A quick scan through the listings suggests that there are more than those listed above.
“Active”
“POLL/Closed”
“Topic”
“Reopened”
“Forum”
“Collection”
“RESOLVED”
“Stray”
“Duplicate”
“Reflection”
“Setup”
“WORKFLOWS:”
There are also some slight variations in use too.
For “Solved”, you have also used “solved” and “SOLVED”.
For “Tip”, you have also used “Tipp”.
For “Active”, you have also used “ACTIVE”.
For “Reopened”, you also have “REOPENED:”.
For “Pending”, you also have “PENDING:”.
For all of the above, older entries also don’t always utilise the square brackets.
There’s maybe also “WAITING”, but I wasn’t sure if that was part of an original post title or not.
I think any solution needs to be very simple and consistent. But do note that forum members who get the regular status are not moderators, and thus that status can lapse. I think mine usually jumps in and out every few months, and I consider myself pretty active on this forum. As a result, there could conceivably be periods where no one other than Greg could actively maintain this approach, and I think Greg’s focus is probably more on support and development than it is on forum admin.
If this is a thing that people want, I would suggest creating a poll to get feedback and offering up options.
For example, tagging posts would be a less invasive way of doing this, but I personally don’t know if it would be easier for people to work from the titles.
On the principle using anything at all, I’m one of those people who doesn’t really pay much attention to it. I get ideas from reading posts where a solution is not found as much as where they are found. Sometimes ideas that didn’t work for someone else would work for me and vice versa. Similarly they can inform my understanding for how I might approach something. But I’m sure not everyone is like me in that regard, and I would not be at all against anything that is genuinely useful to people.
I agree with @sylumer that these status flags do not influence what I read. They may well be useful to others, but to me they are similar to political signs along the road. I’m aware that they are there, but I don’t read them and they don’t influence my decision-making.
What I think is useful is someone stepping in occasionally to clarify a topic — changing “I need help” to something more specific.
Prefixes (that are definitively overlapping with tags . But are much more visible)
Titelte content changes (they are more intrusive and only to be used. Best is to ask for permission in the the thread or a PM)
That is good to know. In that respect they work completely like tags.
I often fall in the trap of not realizing a thread is stale or specific to an operating system. A iOS answer to a macOS specific question does create quite a bit of confusion
This is one superpower of regulars in the discuss forums.
Does this mean regulars can change titles of posts from others users?
What else can they change?
Is it visible/traceable who wrote what?
While this is a nice community I think this is a bad “feature”.
On topic: I personally find these prefixes rather distracting; I would prefer the proposed “Solved” checkmark, or tags, if most members want this information at all.
In fact I find it surprising, to say the least, that a user who is not a designated moderator can edit another’s post. Seems like bad form, unless the edit is to remove an offensive word or some such.
But then, I’m not familiar with the details of this discussion software.
I recognize the best of intentions, but it seems to me that there’s a fair amount of push-back to this activity:
Let me cut to the chase here. I personally don’t think that someone should take it upon him/herself to change the forum for everybody simply because they think it would be a good idea. Any such change should be preceded by a discussion on that forum, resulting in a general approval of the change. Or at minimum, an announcement that “Here’s what I’m about to start doing”.
I’m sure that others may disagree with me; this is just one man’s opinion. But as the saying goes, “Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t necessarily mean that you SHOULD do it.”
-open : open and unawsered requests
-pending : answer or suggesting given - maybe not solved
-solved : closed with at least one solution - look for information here
-discussion : open discussion on a topic
-tip : a bit of advice or knowledge
