Hello! This post continues the conversation in this series of blog posts:

• Forum Moderators Best Practices Part 1 – Behold the Forum Moderation Guide!!!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 2 – Propose an answer and then mark it 7 days later
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 3 – Are you marking a third-party solution as the answer? Use caution!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 4 – Ask the OPs to mark their own answers
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 5 – Mark other peoples’ answers as much as possible!!!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 6 – Let your Vote be Heard! (I wonder what it’s saying.)

 

We've been digging into one article in particular, where we (Microsoft TechNet/MSDN forum owners) hammered out some hard guidelines:

• Forum Moderation Guide: Managing Posts and Threads: Marking Answers

 

Let's look into the next guideline:

3. Use caution when marking a 3^rd-Party solution or link as the answer. We do not want to point people to an untested tool that could hack someone’s computer, but certainly a reference to a known OEM site to download a driver is acceptable. An example would be an answer that points users to a specific Dell driver on the Dell Web site.

Well, there you go. It's kind of self explanatory. People are peddling spam and viruses all the time. Or they innocently send someone to a site that phishes their computer.

Here are some questions for you (answer in the comments):

1. Have you seen folks answering with inappropriate 3rd party sites/tools? Got an example/link to the thread?
2. Are you seeing people mark these answers? (Even if it's me?)

 

Comment below and let us know!

 

Read all the related guidelines on TechNet Wiki here:

• Forum Moderation Guide: Managing Posts and Threads: Marking Answers

Read the next blog post in this series:

• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 4 – Ask the OPs to mark their own answers

 

May the Forums Be With You! (Don’t be a rogue one.)

– Jedi Ninja Ed

 

PS: What do you get when you combine an elephant with Darth Vader? An elevator.

 

 

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This post is part of a conversation in this series of blog posts:

• Forum Moderators Best Practices Part 1 – Behold the Forum Moderation Guide!!!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 2 – Propose an answer and then mark it 7 days later
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 3 – Are you marking a third-party solution as the answer? Use caution!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 4 – Ask the OPs to mark their own answers
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 5 – Mark other peoples’ answers as much as possible!!!
• Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 6 – Let your Vote be Heard! (I wonder what it’s saying.)