XeNTaX

Here's a question for you. It would be handy to see which topics are complete and which not.

What, no one has an opinion?

Will there be criteria for whether something is complete or not?
Will the author be deciding whether it is complete or not?
What if the author believes it is complete, when in reality it isn't and it causes all sorts of confusion?

But yes, filtering on whether it is complete would make it easier

Well, yes, the author of the first post can mark it, and unmark it complete. I would say, when the original question has been solved, to satisfaction of the first poster, then the topic can be marked complete.

I think its a great idea especially if someone is looking around to see if they can find a similar format to a unsolved one it would help them find it

I would disagree with such a button because there are large topics like the Forza Motorsport or the Star Wars: The Old Republic topics which are never complete because it will always be possible to find out what an unknown field stands for years later, and sometimes there is a new or updated file format that requires a new analysis.

If you implement such a button, people should still be able to contribute to a topic after it is marked as complete, and for longer topics where the original author disappeared and other people are working on the analysis, that original author should not be able to mark a topic as complete.

I think the "complete" button should more or less indicate the progress on a format.
Maybe allow multiple options to more precisely specify how much progress has been done.

Of course, I would like to be able to filter on [complete] topics.

This is perfect idea. However ti has also a bad side. What if someone doing dome extractor for PC and mark the topic as solved and then some other person come and say any chance to help with PS3,WII,X360 files as well and researcher will decide to help. That person will be force to open a new topic ?

Up to how Mouse wants the forums organized.
For example, a topic about archives, in the archives forum, should only information about archive formats.

If someone later extracts it and wants to get at audio, video, graphics, text, or models, they should probably open their own topic in the appropriate section. I never visit the audio section and if someone posts something about audio in a 3D thread I'm just going to ignore it.

I think such a button could be useful, if done properly:

* It should not prevent further comments to a thread, as SWTOR fan pointed out above.

* The thread OP should be able to mark the thread as solved if their original question has been answered to their satisfaction.

* Certain other users (but not anybody) should also be able to un/mark topics as solved; there are plenty of cases where OP starts a thread and never posts again. Perhaps this should be provided alongside a certain user rank?

I don't know about multiple values, that just sounds like added complexity for little benefit.

Any progress?