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

This post is part of 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 at the next guideline:

4. Ask the OP to mark answers (if it makes sense). If the OP returns and says thank you, but does not mark the answer, then first reply with a polite request for them to mark the answer. I use, “If your question is answered, please mark a post someone made as the answer.” And when you do that, if your post is the answer, then I’d ask someone else to make the “please mark a reply as the answer” request (otherwise it looks like you’re saying, “give me points by marking my answer”). This actually works most of the time (if they already thanked you, then they come back and mark it). It means that many times new OPs don't know about the marking answers feature.

So... what is the meaning of this?

Why should we care if the OP is the one who marks the answers?

Well, you actually get more points if the OP marks your answer (10 points instead of 5). Why? Because that's the goal. We want the OP to decide which answer is the true answer. Ultimately, that's the point. The OP (original poster or asker) is the client in this case. We want them to get their answer.

We want them to come back and decide. But ultimately, many OPs don't return. In which case, we propose what we think is the answer, and then we mark it 7 days later.

What do you think?

Do you think it's silly to have Recognition Points or even to bother marking answers?

Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 4 – Ask the OPs to mark the answers on their question

Forum Moderation Best Practices Part 4 – Ask the OPs to mark the answers on their question

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