Site related suggestion

[Big Dave]

Hey Neil and all other users here,   (long post warning!)

In my discussions with dpa_photo, he had a very good suggestion.    A "Pay for Tech" tech support forum.

There are entire websites that do similar things for money paid by the askers to the answerers.  (Ex: I found this site using Google and do not back them in any way: http://www.justanswer.com/questions/3yppu-the-automatic-focus-on-my-canon-rebel-xti-will-not-focus-and - this is a stupid example that we should already know the answer to, but just goes to show you there are idiots out there that need their questions answered - not us of course, our questions are more intelligent :-) )

This could be done here in a special paid section, where a group of dedicated (registered) Techs could monitor, and if they pick the question, they would have to follow through and help, until answered completely before they would get paid (to the satisfaction of the asker - with limits - they can't keep adding to the original question and have it drag on forever).  

There could be a starting amt (say 5 credits - value to be determined by all mini-lab help users) and credits could be bought by paypal.   Credits would be deducted when the question is asked.  Once the question has been answered and the resolution posted, the Tech answering would then get "most" of the credits for answering the question, which they could then redeem for cash (or just get money deposited to their paypal acct as soon as the original poster flags the question as answered) and a small "handling" fee (or percent) goes to pay for the Mini-Lab Help web site.  Then with all the extra money that Neil gets, he can fly ALL OF US to London for a festive New Years party at HIS house  ;D

No one would be forced to use the "Pay for Tech" section and could just as easily use the "regular" forum section, but if they wanted help until resolved, they could resort to using it, and be guaranteed a Tech will help them until resolved -- also with a rating system for the tech's assistance level.

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similar vein:

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For every "Help" related topic, can you flag it as a "new" question ?  

Then as the topic is posted to, give the original poster (or an admin) the ability to "close" the topic and post the resolution to the original problem ?   Or if it's still "open".

Kind of like a "trouble ticket" system.  Ticket comes in, tech works on the ticket to try to find a resolution, then once it's been "fixed", the original poster can come back and tell us what the fix was, then "close" the topic.   Each topic could have several different states as the topic is replied to:  [ Open, Waiting on Parts, Still Open, Closed with answer, Closed No answer, and possibly a few others (maybe) ]

This will also help others as the solutions to the problems are available right there.

A SIMPLE example of this can be seen here: http://www.365-hosting.net/forum/viewforum.php?forum_id=6

(They're my web site hosting company -- free, and pretty cool bunch of guys - they recently started implementing this type of solution about a month ago so the admins would know which posts has and hasn't been completed yet)

What do you guys think ?

[dpa_photo]

Dave,

Thank you for taking the time to summarize our discussion.  To add my comment to it, one of the biggest problem that I see in this site is the resolution of posted problems.  I normally go back to complete the posted problem with a final resolution so that others can be benefited in the future, but most of the threads that I experienced are without resolution comment after the problem is posted.  I have posted questions that no one provided answers or solutions.  If we can find ways to enhance these two areas, it will make this wonderful site even better.  Please don't be a bystander, provide your comment if you have benefited from this website.  It is free to participate and the return is invaluable.

Thank you for your time.

[NeilT]

Thanks for getting this down into one thread  

I have a number of things that I am workking on for the next 2 weeks, and will revisit these ideas, once I have caught up with things.

[YEP]

@ Neil !!

Actually it should be a sub-area so we can discuss different aspects in parallel threads, else we just end up  having to many suggestions/talks in the same thread and that usually confuse discussions quite often.

I miss the ablility to "close" a thread by adding [solved] to the subjet which would be an indicator for the quality/level of information inside the thread ;-)

in progress

or solution to a problem-space you look for !!

[NeilT]

Just a quick update, I am now working on suggestions that have been sent in, and soon will launch a sister site that I hope will implement many of the comments and suggestions that have been sent in.