How to reject an answer? Is there a place to give suggestion

[Ryan Liu]

If someone provide a answer to question asked in this community,  how to reject an answer?  I hope this site provide a button next to "Accept answer".

So the system knows and not ask me to "Accept answer"  in email. Other viewers also knows. 

Being candid, straight  and efficient, I think more think "being polite".  We are professionals, rejecting an answer is all technical, not being impolite. 

Actually 2 questions I asked so far in community is really suggestions, not questions. Is there a way to make suggestion to Altassian?

Thanks,   

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Just looping back as I've had a conversation which reminded me - as @Walter Buggenhout  said at first, the Community prefers positivity.  Very early on, there was quite a long discussion about down votes that also mentioned marking things as wrong, and it was robustly rejected by the CAB.  Historically, the older versions could do down-voting and it was heavily abused by people who didn't like answers (even when they were correct) and used it to try to "punish" or degrade other users for various reasons. 

So we decided on no negative measures, only positive ones.  Marking an answer wrong is negative, but also likely to be done at the wrong time (when someone doesn't like it mostly).  Also, we don't see many that are actually wrong.  Plenty of opionions and discussion, but it's rare I see a wrong answer, and when I do, I'll comment a correction on it.

[Natasha Kinder]

I actually love this! Thank you @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- and @Walter Buggenhout for the response. I am all about positivity and creating an environment like this. I appreciate you both for taking the time to respond. 

Natasha

[Ryan Liu]

While I accepted you answer, I still think it is nice that there is a way to make an answer "flat", not vote down.   Some answers are not wrong, but didn't address the issues, maybe the one try to answer didn't read question thoroughly. 

Without any action can taken, it is kind hanging there. Asker need a way to mark it: "up", "flat"/unrelated, (no down), or as you said,  "(solution works but) not preferred".

This way, other people can know help still needed.
And the system will not send email to ask "Accept answer".  

Now asker has now way to mark answer except commenting unless it is right answer.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Ryan Liu,

You are absolutely right that a wrong answer is - well - just a wrong answer. But we are in a positive place here, with a lot of people voluntarily spending some of their free time in the spirit of helping others to the best of their ability. In that sense, it's much more pleasant to highlight a helpful answer than strike off one that was maybe a  it less helpful.

Definitely mark a helpful answer as accepted, as that helps the folks out here to distinguish between open and fully treated questions!

With regards to making suggestions to Atlassian, you definitely can. Most products do have an in product feedback button you can use to share ideas or comments. Or you can log a ticket with Atlassian support as well.

[Monique vdB]

@Ryan Liu also to add, if you have suggestions about the community forums, like this one, you can always post them in our Feedback forum. I recommend starting a discussion! 

[Natasha Kinder]

I actually really like this idea and I agree that there are times when you don't want to accept an answer, but also don't want to just leave it sitting there because then someone might spend time trying to use the answer that is not sufficient. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That's why we try to mark them right - so someone else reading the question can get help.

I wouldn't blindly follow something in an answer that has not been marked right.  I'd read it and the comments very carefully and check other sources.  But if something is marked right, then I'd start with the assumption that it (or one of its comments) worked and solved the problem.

[Natasha Kinder]

Totally agree and that's what I try to ensure my team looks for when using the community as well. In my experience, there are typically very good comments about what worked and didn't, but don't think a "didn't work" or "rejected" indicator that is easily visible, like the "Accepted" indicator is a bad idea. 

[Walter Buggenhout]

As a matter of fact, I was involved in a thread where I was on the end of being wrong myself. And I am not ashamed to share that and how I was wrong with my initial answer there: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management/How-to-control-the-visibility-of-SLAs/qaq-p/1581354

The user who originally asked the question took the time to respond and share why I was wrong. That gave the opportunity to continue both the discussion, the research and the learning experience.

It does require both the person seeking help, answerers as the people who engage in curating content to provide this feedback. I believe that a short comment explaining that something didn't work and why ads more value than a simple check saying: this is wrong.

At the same time, I can totally relate with the underlying point that it's important to try and avoid people to lose time trying out suggestions that are obviously not going to work.