Comment notification inquiry: how best to minimize number of overlapping forum posts?

Stormi_Backus

Howdy, 

I often have questions with a topic very similar to existing forum posts. I'd like to simply add my follow up question to an existing asked question but am wondering if anyone will get a notification about my comment?

If so, who? If, not - what's the best practice here? I'd hate to disseminate the same topic over multiple posts, but I also want to make sure that my question is actually being seen by the community. 

Thanks!

Stormi 

MichaelPascoe

Good question. If you comment on the previously posted question or discussion, others who posted on that discussion will get notified and the post will be bumped to the top of the forums category or general discussion list. This is a good approach, though your comment on their post may get overlooked.

I recommend creating a completely new question post and optionally giving links to the other posts for more details. This way everyone will see your post question has not been answered. Un-answered post questions stand out and will get faster responses than comments on old posts that have already been answered.

S1mon

If the thread is recent, and your question is related, it can make a lot of sense. 

Digging up really old threads and adding on to them may not always make much sense. Onshape is updated every three weeks. New functionality gets added to fix old pain points and bugs get fixed. There are definitely issues which fester for years which deserve attention, but make sure that they are still problems and not an issue with discovery, training and UX. It's sometimes inevitable that you'll think that something can't be done and then someone else points out functionality that you've missed. Try to search the help and forums carefully first and assume there's probably a way to solve the problem before complaining that Onshape can't do XYZ. Start by asking how to solve a problem, not why is this function missing.

I'm half tempted to automatically close really old posts, but it seems a little overly restrictive.

The one place where threads should really get closed is for improvement requests which have been implemented. If it turns out that Onshape's definition of success is different that the users, we can always create a new improvement request to cover the missing functionality, or file support tickets if there are bugs.

Stormi_Backus

@MichaelPascoe thank you for the clarification!

@S1mon I agree about the old forum posts. With the updates every three weeks, I sometimes find myself lost in the sauce looking at 2016 forum post that are soooooo far from being relevant to FeatureScript's present form. It would probably be two-three fulltime jobs to trim outdated posts though. Thank you for the posting guidance!

EvanReese

I agree with both of the above. If the reference post is not very new, ask the question in a new post, and link the other posts in your question. That way you have the best shot of yours being seen, and people will know you did your homework and still need help, and future people who find your question can get shortcuts to other relevant info.