=][= Solutions =][=

[Brother Tyler]

Most of the (sub-)forums allow a post to be marked as the solution for the discussion. This allows a post that best answers the question or addresses the issue being discussed. The only people that are able to mark a post as the solution are the original poster (i.e., the person that posed the question or identified the issue for discussion), the moderators, and the administrators, and no one can mark their own post as the solution (keeps us cheesy admins from pumping up our reputation scores  ).

Only one post can be marked as the solution, so some time should be given for a range of members to provide a response so that the "best" one can be picked as the solution. However, the solution can be changed. For example, if Member X poses a question and marks Member R's post as the solution, but then Member B posts a better response a month or two later, Member X (or the mods/admins) can re-assign the solution to Member B.

When a post is marked as the solution to the discussion, a few things happen. First, a link to the solution and the name of the member providing that solution appear in green at the top of the page:

If you click the Go to solution button, you'll be taken straight to the solution post. Or you can scroll to it. Either way, you'll see that the post is marked as the solution:

Third, the member posting the solution can earn the Superstar badge. There are actually five levels of this badge, following our normal green-blue-bronze-silver-gold progression. These badges are earned for the 1st, 5th, 10th, 20th, and 50th solution, with each badge also earning 1 point of reputation.

You can see the green Superstar badge that Rik Lightstar earned as a result of his post being selected as the solution in his profile:

There are a few forums where the solution feature is not activated. These are forums such as the News, Rumors, and Board Announcements forum and the Hall of Honour - forums where questions aren't posed and issues aren't raised. This feature is active in most other forums, though, allowing members to recognize those that best answer their questions or address the issues they've raised.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Most excellent !

[Valkyrion]

I noticed this the other day when I got a solution tick, which was cool. 

While I'm here though, what does 'helpful 2 blue' and helpful 1 green' mean? I've got those too and I've obviously missed the topic where they are explained. 

[Brother Tyler]

It's the progression. Most of our achievements have a progression of 5 colors - green, blue, bronze, silver, and gold. Each badge has a name, followed by the number and color of the sequence (1 green, 2 blue, 3 bronze, 4 silver, and 5 gold). This naming convention just keeps them in order in my backup files. In most cases, the progression increases. A member will typically get the green level of achievement/badge for 1 instance of whatever (creating a topic, posting a reply, uploading an image to a gallery, etc.). To get additional badges in the progression, however, you'll need to perform the same behavior more times, with the progression beyond that continuing to increase. You can see the various achievements and the progression here.