AskMe Followups?

December 30, 2005 7:56 PM

ponyrequest: was thinking, how about some sort of followup feature to askme? there are some questions that a few weeks after they are asked, i wonder...what ever happened? (mi)
posted by ShawnString to feature requests at 7:56 PM (12 comments total)

maybe have some thing that the user could flag a fowllow up comment...maybe even have something on the mian ask me page, with new followups? just a thought
posted by ShawnString at 7:57 PM on December 30, 2005

I could do this. How about a checkbox below the comment form that says:

[ ] mark this as my final follow-up summary and close thread


better/shorter language suggestions are welcome, and it wouldn't have to close threads, but it'd be kind of cool if a six-months later followup to someone looking for love/a puppy/a new bathtub could post their summary and we could have a page of all answered, completed, and summarized questions.
posted by mathowie at 8:16 PM on December 30, 2005 [1 favorite]

yea....exactly...there have been times that i have posted questions that a few weeks later, came up with answers/soultions and would add to my orginal question but i know no one would see it
posted by ShawnString at 8:26 PM on December 30, 2005

Yes, yes, yes, this would be very cool. It would also be great to be able to view threads that have recently added such "closure" comments added.

Hey, maybe "closure" is a good term to use, somehow?
posted by alms at 9:13 PM on December 30, 2005

[ ] she left me and the dog keeps looking at me funny. thanks fuckers.
posted by yerfatma at 9:23 PM on December 30, 2005

Maybe throw a minimum time-to-closure on that, though. Can't close it in less than a week, maybe.
posted by cortex at 11:38 PM on December 30, 2005

How would you handle closure of AskMe threads where the OP was anonymous?
posted by Fat Guy at 3:44 AM on December 31, 2005

This would be good, but useless without a list of "recent closures", as alms suggested.
posted by Lotto at 4:25 AM on December 31, 2005

Whether we set up a mechanism for flagging "final answers" or not, we are still at the mercy of the asker, who many times, simply does not bother to follow up (for whatever reason of their own). If having this note on the comment box would encourage people to remember, "Hey, I should follow up on this," I'm certainly for it, but I dunno...I think it might also be useful to have some sort of "remind the asker" mechanism when they ask a question but don't follow up or mark an answer as best.

I'd also vote against closing the threads, just for the occasional possibility of someone coming across an older thread and having something to add to it that hadn't been thought of in its original run. That might just be me, though.
posted by Gator at 7:16 AM on December 31, 2005

It is a great idea, I was about to suggest the same thing. This will beat anything Google or Yahoo can offer.

Few points:
- do not use "follow up", use closure/resolve (or something similar); "follow up" could also mean more info provided in order to clarify the question. If you use "follow-up", at least define it clearly.
- do no close the thread, allow multiple "closures", 6 months is a long period
- different background (dark green)?
- use dhartung's suggestion, a list on the right hand side, updated automatically when the check-box is used. A direct link to the last "closure" comment might be useful.
- add a warning, to prevent abuse (a "closure" is attention grabber)
- use this as a test bed for follow-up on MeFi.
- put Gator's reminder on user's page?
posted by MzB at 7:33 AM on December 31, 2005

Gator writes "That might just be me, though."

I often persue the archives even months back, now that Matt has extended the open time you can even add comments back in the dim mists of history.
posted by Mitheral at 7:38 AM on December 31, 2005

This is an example of why the closing of threads shouldn't be tied to marking a Best Answer. As an open thread it might now lead to answers to the follow-up question, what are some similar books?
posted by geekyguy at 5:01 PM on January 1, 2006