Those beautiful green checkboxes seduced us from the very beginning. We eagerly implemented them, showed them off to all our friends, wrote poetry and ballads about them, and even exposed the accepted solutions right there on the topic lists. "Look what we have. We have solutions." But we quickly began backtracking, and we're about to rip the feature out altogether (or at least make it less glamorous.) Here's how the backtracking went down: We pulled it out of the topic list because it let the user see the "accepted solution" without first understanding the context - which is often necessary. We removed the ability for authors to accept solutions because they were being doofuses. Excited to paint the forum green, they'd accept the first thing that seemed like a solution, but later, SME's would chime in with BETTER solutions, which weren't being maintained. So then we gave SME's control of the lustrous green checkboxes because duh they're the experts. But SME's became confused. Not only could they identify solutions... they could also identify partially proper solutions AND context-dependent solutions. That's when Tuesday's dinner got weird. 3 of our core team members (myself and 2 others) were dining at an Italian steakhouse in Chicago Tuesday night. Prior to food & drinks, Alex proposed something radical: "Now I've been thinking... hear me out...this is just an idea......" "...If we killed it, would we miss it?" *except actual high-fiving b/c it's not 2020 anymore The 3 of us got overly excited for such a restaurant as we dreamed of a future without the stupid green checkboxes. Questions. Are discussions PEZ dispensers for mindless, quick fixes? Or vessels of knowledge and understanding?. Are "accepted solutions" akin to giving a man a fish, and the discussion+context similar to teaching him how to fish? Can a superhero truly be understood without the villain & context being understood first? Perhaps the answers differ per community. . Practical Matters. We are starting to realize that (for us) The green checkboxes are so dazzling that they distract from the replies that prompted and scoped them. The solution is often made up of partial solutions from multiple experts each providing insight from their areas of expertise. So, we're brainstorming ways to remove/reduce this feature. 1st draft of plans: Remove the "Accepted Solution" indicator from the topic lists Still allow it on replies, but turn it into a green star or something - maybe with the hover text "The OP or a SME has marked this as a helpful response." Implement SME badges beside their usernames, & slim down Level2+ replies (see StackOverflow) so SME's can chime in with clarifications or affirmations. . I'm not against the Accepted Solutions feature; it just doesn't seem right for us. Has anyone else found themselves with a similar predicament? Do any of you feel the same predicament now? Has anyone found effective ways of solving this problem?
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