Closed questions without clear answers

shao3m
shao3m Posts: 33 ✭✭

Hey Admins, Mods,

I don't really know who to contact, and if this is out of place, please delete and contact me privately, however, I do feel like it would be a good discussion to have in the open (despite it not being up to me), since the topic is about transparency in a way.

So, basically, I've spent the past half-hour reading through the 'My Mobile' section, reading many questions and all the answers, and in about half of them, I wanted to either correct something mentioned my someone else that was incorrect (i.e. the incorrect 'fact' that Canada + USA coverage only includes calling from Canada to US), or wanting to add a suggestion (in one thread, a user was asking about constant network disconnects after disconnecting from WiFi (my suggestion was to enable 'leave mobile data on' [one of the suggestions was to disable it, however it is disabled by default, and I felt enabling it could actually help the situation]).

These are just two examples of questions (I didn't mention the first question) that were left unanswered before the threads were locked. A lot of the suggestions are simply copy and paste responses on how to contact support, despite this community being potentially a much better option (leaving support free to actually deal with account issues), and allowing the community to be a community, and a helpful one at that.

I cannot be the only one who has wanted to answer a question, but the thread was locked. I've resorted to sending unsolicited private messages to help members who had their threads locked before they got a solution, or said: "Thanks! That fixed it!"

Thank you for taking the time to read this, taking to time to answer why this is the case, and whether or not you would be open to an open discussion about whether this is what is best for the community.


Regards,

Shao

Best Answer

  • Jack_Assert
    Jack_Assert Posts: 7 ✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Maybe there is a happy medium between zero days and five years.

    There should be at least a mechanism to flag an incorrect answer that eventually gets it corrected or removed.

Answers

  • Emporium
    Emporium Posts: 2,305 ✭✭

    Hi @shao3m

    I can understand that it can be frustrating. And finding a question which you wanted to ask, but there is no real answer on how it was resolved before it being locked.

    However, on the flip side, there used to be many threads that were left open, and some people have no concept on how a forum works and would revive 3 and 5 year old threads, and just asking their own questions in thesame threads. I think after 3 years, if you have a similar question which was not answered, you are better off starting your own question, and that way you can even select the best answer so people down the line know what helped.

    There is no perfect solution, but if you leave EVERY thread unlocked, it would be a free for all :)

  • shao3m
    shao3m Posts: 33 ✭✭
    edited February 2022

    Totally agree, but that's a pretty extreme example. The examples of the threads I wanted to reply to were from February 17th. Do you think maybe there could be a discussion on whether or not the threads could be left open for a month or so?