Q&A forum suggestion - Author's own replies do not get votes

[chilihead]

Suggestion: If the author of a question posts in his/her own question, the VOTE icons do not appear next to their post. They will be posting either discussion, dismissal of answers, or thanks for answering, type posts. They will not be answering themselves, as, they asked the question. The vote icons look wrong next to their own replies since they asked the question, a simple coding of not showing if the replier is the author would be great.

If they do happen to do research and answer their own question, then it really doesn't needs votes, as they figured it out.

Another way you could do it, is, whenever anyone replies, they check off it they are leaving an official answer or discussion (answer gets vote icons), but I feel that's a bit more complicated than is needs to be, and with proper forum rules and moderation, members only leave answers. But the author will regularly be replying as it is his/her question, so I suggest leaving the votes off of their replies. It looks cleaner and makes more sense.

Thanks!

[chilihead]

18 hours ago, chilihead said:

Suggestion: If the author of a question posts in his/her own question, the VOTE icons do not appear next to their post.

To clarify: Votes in author's replies do not appear for any user to see, not just the author. For the reasons above, but here is a nice solution: Use the "?" icon to signify it is the question asker.

See third post below:

• This way when you scroll, you know it's the person who asked the question.
• The circle with "?" is the same icon used as the forum marker for a question, just grey here.
• The circle shape is already used for best answer (as seen in post 1).
• Now, no one can vote "Thank yous", or "No that's not it" author responses (they can Like instead), and you can easily see it is them replying.
• The point of the system is other people answer your question. In the rare occurrence you answer it yourself, it can still be marked best answer, which would be the correct action anyway, not voting it up.

 Thanks

[Nathan Explosion]

What if the poser of the question then figures out the answer themselves, and thus provides the best answer?

[chilihead]

Then it can still be marked best answer.  It would not need votes. Admin or users clicks to mark best.

Much cleaner.

[Nathan Explosion]

Based on that though....none of the answers would need votes. A poster is a poster is a poster.

[chilihead]

The question asker already has the ability (admin setting) to mark any of the answers best even if they are wrong to others. So if they find the answer and mark their own post, or see another post with lower votes they feel is best, they can mark it. That actually can already be done. This does not change that. So votes don't always matter to the asker. It goes to the top, then, you see the votes in order.

The system is designed for the asker to receive answers, even though others benefit. I feel removing votes of his/her replies make a cleaner system. Could be admin setting.

[Nathan Explosion]

So basically.....the asker cannot receive votes on their own answer, but all other answerers can receive votes on their answers? Thus penalising a person who may actually have provided a good answer? Do the votes actually mean anything outside of the confines of the Q&A thread (do they count towards anything at all, like reputation?)

Yeah, it could be an admin setting...but it could also be a plugin too. Just seems to be a bit overkill, to be honest.

[chilihead]

I could be overthinking it, it's just 99% of the time the asker replies, he is replying to an answer with thanks or other, and then these posts often gets votes instead of likes which looks odd.

Maybe the answer is you (anyone) can reply to an answer that does not get votes, so there are two reply buttons. I thought that made it more complicated but it makes more sense and now seems simpler. 

One button says "Answer" next to it "Reply".

New suggestion, lol.

This discussion really helped, thanks.

I still like the question starter icon even if votes are below.