I am posting this to see what is the general point of view on this issue, and the most commonly accepted behaviour. I was going to post this on the main stack meta, but after some research I feel that the problem is more inerent to SharePoint questions that anything else.
At the time of writting this question, I have posted only four questions. Three of them are still "open", without a clear response. Since most of my question are pretty difficult and specific, and since I avoid making trivial questions like "How I check in a file in the user interface" I had fell to an answer % of 25. While I know that we shouldn't really worry about that number %, I also feel that since it is there, it is shown to everyone (so it isn't only a warning to the user), and it has colour coding it indeed will scare away people from questions.
I am then left wondering what to do with some of such questions. Take this one for example:
Purpose of the MAPPINGS CAML element in a custom Choice Field definition
It is scored 9, so it would seem well accepted. I also think that I say that the question is well written and provide quite a lot of information about the issue, that it should be answerable (if only someone manages to grab that information), and that the purpose is also clear (a valid resource that states "yes is possibile this way" or "no you can't because"). Still, since as Stuart said that info seems to be a black hole, no one was able to provide an actual documented answer that can provide a way to use the MAPPINGS element, nor a solid reference that states that this *isn't possible out of the box**. The only answer (that I voted as usefull but which I don't feel that answer the issue) only provides a reference to the caml docs, that (as expected, we are talking SharePoint here) provide no info other than "it exist and should do that".
Now, it is NOT MY POINT to discuss that specif question so please, take it only as an example of the problem... What I would like to know is what is the comunity point of view regards handling similar questions.
As I see it, the question should remain unanswered and I should only vote the helpfull posts. But that would still lover the percentage in the run. On the other hand accepting an answer would give the idea that the question is answered which it is not, with the result of discouraging new answer, lowering the question visibility to people that may know the REAL answer and bring false results to ones that hopes to find and answer to a similar problem.
NOTE: taken from meta: Which answer should I choose?
- Don't hesitate to accept an answer that is well-written, suggests a good practice and works for you.
- Otherwise, even if there are answers that are good enough but that you're not entirely satisfied by, you might wait 24 to 48 hours to give other people a chance to give you a better answer. A question with an accepted answer isn't as likely to receive further attention as one without an accepted answer.
- Make sure that besides working for you, the answer is really good practice. Sometimes after the answer gets accepted, another comes in, uncovering the fact that previous one was in fact a bad hack.
- The bottom line is to accept the answer that you found to be the most helpful to you, personally.
So they say "accept the answer that you found to be the most helpful"... but... what is the point in accepting the only helpfull answer that contains usefull info but does not resolve the problem? I feel that it will only bring more noise than anything else.
