In a discussion titled “Limit post replies in a category?” under the Support category, Chris_S proposed restricting replies in support topics to only the original poster and moderators/staff, to prevent community members from muddying support requests with unhelpful or confusing responses. Falco suggested using PMs and Group Inboxes as a workaround, but Chris_S noted this would hide solutions from others with similar issues. pfaffman agreed that per-topic permissions don’t exist, suggesting either using group inboxes and later moving resolved topics to public categories, or “programming the humans” by moderating bad replies — a point carmalonso supported, noting inaccurate community replies can harm first-time users. pfaffman clarified his sarcasm around “helpful” replies, emphasizing moderation as the real solution. carmalonso affirmed their current use of PMs and groups for most support, but highlighted the value of controlling replies in public support topics to ensure accuracy. sam followed up, asking for the current status, to which Chris_S replied they now rely on increased moderation and clear user guidelines to flag or remove off-topic replies.
Imagine you have a support category. Is there a way to let anyone create a support topic but only allow the original posted and moderators/staff access to reply?
The problem we are running into is that users create a support request but the community muddys up the request with random posts in an effort to resolve it. Often times it confuses the original poster with so many responses.
Asking for a model where:
Everyone - see & create
Only the op + group x (mod, staff + selected users) can reply.
No. There’s no per-topic permissions. If you don’t want everyone to be able to reply to the original post, but want people to be able to see the final response, you can use the above “group inbox” solution and the move them to a category once you’ve got a solution you want public.
OR you can teach people in your community not to be helpful.
For some objective discussions, like user support, it does hinder the process if the community are providing inaccurate information.
Whilst they may be trying to helpful, in the case of user support as Chris mentioned in his original post, it may not appear helpful to a first-time poster asking a question to receive multiple answers (most of which not answering their question or adding any value to the discussion).
Agreed. I should have put “helpful” in quotes. My point was that the problem here is better solved by programming the humans by deleting their posts or otherwise encouraging not to provide bad information.
We frequently do this to help avoid misinformation - our forum is for a mobile app, we need to be careful with users requesting support so they get the best experience with their first point of contact
Being able to control who can reply would be beneficial for some objective categories, such as in this case. We already make extensive use of groups and PMs for handling a large percentage of our support (including email-based support), and it works a charm, it’s just the people that choose to request support publicly that may not be getting the most accurate information the first time around. Appreciate your input, Jay!
Nous gérons cela avec une modération accrue et des lignes directrices publiées pour les utilisateurs publiant dans la catégorie. Signalement et suppression rapides des réponses hors sujet.
