Guide: Discussions and Questions

Monsen

When starting a new topic here in this forum, you have the choice between creating a discussion or ask a question:

So, what are the differences between these?

Discussion

A discussion is just the regular forum topic, and what most the topics here in this forum are. This is basically the default choice, and it is always appropriate, there are really no situations where you should absolutely use a question over a discussion. In some cases, a question may be better, but a discussion is never a wrong choice. Use a discussion if you are unsure.

Question

A question is a special case of a discussion. The idea behind questions is that you can ask a question, and then select the best answer to that questions. This allows other users know that there is a solution to this question, and is helpful when new users stumble upon it, as they can immediately see what the solution is instead of reading through the entire thread in the hope that there is a solution in there.

Mostly, it behaves exactly as a discussion, but there are a couple of differences you need to be aware of

• Questions allow the poster to accept or reject any answers that people provide. This is done via the links that appear on the bottom of each answer. Your responses here will be shown to the other users of the forum. As the asker of the question, it is expected that you do take the time to at least accept one of the solution (provided there is a suitable one). You don't have to go around rejecting all the others, but if the answer is clearly wrong or misleading, you should reject it. Note that people do get points from accepted answers, so accepting a valid answer is an expected way to say "thank you" (Although you can still make a thank you comment if you want)

• Questions show up on the discussion list with a tag showing it's status. It will show either Question (when there are no answers, or all answers have been rejected), Answered (Somebody has provided an answer, but it hasn't been accepted or rejected) or Accepted Answer (The asker have accepted one of the answers). These tags is a visual indication to others if there is a question that might need their attention, or if you are looking for a solution, you can see if one has been provided yet.

• Accepted answers are shown at the top of the page, right below the questions. This means they are taken out of the natural comment order. This means that a question ideally should be as self-contained as possible, because an answer that says something like "Just replace X in Somebodys answer above with Y and it will work" will look weird, because when accepted, the comment they are referring to may even be on another page. It is possible to accept multiple answers though, so if someone gives a good answer, and then somebody gives a good clarification, both can be accepted. But I do recommend that people avoid referring to other posts when answering questions, or if they need to, use a proper quote containing all the relevant details from the post you are talking about.

Questions work best when they address a single concrete problem that can be answered in a single comment. They should expect a concrete answer that can be marked correct, so they should not be opinion-based like "which color scheme do you think look best for my map", those kind of questions are better used as a discussion. Questions of a very complicated nature that are bound to lead to many comments back and forth with follow-ups and clarifications are also best suited as a discussion.