at Sun's java forums, the person who asked the original question has the ability to indicate that their question has been "answered". I think that is quite handy, as it lets people who are here to solely answer questions skip that thread. There is a potential down side to this, as it might be that the questions was not answered correctly, and so by skipping this thread they can't point this out! But that aside, I do like that feature. I don't know how others feel about it.
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Yeah that sounds like a good idea. If it was implemented as a simple [ANSWERED] preprended to the thread's name, then i can configure my RSS reader to skip those threads.
In fact, perhaps have a few methods of 'close'
(a) by the person who wrote initial request
(b) by someone on the board who believes resolved
(c) by Site Admins who want to mark as resolved
This would go a long way towards allowing better q&a. I post questions occasionally, and truly appreciate the response help back. In return, I try to answer questions still in need of assistance. However, my first 'rule' of if there are multiple responses, the question must be satisfied is only a guess - could be there there has been a lot of email clarification and trial & error.
Just because the Original Poster had his question answered does not mean that further discussion should be prohibited. We are trying to build a knowledge base here. Consider this thread. joneja actually apologizes for asking a followup question to a thread that was several years old. But if the thread had been closed how would he get someone to explain it? Post a second thread? Then someone else who found the first thread and also didn't understand it might not find that second thread. What happens then is we get yet another thread requesting an explanation. That is what we want to prevent. We don't have a lot of experts who understand that code well enough to explain it. Posting repeated explanations is not a wise use of their time. So I am not on-board with the idea of closing all or most of our old threads.
On the other hand, I always appreciate it when the OP posts a response indicating that the problem has been solved. But, as happened with the thread I linked, some users are not that courteous.
craigp84, why do you want to skip threads that were answered? Isn't possible that there still might be something left for you to learn? I have to say that it's a rare week when I don't learn something new here. But that wouldn't be true if I skipped all answered threads. Again, I point to the thread I linked as an example of that. (I picked a good example thread to link in .... )
Just because an original poster might have an answer they like, their might be better answers; hence closing supposedly answered threads has more potential downside than upside, IMHO.
I'm not advocating closing any threads, the answered flag should be litterally just that, a flag to suggest the thread has been answered. It should not prevent new posts -- as quite rightly pointed out, the first "answer" may be wrong!
I guess i don't tend to use this as a reference site -- maybe i should do more, there's some incredibly insightful responses posted here. Typically the times i find myself learning from here are when google throws up unix.com in a result to a question i asked it
When i flick through my RSS feeds occasionally, i'll see some questions that i know the answer to, and if they're not already answered, i'll pitch in and help out. I see my contributions here as a way of paying back to the "community" for all the software i use.
Isn't possible that there still might be something left for you to learn? I have to say that it's a rare week when I don't learn something new here. But that wouldn't be true if I skipped all answered threads. Again, I point to the thread I linked as an example of that. (I picked a good example thread to link in .... 
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