The forum has lost its usefulness...

I Thought the system doesn't allow people to give points to themselves.

ANyway, I think people were more aware of giving points 2 or 3 ASC systems ago. That one was the easiest for me to understand And work within.

(too many wrong auto corrections here)

Judy wrote:

I Thought the system doesn't allow people to give points to themselves.

ANyway, I think people were more aware of giving points 2 or 3 ASC systems ago. That one was the easiest for me to understand And work within.

(too many wrong auto corrections here)

It allows you to go through the motions and even indicates solved/helpful but no points are actually given.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed that they received no points, only that they checked helpful/solved. I'm still going to rely on those like Philly_Phan because their level of participation indicates that they know what they are talking about! One thing I miss on this new format is the name of the last person who has replied to the question. We used to see not only who started the thread, but also how many had replied and who was the last to reply. I often chose to avoid long discussions, especially when I knew that the last to reply was one of the knowledgeable members. My flimsy advice was probably not needed in such a case.

An OP is allowed to mark his or her own answer as solved because many times the OP discovers the solution on their own. If they do, and they mark the answer as correct, then that can serve to help others with the same problem. An OP can not award themselves the points, but the bottom line is that a support forum exists to help people find answers to technical problems. Whether the OP finds the solution or someone else solves the problem, the "greenie" is supposed to indicate that the discussion does in fact have a correct answer to that problem.

However, we all know that many users have absolutely no clue how to actually use the helpful and solved options and all too often, some poor "misinformed" OP is marking his own incorrect answer - or his "Thank you, that worked" answer, as the correct answer, and that can be as confusing as it can be helpful.