Be able to close a resolved/outdated topic to new posts

Yes, let's discuss. Obviously, I'm in favor of having the option to close old threads to new posts, but leaving it available for people to read. The main problems we have are: new users topping really old topics for resolved problems or implemented ideas without adding to the discussion, or users posting their new problem in a thread for similar but fixed problem.

We would rather leave these topics available than to remove them. And burying doesn't seem to work because buried topics get resurrected sometimes, too.

Perhaps our upcoming resolution feature could incorporate this. We could ask the customer to weigh in and mark their problem as solved. Perhaps part of that could be "closing" a topic to new replies when it is resolved in this way.

Continuing to take a serious look at Get Satisfaction; its openness allows for other customers to respond to a question or support request. Normally that's fine and great for a discussion of feature requests. But I can envision situations where well meaning customers would not be qualified to provide an answer and may confuse the situation by trying to help. Is there a way to, hate to say it, "close" a post so that not just anyone can reply to it except an "offcial rep"? And if so, does the capability exist in the $19/mo plan? Thanks.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Can a post be closed to all but official reps?.

I like this idea of leaving it open to official reps, but otherwise having the option of closing topics to new post.

By merging my question with someone else's, the discussion veired away from my question causing me time to sort out if an answer is applicable to my question or not. I'll rephrase: Can I "close" a thread TO all but certain indivduals, with such person/s being qualified to address the support need of the post? In other words, only allow my "Official Reps" to respond, not everyone else as well.

I have changed the topic status from Under Consideration to Planned. It is clear that a close option (that applies to the general public, though not necessarily moderators) is important. I don't have an ETA as of now, but will update when I can.

I started using GetSatisfaction recently, but I quickly realized that I need the option to close thread. This is what happens: someone posts about a problem, I reply and fix it, user is happy. A week later, someone else has a different problem but rather than starting a new thread, they reply to the existing one. This is bad is many ways because it mixes many issues in the same thread and it makes it really hard to search for threads. Here is a suggestion:

1. Allow closing threads by the admin.
2. Automatically close threads older than, say, a month.
3. If a thread is marked as "answered", then when a new user wants to reply show them a message that says something along the lines of

"this thread is answered, so you might want to consider starting a new thread. But if you're sure you're talking about the same topic then click here to continue posting."

This will encourage users to think first and only reply if it's related to the topic.

I would also like to see this feature.

Topics (in particular, problems) that are solved/closed just take up space and make our GS space seem too busy. If something happens again, then a new topic can be opened, but commenting on old topics is just messy.

Hi Folks.
In my post of 5 months I ago I was asking if a thread could be closed TO certain individuals who would be considered "employees" on the basis that they may not be qualified to speak on behalf of the GS account holder for a particular subject. I was NOT suggesting that a thread be closable, which is what it appears this thread reverted to. In fact, I don't feel that any thread should be closed on the basis that it is a living conversation that may take months or evern years to mature. Just because the GS account holder feels the thread's topic is answered, does not mean the original poster does - to that person it may be insulting to close a thread, similar to saying "I answered your question, now shut up". But more importantly, great ideas can take months or years to become visible, so it can be important to allow a conversation to continue for as long as it needs within the context of the thread's topic. In this thread however, it seems as if it veered away from my question (or suggestion) of being able to close a thread TO selected individuals being able to post to it as an employee.

Good points Jeremy. But keep in mind that a company's threads also serve as unstructured help topics. In an ideal world, a company would want a thread topic to be "talked out" as much as possible since a) that increases the keywords which serve a topic search which helps build thorough help coverage and b) it nurtures the discovery of ways to improve one's products and services. I'm not speaking for GS, but they have taken forum technology and applied it as sort of help desk, thereby utilizing the conversational nature of forums in the hopes exploiting open communication to encourage ideas to improve a company's products or services. A "support ticket" system is more condusive to a report it + fix it + close it scenario which, of course, isn't intended primarily as a customer relationship building mechanism, but rather a customer service system. Many old-school companies don't want their customers talking as they try to maintain the mystic that all is perfect (rare in reality). Other companies understand that people talk anyway, so they encourage talking in a venue that the company can, at the very least, participate in. So, it all depends on what a company wants - open communication with its benefits (and risks) or a report it + fix it + close it system for problem correction, or perhaps both.

Keep in mind Jeremy that user implemented searching will effectively filter out the meaningless. That is to say that the user won't see what they don't search for, unless they are browsing, in which case that's their own time to kill. But what is meaningless? What your company may feel is irrelavent, may be of some value to someone someday. As such, we need to be careful that we don't subject what we think is valuable or not onto others (the exception is socially objectionable material). Human conversations are based on a certain freedom, and such freedom doesn't fully respect structure. As such, if you are to craft (structure) anything out of conversation it is best to repurpose the conversations after they have occurred and to do so in an environment external to the conversation venue (the forum in this case). To try to preeen conversations while they occur is opposed to the point of open communication and you may find yourself inadvertently suggesting that some conversation is meaningless - a sure way to supress open communication because very few people think their opinion is meaningless when they decide to express it. The safer route is to take the material and repurpose it external to the conversation venue and avoid attempting to control it within the venue. The more conversations are controlled the more out of control they become.

So it's been 6 months since this topic was opened. Anyone from GetSatisfaction willing to comment on the status of this?

I was just about to comment about this when your comment got posted, Waleed. This is still planned, and here are my thoughts on the ideas discussed above:

1. "Archive" should be used liberally by moderators for topics that are not helpful to other users for one reason or another (e.g. they've been resolved). This tool removes topics from our search results, Google search, featured topic lists, and other activity feeds (note: currently archived topics fade off activity streams, they don't disappear immediately). This addresses the issue of signal-to-noise ratio when used well.

2. "Resolved topics": we plan on providing more explicit ways for authors of topics to express that the issue was resolved for them, and for answers to be highlighted more easily. While we may suggest that users start a new topic in these cases, resolution will not automatically close topics to new posts

3. "Close" topic: we agree that there are use cases where closing an issue to new topics makes sense. For instance, we've seen ourselves that people will too often append an out-of-date problem thread with a report of a new problem, and this is clearly not helpful. There are good reasons why a community may opt to never use such a tool, but we prefer to trust the judgement of the community managers to make this call themselves.

4. "Close topic to certain users, or official reps only": we don't have plans for this currently. It's an interesting use case, but so far is not one that we're focused on.

Items 2 and 3 are really important to us, and are part of initiatives we have planned over the coming few quarters. In the meantime, the archive tool should be a good stop-gap measure.

As always, thanks for the very thoughtful input.

Food for thought for the folks at GetSatisfaction - if you folks implement methods to archive, set as resolved or close topics, you move your offering away from open communication toward controlled communication. For example, Maiko shared his thought on this subject 6 months ago. If this thread were tagged as archived, resolved or closed 6, 5 or 4 months ago, we would not be discussing this issue now and many of the thoughts and opinions on this topic would not have been shared. Archiving and closing is analogous to saying "we don't want to discuss it further", not a position that goes over nicely in real life (try that with a spouse). Let 'em talk, for as long as they want - that's how discoveries are made. On the Net, no conversation is ever really done. GS, implementation of such controls damages your offering, in my opinion of course.

Pat,
this concern you've expressed is exactly why we've avoided it to date. However, there's a natural tension between the quality of the information (which becomes more difficult as a community scales) and lack of community management tools. We crossed this rubicon long ago when we allowed for moderator removal of topics. However, when we did that we created a changelog and dispute mechanism that recorded all changes. This provides community managers the ability to curate a high signal to noise ratio, while providing transparency to all users in the use of the management tools.

In the case of closing a topic, a user may still create a new topic, so they aren't being silenced necessarily. It is more a function of organizing content in effective ways, and adjusting to how people use the site. The use case here is not about stopping discussing on a suggested idea (that would be rare, I'd think), and more about avoiding the confusion of new issues with fully resolved old ones.

One offset to your concern on a 'close' feature, though, could be to a.) prompt users to create a new topic where the reply box is, and b.) create a link to the new topic on the old topic. These could be listed as "related topics." This way there's still continuity between the concepts.

Finally, I'll just say that there are many places where people can say whatever they want, with no structure or accountability at all. We see Get Satisfaction's place as helping to create more useful and outcome-oriented community interaction, with our continued commitment to a balanced approach for both customers and organizations.

Very well stated Thor - you express well that GS has given this careful thought.

Let me clarify that while shutting down communciation may not be what's intended, it may be perceived that way by the user(s) who take interest in the thread that's archived or closed, etc. - even if they could restart the conversation in a new thread. Such features as archiving and closing need to be skillfully handled by GS subscribers who must avoid getting into the control of conversations to suit their own purposes, as honorable as such purposes may be. As business owners, we natrually want good things said about our products and services. If we give in to the real temptation to "control" a conversation because it doesn't fit neatly into our idea of a "valuable" or "continuing" conversation, or we're getting beat up, it's easy enough to close a thread. While this isn't GS's problem, by making such capabilities available, GS contributes to moving away from open conversations, simply by enabling such control. If the customers of GS mishandle such funtionality, GS may eventually have to back away from calling the venue an open community.

On another thought, GS needs to use caution that it doesn't too readlity adopt forum functionality, given that the GS offering is based on forum technology. I feel it's important that GS not loose sight of its rather narrow scope of customer support and veer into the more loosely defined scope of forums which, understandably, may not particpate in or claim to be open communities.