Better way to track support request in forums threads -> Have an open/closed option?

Personally, I am not crazy about this idea.

1. Often I've come across posts months down the line and have something to add to the discussion for the next person who comes across it. If the thread's closed, I can't do that (I can start a new thread referencing the old one but then people have to go two places to get context).

2. Most people (especially newbies) also tend to post one-off questions, I think. Only maybe about 1 of 15-20 answers I give on the forums ever leads to someone responding to say, "Thanks, that worked." -- most either fixed their problem and moved on or never came back to see if someone responded. So I see this as potentially adding a mundane and tedious task that site admins have to deal with: going through thousands of posts and cleaning up all the old topics as 'solved' or 'unsolved'.

3. Finally, even if a topic is "unsolved" one can find useful information there. A suggestion that didn't fit the needs of one person may very well fit the needs of someone else, who would likely skip the post because it wasn't marked as resolved.

I see "Support request" and "How do I..?" as two different things, generally. "How do I"s tend to be more broad in scope. For instance (the first topic listed there right now):

"How do I convert all my html files into drupal, and how to I have the content (node) URLS reflect the old structure?"

This is a very broad question, and is better asked to a forum because:

1. Forums get many more readers than issue queues.
2. The more people who read your question, the more varied solutions you potentially can get.
3. The only people reading the issue queue for particular modules are generally the maintainers themselves, whose availability can be spotty.
4. Finally, in order to file this as a support request, you'd need to be able to limit it down to the exact module that allows you to do HTML -> Drupal conversion, which is difficult for people to limit down, especially starting out.

I do agree that module-specific questions on the forums can be directed to the issues queue as support requests if a solution isn't acquired via the forums. But I don't see the two options as mutually exclusive.

Just a FYI

Personally, I no longer answer support in the forums. Only when they post support Qs with one of my projects issue tracker can I
* Notice them
* Track the status
* Close them when fixed

You can add comments to them later on. closed != non-commentable And I can follow the issues with RSS and by email.

Only general questions I sometimes answer in the forums. To point people to the right module, for example. Issues don't have a "I dont know what this is related to" option. One has to choose a module, which is deadly for general enquiries.

Since it was my comment that started this issue, let me explain what I meant.

This idea DOES NOT eliminate the "How Do I" forum, or anything like that. It would work with it. (I'm not a module builder, and have very little experience with php, so please forgive any obvious errors with my use of terms.)

Forum.module (and the database) would be modified to allow for open/closed vocabulary. Basically, tell the module that if forum vocab X is a support item, give it the options of open/closed. This should give you the ability to to filter out the open support questions.

If a support item is closed, this DOES NOT close the thread. No modifications to comment.module are made. Comments can still be posted.

At least, that's what I was thinking when I made the original comment.

After two years, I don't think that this is going to be worked on or probably needs to.