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Off-Topic Posts: What To Do With Them

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Last Edited: 4/10/2007 

There has been much discussion on what to do with off-topic posts, especially in the moderators forum.  I've gotten a request to make an executive decision and stick with it, for here on forth, here is the official Microsoft guidance on how to deal with off-topic posts in the forums:

  1. If the question is simply in the wrong forum, move the post to the correct forum.
  2. If the question could be answered in the newsgroups, reply to the thread with a link to the newsgroup where the question will be answered.
  3. Move the thread to the new "Off-Topic Posts" forum:  https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1494&SiteID=1
  4. If you don't know the appropriate newsgroup or forum but you're sure it needs to be moved, move the post to the "Where's the Forum For?" forum:  https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=881&SiteID=1 

This method will ensure that:

  • Search results do not become polluted with "answered" questions that aren't actually answered.
  • Reputation and answer rankings are not skewed by housekeeping/answering off-topic posts.
  • People who asked off-topic questions will still be able to view the reply to their questions.  (When a post is deleted, it's no longer visible.)

It is no longer necessary to mark off-topic replies as answers. Please do not do it anymore.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2007
    Good solution, Joe. I can't do it with the OneCare forums, though, as it doesn't appear in my "move to" list. I suspect that it because they are part of the MSDN forum structure, although apart. -steve

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2007
    That seems like an excellent policy.  I assume the /reply with the correct newgroup/forum if known/ still applies when moving to "Off-Topic Posts"

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2007
    And with all due respect, you have just made the ABSOLUTE WRONG decision in regards with what to do with the posts. The reason for this is that you are now going to cannibalize certain groups.  A perfect example is the C# group.  Take the following thread, titled "whats wrong with dropDown.Size.Width = 127;?", located at: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1442012&SiteID=1 The group is: MSDN Forums » Visual C# » Visual C# General Technically, this is an off-topic thread.  It should be moved to the following group: MSDN Forums » Windows Forms » Windows Forms General   Just looking at the initial page in the Visual C# general group, there is not one post that deals specifically with C#.  They are all framework questions. Going to the VB group, I see the same thing. So what does this mean for you? First, you need to specify for EACH INDIVIDUAL GROUP what is and what is not an "off-topic" post.  Without that, it's going to be a subjective decision, and you are going to have moderators stepping over each other to move posts to the correct group.  Some moderators are going to move posts to a group, where the moderators of that group might not agree, etc, etc.  There will probably be agreement in most cases of where posts should go, but there will be a flare up in some cases. Second, you just posted that you have reached the one millionth post.  This took place over a few years right?  You are going to have to go back historically and move the threads to the appropriate forums.  Assuming that not all of the threads now are in the correct forums (because of the first point that I brought up), it's going to take you at least a few years to be able to say that at least 50% of the post in the forums are on-topic (assuming you are maintain the rate at which posts and moderators are coming in).

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2007
    Oh, and one other thing.  The problem with moderators now is that they are moderators across the whole site.  You can have an ASP.NET guy move a C# thread to the VB thread. Because of this, you really need to limit moderators privileges to a certain forum.  Then, they can only mark as answer, and move threads from their forum. Now, when a moderator moves a thread from their forum, that thread is not moved immediately.  Until the moderator from the forum that the thread is being moved to signs off on the move, it can't be moved. So this adds one more privilege to a moderator of a forums, is to accept threads that are being moved from one forum to their forum.

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2007
    Nick is bringing up the "General" forum problem.  As long as there's "General" forums it makes it really hard to define what is off or on topic.