Experts Round Table Network

is there a way to indicate [as the topic author, and person "in need of tutoring"] that the thread has been resolved?

from the "help me, help me!" persepctive, i suppose it doesn't really matter-- but from the Tutor's perspective, i'd suspect that it could cut down on a lot of superfluous scanning of open threads. just a thought for y'all.
;)

maybe it's there already, and i've missed it?

just fyi, i think it's been vBulletin-based forums where i've seen that option...
(being under the impression that a lot of this forum / portal has been "hand-rolled", thought maybe you'd like to see an example first.)

Currently there is no way to "Close" a question, other than a comment from the Asker, saying what did the trick.

As far as I know there are no plans to add that function.
You can always open a discussion in Propose and Consult about it (the How-to is the top Q). If it gets enough responses, I will open a Poll in Ballot Box.

Propose and Consult
http://www.expertsrt.net/main/forum/board,15.0/

If you want to see some of the old one:
Propose and Consult...CLOSED
http://www.expertsrt.net/main/forum/board,85.0/

I just noticed that this is IN Ballot Box.  : D

If you want, I can move it to P&C.
Or I will move it to Soapbox tomorrow(ish), until you are ready to open one in P&C.

If we did decide to do something like that I don't think it would be a difficult implementation:

• An icon for the left side of the topic.
• A button for the author to be able to close it.
• Status column on the topic table.
• A small bit of coding to  acquire the status and render the icon.
• Some coding for a function to process the button click

I don't think we would want to disable posting for a completed topic because sometimes there are later updates that add future value.  We probably also have to add something to the admin tools to take the completed status off in case of a mistake.

Overall I don't think it would be difficult to do. So it is more a matter of whether the community wants to do it and the GC wants to give it a thumbs up so a P&C discussion sounds like a great idea.

for me, it's a consequence of ert not wanting to be "an other Q&A site" (as is eee.org)

this considered, althouth I would like that feature personally, I would vote against.

it's also like the online PHP manual. If it had such an indicator, nobody would be willing/able to contribute more on a subject considered "dead". I think it's better to have continual enhancement by NOT saying "this is considered a closed issue".

C'est un point positif. Je ne suis pas sûr comment je voterais encore.

For those of us without a clue... that roughly means:

It is a positive point. I am not sure how I would still vote.

Moving to SoapBox

in fact, the words order seems wrong and the translation faulty too.

"je ne suis pas ENCORE sûr de comment je voterais"
"I'm not YET sure how I would vote"

"encore", depending on the context, can be "yet", "still", "again"...

Ah but what I intended to say was:
I am not sure how I would vote yet. 

(someday when I retire I may have time to master french and perhaps Italian)

:^)

Hmmmmm... I just noticed that I put the the wrong thing in the quotes..

I'm Never going to get the hang of this computer stuff.   : (

CD&, I thought naively that being Canadian was a benefit as to multilingual exposure ;-)
Canada is not Switzerland, but you've such a mosaic of "ethnic-linguistic" enclaves (+ basic French/English territories) that I thought any Canadian would learn at least two languages/tongues :D

Naive I am, heh ? ;-)

for instance, in Belgium or Switzerland all schools have to teach all the official languages (two or three). Too bad Canada hasn't two official languages. It would it you the most advanced country of northern America ;-)
Anyway, even the USA children have to learn Spanish now :D

Both French and English are official languages.  All Government services must be in both languages.  All laws and regulations must be in both languages.  Both languages are used in legislative debates and the courts.  All product labelling must be in both languages (except in Quebec where business signs and labeling do not require English; but do require French.

Education is interesting.  At one time Children in many parts of the country were educated in both languages; where local populations wanted it.  However, Quebec brought in laws that required education in English OR French and to qualify for English education both parent had to have English as their first language.  That attempt to prevent dilution of the French language backfired and other provinces seperated French education into seperate underfunded facilities.

The biggest barrier to French education and wider use of French in Canada is that the Quebec governments have consistently insisted that the rest of the country speak both languages, but that they can place limits on the use of English in Quebec.  The response is predictable; if the languages are to be treated equally then they have to be treated equally everywhere, including Quebec.

Language and cultural issues have been debated in Canada for over 200 hundred years.  However, unlike many parts of the world, where such issues result in civil war; we just call each other names. There are radical ideas on both sides of the issue, and everytime it looks like we have resolved our differences, the radicals want to re-fight 18th century wars and decide who should own the country.... The fact is Europeans have no right to the country because they stoled it from the native peoples who were the original inhabitants subjugated by European military technology.  Those native peoples are just now gaining equal rights and they face discrimination in hiring, housing, and the granting of credit.

While Quebec raises issues about protection of French language and culture; they have the worst record in the country for limiting the use of native languages, cultural genocide against native peoples and removal of children from their families to be educated in schools where they were punished for using their native language.  Fortunately, the era of such abuse has passed and we have become more tolerant, but we ahve a disgracful past in our treatment of other human beings.  We were not alone in such discrimination, but that does not excuse it.

Sorry about the rant.  Raising Language and cultural questions with Canadians can sometimes result in venting.

he he he. Nice answer ; thanks for pointing out that, as I knew, Canada HAS two official languages ; I was saying "too bad the two are not mandatory in all schools".
This issue also exists in Belgium since the establishment of this artificial state (1830). They are also calling names and at civil war state :D
They also have not two but three official languages, following the robbery of the Malmédy area from Germany after WW I but the germanophones are not that a problem. They never get excited about it. In their area everything is labelled in both French and German.
In the two other "communities", everything is labelled in ONE language only, and the problem is worse than in Canada because some places and localities bear very different names in the two languages. This can get difficult following a highway's signs :D

In school, both languages are mandatory, but each community is very reluctant to learn the other's. Also, there are restrictions imposed on families to put their kids in any school : the same kind of the one you mentioned. This is for budgetary purposes, AFAIK. Else the best educational system would be crowded - and exhausted - by people from the other community, which in turn wouldn't contribute financially. There's no solution at hand ;-)

Now if you get to history, you'll see that the French establishment in Canada was not done by spoliating the "indigenes" (not more indigenous than the Europeans, BTW) but by negociating friendship and protecting treaties. The English did it the wrong way and did a lot of bad things with "their" Indians. Compare the fate of the Hurons and the Mohawks for instance ;-)
It's not in our mentality. Besides, we never had enough forces and troops to impose ourselves in an other way. (and it was not necessary, at least face to the Indians alone - things changed when the English wanted to rob us in the "Eire way" they experimented at the Cromwell time)

At least the French did not deportate people to take over their land ;-)

Now back to canada's politics about the "two" official languages. From what I remember, the problem came from the status of the country in Commonwealth, which is not particularly francophile, and the government of Ottawa. Ottawa implemented multilinguism in 2002, isn't that a sign ? ;-)
It's also 50,9% anglophone and 32,1%  francophone only, while not even 1% (0,9%) are proficient in both EN+FR : you've really a problem with the teaching of languages ;-)
come on, it's not that hard to learn two :D
Compare to the Swiss and take courage ;-)

Some corrections about Belgium.

There 3 regions (federal states):  Flanders (dutch only), Wallonie (french + the small german part), Brussels (french + dutch).
Brussels is the only real bilingual region but has 85-90% french speakers.

Learning the other language in school is only mandatory in Brussels.
French and dutch education systems are separated, even in Brussels.  All the dutch teachers who teach in french-speaking schools are native french speakers, and vice-versa, which is completely absurd...  Learning languages in school is impossible anyway.  To effectively learn a language, you need to be surrounded by people who speak that language.

The most important thing is to master ONE language correctly.  Which would mean mandatory latin and ancient greek for all french speakers.

All countries (including France) have local unofficial languages and dialects (basque, gaelic, ebonics).
And, for the sake of "linguistic unity", none of those languages were ever respected until very recently.

It looks like these forums are powered by SMF.  There is a module available that adds the ability to mark threads as resolved.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=7

I have tested the mod and it is easy to install and use.


By the way, Canada might have two official languages, but only one of the ten provinces (New Brunswick) is officially bilingual.

How many Swiss people speak Romansh? 

Ahh, and I thought I'd seen tha last of the "multilingual debate". But then I AM a young and foolish American :D
I'm glad to see there are no civil wars at ERT ;-)

Regarding the "closing" of questions -- I personally vote "No", for exactly the reason that VGR mentioned. I don't want this site turning into another Q&A, and I like the fact that discussions are not closed over here. I like the fact that discussions at ERT are not "hey, fix this code for me...OK thanks talk to you later" -- they're not "problem-based" discussions, they are concept-based instead. I think we *do* need to work harder at cleaning up the forums and converting discussions into articles, but that's another issue...my $0.02 anyways...

oops! darnit i almost "removed" the topic again! hee hee (does that delete the thread?)

anyway-- sorry for opening a discussion and then wondering off to stare and shiny metal objects n play w/ butterflies n stuff...

as one who has little to gain from such a modification, my input on the matter-- and probably why the thought occurred to me in the first place... the idea of scanning through various threads, trying to figure out which might have a "solution" to an issue-- as it could perhaps make the needle a bit more easy to find in the haystack-- but that would require a user to actually use the Search feature... ya probably have a statistic on that (percent of visits-search-no post / visits-search-post / visits-post ?)... but other than that, and the aforementioned "benefit" to mentors, any real enhancement would surely be insubstantial.

my perception of a resolved thread is not the same as closing a thread-- in that replies and continued conversation are not prohibited. i perceive the "concept" to be an indicator of a "solution lies within"... but then again, i smoka-da-peace-pipe so what do i know. ha!
:)

Hmmmmm... that's an interesting twist.


Not a problem. We all do that.   : )


If I remember correctly, only if you do it in your question post. Other wise it just takes out that single post. I won't swear to that because I have been staring at shiny metal objects myself.

The simplest way to do this is for the thread author to "Modify" the first post which gives the option to change/add text to the subject.  -OR- The authors could PM me and I can mark them as resolved in the subject.

I think askers can change/edit the subject to say [resolved] (probably resolved ;-), but the problem is he/she won't always come back to do so, having obtained his/her answer.
so probably a site admin of some sort should do it after a while, by default.
the same could be said of old threads slowly dying, marking them as [unresolved] would probably give them a second chance of being adressed.
0.02 U$D thoughts ;-)

I'm going to give some thought on the wording since we are a teaching site.  It seems better to use words that stay in that frame of mind.

Good idea.

We need to try to keep it with the Asker.
We can't really set up a CV at this time.   : /

As long as we can agree on the wording I can write up a stickie and post it to all the forums in the form of instructions.

The more I think about it, the more complicated it gets.  : /

I love a good Thought Puzzle.  : )

Ok, how's this....We mark the thread as "Mentored" when a resolution has been reached, and "Studying" if it has been open for too long without a resolution?

"unresolved" or "unmentored", not studying (because it has been studied but "unresolved" and now dates back a lot)
or "to be mentored" or "nobody knows"

Close. Very close.

Sorry about the "Last Edited" comment in your last post, VGR.
I didn't change anything. I was just checking to see if it was possible to "modify" the Subject line to indicate what answer worked for that question.

RESOLUTION

The main issue I am having is; different answers can solve similar seeming problems.
So besides marking the main Subject line to indicate the status of the Q., it would be helpful to mark the post that Did help, plus the ones that are also possible fixes.

On the other hand, just marking the main Subject might be enough to let people know Answer(s) are in there.

Then again....

and I just keep going round-n-round.  : /

Would that work?

Very funny!
That big RED Resolution almost make me wet myself.   : P

But that does the job. We can put a note with the descriptions of what the Terms mean, saying:

The post marked Resolution; may not be the only one for a given problem.

Point taken.  :-)