in the support forum anymore. Sad

I believe that all posts in the "VPS Support" forum should be counted. And actually all these posts were counted before. So I guess there was a forum code change several months ago that might mistakenly disable counting them.

But those in the "Private VPS Support" forum were not counted since the beginning. I am not sure but I guess the forum software may have difficulty counting posts in private sections.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - xdude - 01-16-2020

I second the idea of enabling points for that forum. I think those who members posting long support replies deserve that. Also it will encourage others to do that which might be take of lil load off from staff. Well Its fine privare support forum is not counted since it's not a public forums and other memebers don't post it that.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - Dynamo - 01-16-2020

The whole purpose of disabling post count for support forums is to get rid of unnecessary support threads which basically meant to simply increase postcount and increase load on the helper's side.Think of a situation where thread creator simply creating threads there to increase post count which he might already would have googled the solution, thinking why to google when it leads to increase of postcount if I post at the support forum.
Actually its the thread creator's postcount which concerns, not the helper's.

And since currently we don't have any specific way to selectively count only non thread creator's posts there, we have disabled it.

Since private support forum contains posts by staff and thread creator, also posts contained their are not publically visible, that's why we had disabled it there too.

But in future If we find some cure to this problem, then we would be happy to unlock postcounts their too.

Suggestions are always welcomed Smile

Regards


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - deanhills - 01-16-2020

@"Hidden Refuge"  At least there are members who show their appreciation for your posts in the support forum through the rating tool.  So your posts aren't completely unrewarded.  Not sure how the credit rating adds points, maybe @Dynamo could enlighten us the formula for it.  But I'm sure I'm not far off in that a large number of your credit points come from members who have shown their appreciation for your posts in the support section of the Forum.

But yes, I'd like to see your posts counted as well, so wonder whether we could do this for the Tech Specialist Group.  By way of an exception.  Or we could create a different "support" group of which membership is reserved for our more experienced members who we can count upon to help others, to ensure they are rewarded for their efforts by including their support posts in their post credits.

@Dynamo  Do you think that could be possible?  To create a different Support Group of which membership would be dependent on the quality of their support posts in the Forum and then create an exception for the Support Group only so their posts in the support forums are counted towards their post credits?


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - Mashiro - 01-16-2020

@Dynamo

Thanks a lot for your explanation. I also hope that the situation will improve somehow later on.


@deanhills

It's not only about my posts. The other posts made by other members who try to help are important, too.

Your ideas are great but MyBB is way to limited to do what you're suggesting. That'd be only possible by writing a custom plugin that extends the feature of disabling posts & points per forum to have more relation and connection to user groups. The onboard functionally doesn't offer this advanced feature. You can only control per forum settings and same applies for the points plugin.

So for now we won't be going anywhere unless something changes in the future (pun MyBB 2.0 soon™ or a plugin is available).


I received my answer and I'm satisfied with it. No big deal I guess. Instead I might actually post solutions to issues as seperate threads in the tutorial forum or other forums.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - deanhills - 01-16-2020

(01-16-2020, 08:01 PM)Hidden Refuge Wrote: I received my answer and I'm satisfied with it. No big deal I guess. Instead I might actually post solutions to issues as seperate threads in the tutorial forum or other forums.
That may be a problem when instead of responding to the support thread the author of the support thread then continues the thread outside the support forum.  

Another possibility is to create a Tech Specialist Sub-Forum where you can post your responses and lock them.  And then when you respond to a support request copy and paste your response with a link to your Sub-Forum.  However members can't respond directly to your threads, as they would be locked.

It would actually be great as that way we could also separate all of your posts in a separate tech specialist collection.  

What we could do is if someone really makes a worthy contribution to a support thread in a support Forum, you could point it out in a report to the staff, and we could then move that post to your specialist sub-forum if it would make sense to be included.

Would you like to try that out and see how it works?


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - Mashiro - 01-17-2020

@deanhills

Such forum is not necessary and would be generally unfair for others who also try to solve problems and issues that users post. We have forums for that where everyone can post. No need to make any additional forum.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - deanhills - 01-18-2020

(01-17-2020, 05:35 AM)Hidden Refuge Wrote: @deanhills

Such forum is not necessary and would be generally unfair for others who also try to solve problems and issues that users post. We have forums for that where everyone can post. No need to make any additional forum.

I don't think there would be anything unfair about the Tech Specialist having a separate forum. I know where you are coming from and it's admirable of you, but I still think that it would be to the advantage of the Forum to have your responses separated out in a separate sub-forum.  And to copy and paste those as a response in the support forum with a link back.

We could even include support posts of others that are noteworthy.  However, to be honest there aren't that many quality responses, like almost none on the level of the tech specialist responses.  If there should be any that are genuine quality we could move them to the specialist sub-forum as well with a link back in the support forum.


RE: Why are posts in the support forums not counted? - fChk - 01-19-2020

(01-16-2020, 08:01 PM)Hidden Refuge Wrote: I received my answer and I'm satisfied with it. No big deal I guess. Instead I might actually post solutions to issues as seperate threads in the tutorial forum or other forums.

I would say that's the way to go about this conundrum. The way I usually do this is give a minimalist direct answer to the problem at hand to the user seeking it (in the support forum) then, for completeness's sake, open a thread in the adhoc forum where I would go for the larger and more comprehensive/complete answer addressing the big picture and the particulars of that user's problem (if any.)

My 2 cents on this. Although I don't agree with disabling  post-counts in the support forums as a solution to abusive users. I would rather see meaningful posts in the support forum than brand new threads about trivia... but, again, that's just me, the Outsider :-)