Removing self-solutions

I’ve had a lot of problems that I’ve had to look up. All too often, only a couple of other people have had the same problem. Typically it either goes unsolved, or the person replies ‘I fixed it, never mind.’ What? What am I supposed to do now? If you see someone who says they fixed their problem, catch them and tell them to share their solution and mark it, it makes searching for help easier down the road.
I agree with Kiansjet’s line of thinking though - if solution count matters, then it shouldn’t count for your own solutions.

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I renamed the thread title to self-solutions, because that is a better way to describe this.


As stated above, it is possible for the OP to find the solution themselves. It happens a lot on the forum and on other forums like Stack Overflow. Even I have done this myself on the forum before.

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/does-microsoft-mr-work-on-roblox/74624

If something is misusing this, the DevRel/DevEng group should be messaged on the forum. Incorrectly marking solutions does make it harder to see solutions when searching for the same problem.

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They just wanna “rank up” i guess. Unless they have found the solution to the problem themself i see no benefit in doing that, but hey, there are a lot of different people here.

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As far as I know, solutions contribute nothing to your promotion for Regular. They’re just a count on your profile and nothing else.

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This is a question that should be asked on the Discourse Meta site, not here. The solution plugin is native to Discourse so their change to it would also be reflected here.

Solutions are nothing but a number. Try not to let this get to you. Self-solutions are often very helpful in cases where you actually solve your own problem - I’ve had to do this several times. If I don’t mark myself, other developers don’t know where to look if they have the same issue as me and want to see if I actually resolved the issue at hand or not. Removing them would be fairly counterproductive.

In the case of a self-solution that doesn’t actually solve the problem, there’s a better fit or the marked solution is inappropriate, you can message Community Sages to ask for a proper solution to be marked (must link the proper solution) or flag the thread for moderation to handle.

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I don’t see an issue with having self solutions. I created a topic a while back and needed help from others. Although those who replied did not directly solve my problem, their tips helped me figure out how to.

Solving your own problem is great, and I don’t see an issue with self-solutions. They’re just there to help people know that you achieved the goal you set when you post a topic.

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What you linked is a perfect example of a correct self-solution. You credited those who helped you. However, I think the primary issue here is the worry of users self-solving just to rack up their solution count, even though this doesn’t contribute to forum rank and afaik isn’t considered a measure of clout on the devforum.

Well. People just enjoy seeing big numbers on their profile.
I see nothing wrong with it if it doesn’t affect the site.

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I think you should be able to mark yourself as a solution, as in many cases, people on the forum give an answer, it’s not quite correct, but then the author fixes it and says what he did, marking it as the solution because it is.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter to me, mostly because it shows that you solved your own issue. However I do see how people can abuse this feature.

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I wouldn’t go for it. What if the user figured the thing out themselves and wanted the solution up so other developers with the same problem can see the thread and figure it out. It just helps more people out in the end to keep self solutions.

I know this post was made because of people solving their own post to rank up, but who cares all that much?

Bad idea – the forum is a public resource, having users delete their topics after finding a solution goes against that goal.

That is what the solution button is for


Self-solutions aren’t really a problem. I’ve needed them too for some posts in #forum-feedback where I request a change, it gets implemented, but the people behind it don’t reply, so once I notice it myslef i reply to it, and mark as solution since it’s solved. I think you can report someone if they do it maliciously, since it goes against global rule 8.3

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When I mean “solved” it would be like a button specific to the post itself. I forgot to say that
Maybe it would be locked, after a certain amount of time? Maybe… I don’t know. thats for roblox to decide i guess

Why would there be 2 buttons that do the same exact thing, just let users self-solution. And why would it be locked? Locking prevents editing.

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At least make self-solutions not give them solutions in their own profile. It doesn’t make sense. You didn’t help anyone to get a solution in that case.

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That is not possible, a solution is still a solution

You helped yourself though? Not sure what you mean.

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Solutions are reputation (especially for you lel).

They’re how much you’re involved in the dev forum, and how much you decide to help others.
When you give yourself a solution, you didn’t NEED help at all in that post.
That’s why self-solutions should not be COUNTED on their profile. If you had 8 solutions, and you gave yourself one, that would not count. It would still be 8.

You needed it at first, but eventually you found a solution. Therefore, you helped yourself.

they should since it in a way can show your ability to find issues

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I don’t think they are. I think your reputation is your reputation. I don’t look at people differently based on their solution count - that’s not even shown to me unless I look at their profile - I look at them based on my past experiences with them on the Devforum. If I have seen a user before posting helpful tutorials or asking really good questions, I will recognize that more than their solution count.

Well not particularly. What if the user does not spend too much time in #help-and-feedback and instead ops for the more discussion based categories or whatever - I think they are considered “involved” in the dev forum. If anything, replies/topics made would really be considered how much you’re involved with the forum because they are your interactions with people on the forum, not solutions (not implying that this should ever be considered as a unit of measurement - just making a point of how it’s absurd to try to qualify a user’s activity on the forum with such an arbitrary measurement).

Have you never had a problem in which you didn’t think you could figure it out, nobody else could help you, and then maybe you find the solution on a different website or maybe you think of the solution much later? You DID need help, but you found the solution elsewhere at a different time.

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Quite a bump, but I disagree with your opinion.

If you have asked a question or asked people how to solve a problem you are encountering in DevForum, and you eventually came up with a solution, marking it would help others who are also having the same problem.

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