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I seem to be receiving quite a few email notifications these days with the header "[Norton Community] Forum Thread Solved: <thread subject>" for threads I'm subscribed to that don't really seem to be solved. Has the forum software been changed recently so that threads are automatically marked as solved if the thread is inactive for a set period of time?
Posted: 20-Jan-2021 | 4:58PM · Permalink
They are not being marked automatically. I believe that the mods are going through to mark solutions to help others locate useful posts marked as Solved. I too see the same flurry of solved thread email notifications.
The only thing done automatically is locking threads that are inactive for 30 days.
Posted: 21-Jan-2021 | 8:23PM · Edited: 21-Jan-2021 | 8:24PM · Permalink
peterweb:...I believe that the mods are going through to mark solutions to help others locate useful posts marked as Solved...
Hi peterweb:
Well, someone's getting a bit carried away. I don't know if Norton employees like Gayathri_R or Sunil_G are the only people that have have sufficient user privileges to mark another user's thread as "Solved", but the optics aren't very good when replies like <this> are getting marked as the answer.
If I'm the OP of a thread that hasn't been active for over a week and still requires an answer then I wouldn't mind receiving an e-mail asking me to mark the best reply as the answer if I believe my problem was actually solved, but I don't want other people marking my threads as Solved without my permission.
Posted: 22-Jan-2021 | 9:00AM · Permalink
Only admins have access to marking someone else's thread with a solution.
I see what you mean by your example. No idea why that thread was marked as solved. Maybe there is some target percentage of solved threads needed to justify the forum's existence?????
As for reminding the OP about an abandoned thread that seems to have been solved, there are discussions about how to handle this. Stay tuned.
Posted: 10-Feb-2021 | 10:22AM · Permalink
I just had another whack of these "Forum Thread Solved" notices in my Inbox today. It wouldn't be so annoying if the posts being marked as the Solution by the Forum Mods were actually the correct answer. I even had one of my own replies recently marked as the Solution weeks after it was posted, and no one reading that "solution" would have the slightest clue what the OP actually did to solve their problem.
Posted: 10-Feb-2021 | 10:52AM · Permalink
I got a bunch also.
Made no sense to me except for a few that I know some posters gave some good solutions. I don't think it is choosing the last solution or the one with the most words or even random but I wish the admins would tell us more.
Posted: 09-Mar-2021 | 7:11AM · Permalink
peterweb:Only admins have access to marking someone else's thread with a solution....As for reminding the OP about an abandoned thread that seems to have been solved, there are discussions about how to handle this. Stay tuned.
Bumping to prevent auto-lock just in case ongoing discussions yield some sort of decision on the best way to encourage the OP to mark their own thread as Solved if they feel someone has provided the correct answer. I'm still scratching my head about a few of the replies the Forum Admins have recently chosen as the Solution in these locked threads.
Perhaps increasing the time period to auto-lock inactive threads from 30 days to 90 days (which is the auto-lock period the Microsoft Answers forum currently uses) would help. Not all questions posted in this forum receive a definitive answer within 30 days. For example, the Flip60614's 02-Feb-2021 thread Will Norton 360 Work on Windows XP Pro SP3? was locked and marked as Solved a few days ago but the information in that thread is no longer correct now that NortonLifeLock has reversed their decision to end support for Win XP and Vista as of 28-Feb-2021 (see the 08-Mar-2021 announcement <here>).
Posted: 04-Apr-2021 | 5:30AM · Edited: 04-Apr-2021 | 5:36AM · Permalink
peterweb:Only admins have access to marking someone else's thread with a solution...As for reminding the OP about an abandoned thread that seems to have been solved, there are discussions about how to handle this. Stay tuned.
Bumping to prevent an auto-lock in case someone can provide an update about these ongoing discussions.
Posted: 30-Apr-2021 | 5:29PM · Edited: 30-Apr-2021 | 5:38PM · Permalink
It's been over 3 months since I started this topic and it doesn't look like the Forum Admins have anything to add to peterweb's 22-Jan-2021 comments <here> so I'll just mark that reply as the best answer (before someone else picks a different answer for me 
) and move on.
Re: Are Inactive Threads Being Automatically Marked As Solved?
Posted: 22-Jan-2021 | 9:00AM · Permalink
Only admins have access to marking someone else's thread with a solution.
I see what you mean by your example. No idea why that thread was marked as solved. Maybe there is some target percentage of solved threads needed to justify the forum's existence?????
As for reminding the OP about an abandoned thread that seems to have been solved, there are discussions about how to handle this. Stay tuned.