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I make this suggestion because it's ambiguous to me. When I google/search for answers on SO, I've seen others with (solved) or (fixed) in their titles and navigated to those before others in the results. Why? Because it's a visual cue on google that you otherwise don't get when looking over SO results on google.

I just received a comment from someone after editing my posts' title (Getting Git Hub Comments) to say (solved). Now, I figured I would do so as I had just solved three of my questions in short order. Beyond that, when I went to update the title via my profile, one of my older questions, from march this year also has a (solved) in it.

So that user edited/commented on my post also edited the others that I had just modified by removing the (solved) that I'd just added. No big deal, the user let me know why he decided to edit my posts. But he didn't change the old one. So I have a simple suggestion - just add a quick note into the FAQ about the "answer" system and how it takes priority over anything in the title.

I think we could add it into the FAQ under this section:

https://stackoverflow.com/faq#signatures

Something like, "Remember, the 'mark as answer' system informs viewers if the question is answered, not '(solved)' in the title."

Or something more general, "Only marking a response as correct is needed to inform viewers that your question has been solved."

And the sidebar here is hopefully to find a way to improve our SO google results to show the searcher that the question they're looking at has an accepted answer, versus one that does not!

Screenshot to clarify: enter image description here

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  • You don't think that this is already adequately covered here on Meta? Or that the user didn't explain the problem satisfactorily? I'm not generally in favor of adding point solutions to the FAQ; if we included every possible way people can screw up a post, the FAQ would be larger than Wikipedia.
    – user102937
    Jun 5, 2012 at 21:28
  • Might mentioning that it's possible to edit a title to include [solved] to a title mean that more people might do it (bad)? SO as a whole is generally very quick at editing out the new ones, as you've noted, though some of the older ones may still be hanging around.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Jun 5, 2012 at 21:29
  • Indeed! Streisand Effect is not something I considered. Just drawing attention to it may very well increase the number of times it occurs. Perhaps. I still think something is needed here. I very rarely search SO itself, instead use google (and relevant questions to my keywords almost always come up) but I can't tell which questions have been marked as answered correctly without loading each page. Is there something separate we could do there, rather than the FAQ problem (just table that, for now, as I can see it won't be a good solution)?
    – Davek804
    Jun 5, 2012 at 21:38
  • See also Stack Overflow is not in need of your SEO skills.
    – user102937
    Jun 6, 2012 at 1:05
  • I don't believe that directly addresses the issue that I highlighted. If you would like to speak to my issue, I'd be more than glad to listen. I think the problem here is not SEO. The problem is that the person searching can't tell in advance if the question is answered correctly or not, without loading each page. Is that an incorrect statement?
    – Davek804
    Jun 6, 2012 at 2:28

1 Answer 1

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Every list of questions (including search results) is color-coded to indicate that an answer has been accepted:

enter image description here

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  • As I mentioned, I am referring to a Google result. You must have missed that in my original post as well in the short comments? I have edited in a helpful screenshot to illuminate what I referred to.
    – Davek804
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:07
  • How does any Google searcher ever know that what they click on is going to solve their problem, whether it's a Stack Overflow question, a blog post, or an MSDN article? That the OP accepted an answer to a Stack Overflow question is certainly no guarantee of that.
    – user102937
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:11
  • Indeed it is not. And I am cool with you saying that you do not see the merit in my point. However, I am making the point as I think this is something that would be useful to me, as a user and contributor to SO. I would like to be able to google for SO questions related to my issue, and prioritize the ones I wish to look at based on a) number of answers; b) if there's an accepted answer. So, no, the searcher will not know just their problem will be fixed just b/c there's a marked answer; however, it may very well increase their odds of seeing pertinent information.
    – Davek804
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:18
  • And at the moment, I don't see a superior way of doing it than having something in the title. But I recognize that is against the FAQ, essentially. As such, I've come to meta to have this conversation. Everything seems to be entirely in order - I'm going to assume the diamond next to your name means that you get to decide things, and the best I can do is lay out a)the issue b)why it's an issue c)the fact that I think the issue could use some sort of solution.
    – Davek804
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:20
  • I don't set policy; I just enforce it. That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion, though. :)
    – user102937
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:22
  • Well, let's hope the group of policy makers take a look at this and have the chance to take a look at the issue I've presented. I don't suggest that I have the solution (I like the fact that google lists how many answers, would it be possible to highlight that one is accepted?) but hopefully highlighting the issue is of some import and usefulness.
    – Davek804
    Jun 6, 2012 at 3:24

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