Why do many replies include “please mark as accepted solution” so often?

[ShreneekU]

Hi everyone,

I completely understand (and support) marking answers as an Accepted Solution when they truly solve the issue - it helps future readers a lot.

But I have noticed that in many threads, almost every second or third comment includes a line like: "Please like and mark as accepted solution / close the thread", sometimes even when the reply is just one word (e.g., "D").

I also have not really seen this phrasing used so frequently in other tech communities (for example Salesforce, Python, etc.), so I wanted to understand why it is so common here.

No offense at all - I am genuinely curious:

1. Is this something the community encourages (guidelines/moderation)?

2. Or is it mainly because of points/badges/ranking (MVP/Patron levels)?

3. What is considered best practice/etiquette here?

Thanks for clarifying!

[AndersBGS]

Hi @ShreneekU ,

Basically there are several reasons into this, but the two most common are as follow:

1. If you mark an answer as accepted solution, other community members will be able to see that the question has been answered, and maybe utilize the answer as a solution to an similar question they have themself.
2. Gamification. As you might have noticed, you can increase in rank on the community based on accepted solutions and good provided answers.

[Simon Hendery]

My opinion: if someone takes time and effort to answer a unique question in a useful way (not just cutting and pasting from ChatGPT), it's common courtesy to acknowledge that with a helpful/accepted solution response. It also helps others who might have the same question.

What I don't like is the gamification-obsessed people who bug people about it. Here's an example from a while back. One person's contribution to the community on a single day:

 

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @ShreneekU 

https://www.servicenow.com/community/in-other-news/important-updates-to-the-servicenow-community-cod...

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A few of my thoughts:

• Every record has a lifecycle, and the same applies here. A question gets opened, must be closed, and accepted as a solution — that is the final state. As community members, people put in effort to help others, so they maintained this line in their replies. It was being used earlier but I’ve removed it now.

• Yes, accepted answers counted as points to help move users on the leaderboard. However, the leaderboard between leaders has been stopped; now only the overall leaderboard is available. This helps show facts in the MVP program and also affects nomination status.

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[lauri457]

Ultimately it is for point farming as a huge majority of questions are just repeats of similar simple questions. For these questions it hardly benefits anyone that there is an accepted solution as those threads will probably not show up high in any search results inside community or from external search engines. Many - often active - community members have it embedded in their signature so it shows up. It is exacerbated by some returning to multiple dead threads at once to request their point as can be seen on Simon's screenshot.

It is gamification working overtime unfortunately. I assume it is an easily quantifiable and visible metric in people's minds which some hope will help them achieve mvp/rising star status. 

1. No
2. Yes (kind of)
3. Ask questions and help people, this is what the community should be all about. The golden days of the forum just seem to be behind us. Because of the sheer size the intimacy is gone and there does not seem to be much moderation. But it can still be a valuable tool for you and others to learn.