It appeared on the Fuchsia magellanica thread this afternoon. Gardengal's response was tagged Best Answer and appeared twice. That is no longer the case and the post has reverted to normal. That particular example didn't alter the chronology but some do.

Its actually on this thread at the very top... I don't like it I think its rather rude really. Demeans the others like we are in public school.

Houzz has never been an advocate of this site as demonstrated by this latest manifestation. Its provision of technical support and communication avenues is appalling and typical of its attitude towards this forum. Get your act together Houzz!

Still not seeing anything abnormal using a PC.

I'm seeing it. It's absolutely ludicrous.

Houzz has always acted this way. A lot of their decisions have been perplexing. If this is something they decided to do, I'd have to ask why? I mean really? [g]. Most of the time, my impression is their role is one of neglect. They ignore so many things and make things harder for the user in a number of instances, but this unnecessary choice, does what for the user? Or for Houzz? Actually choosing to identify 'best answer' in a thread, goes against the general nature of the friendly discussions that happen here and offend people unnecessarily.

And who is it that is determining that one answer is better than another? Is there actually someone in the management of the site, who is a professional in the field of horticulture? I thought they were all decorators or admin. Are there even gardeners on the staff? And are we all incapable of deciding for ourselves what the best answer is? I'd be willing to bet very few people have one thought at all to what the best answer is. In my experience in threads, you get many nuggets of information from many people. And sometimes there is a difference of opinion with validity on both sides.

I used to try to have interaction with Houzz to try to contribute feedback in the beginning hoping that would help as they settled in to a format and a routine, but I decided fairly soon, that responsiveness from Houzz was not easy to get and not often what you hoped. My fallback position for awhile now, has been to ignore Houzz as much as possible. I don't see any reason to change that in this instance. Hopefully, they will see that people are not happy with this change and will go back to the way things were.

It comes and goes. I first noticed it on a plant id question. I replied first and answered with the correct name. Next time I looked a 'best answer', which didn't actually answer the question at all but made an entertaining observation, had leapfrogged my response. Then it changed back. It's bizarre.

I still have seen no sign of this "best answer" thing, which I agree is as dumb a change or "improvement" to the site as one could come up with. I wonder if it has something to do with how one signs in.........? During the course of the day I review an awful lot of threads and posts and always via GardenWeb so if it was a very frequent issue, you would have thought it would have popped up a least once for me to see.

My biggest complaint with Houzz - other than they don't seem to employ software engineers who have the slightest idea of what they are doing - is that they don't understand GardenWeb. They just don't get the sense of community we once had (that they are doing their best to destroy) and how the discussion forums really work. If they did, why would they separate the FAQ forums from their parent forums. There is absolutely no logic involved with that decision! And there should be an easily accessed listing or directory of ALL the gardening forums so that both newcomers and old time members can navigate to the forum(s) of their choice easily instead of the series of hoops we need to jump through now.

Ever notice how many new threads have 'Design Dilemmas' or even better, the wholly generic 'Garden' tacked on them? What's with that? Keep the Houzz forums to Houzz and the GW forums to GW....just keep them separated by building/home improvement/decorating versus gardening and landscape design. There does not need to be this overlap or meld between the two. It just confuses things and overly complicates movement through the forums.

What I have found this past week is that my bookmark for the Perennials Forum has been changed again to Houzz instead of Garden Web. The one for the Landscape Design forum has stayed GW - so now I have to access Perennials through the LD forum list on the top left side if I want to read this forum in GW! The same thing happened a while ago and then it reverted to GW, but it's back again.... VERY annoying as the Houzz link wants me to sign in to post!

Speaking of old irritants I'm still getting a list of Australian forums where I used to get the page of links to all the garden forums.

Me, too, Embothrium.. And i used to open Garden Web and get all the recent questions from the groups. Now, it's still labeled garden forum but the questions are household stuff, tiling the floor etc.

So I have just found a 'Best Answer' on https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5900359/any-ideas-on-this-plant-at-our-new-place-hoping-it-s-useful#n=6 But that was on my iPad. It's not there on my PC. can anyone else see it?

I can't.....just the typical, normal appearing thread. But then I only use my laptop.

When I looked (on my iPad) gg48’s answer had the Best Answer icon/label. When I looked again a few minutes later, it was gone!

Gone from my iPad too! But at least I have a witness that I'm not imagining it.

" gg48’s answer had the Best Answer icon/label. "

LOL!! How silly is that?? Mine was the only answer.......with the exception of a small add-on comment by Embothrium

This is an entertaining thread. It's there, it's gone. It's there, it's gone. :))

haha!

As answers are added, will they re-evaluate and change who gets the label? Seriously?

Oh good grief! I was just reading Bill's post and my finger brushed the bottom right of the post. Up popped the words 'mark as best answer'..... so I did, just to see what happens. 'Best answer' appears. Can anyone else see it?

After that I tried marking my own answer as best answer. Lo and behold it worked and Bill's lost its tag. I've restored it to Bill. Don't want to be greedy.

Here is a link to the web form to complain. I just started seeing this rearrangement and sent in my complaint. Let’s inundate them. They used to have an easily found contact us link but now it is buried and I had to rummage through three pages of FAQ links to find this.

https://help.houzz.com/s/contactsupport?language=en_US

So Best Answer is the same as Like apparently.

I don't see it.

That must be what happened the other day when whaas asked me if I got a prize for 'best answer'. Couldn't figure out what he meant until I saw this.

I am just bewildered by all of this! Nothing like any "best answer" button/tab/option shows up for me anywhere.

Why are these 'glitches' so random? Some see them; some don't. Sometimes they show up and then disappear. Sometimes on one device but not on another for the same user. Makes no sense at all.

While we're at it, doesn't it bug you to see the date of post now saying, 'last month' or 'two years ago' ?

Last month could be 5 days or 30 days and Two years ago gives you no idea what time of year it was posted. Come on man. :-/

Been away from GW for quite a while. What a mess.

FWIW, I was able to locate some old threads *I* started, and do get the "Mark As Best Answer" option when hovering over the lower right of the text of a post. But not on threads started by others.

Do see floral_uk's chosen Best Answer at the top of this thread, and it's (barely) shaded darker than background (on a no-longer supported browser on a no-longer supported operating system on a no-longer supported computer).

Edit: of course the above observations may apply only to the current login, and moon-phase.

I've switched from iPad to my ancient Laptop. The best answer option isnt available by hovering the mouse.

Here is a link to the web form to complain. I just started seeing this rearrangement and sent in my complaint. Let’s inundate them.

You might be waiting even longer than usual for a houzz support reply. Take a look here:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/houzz-lays-off-155-employees-cuts-executive-salaries/

Article at rouge21's link incidentally answers the briefly discussed upthread topic of how Garden Web may be monetized:

In the internal memo, Houzz’s founders Adi Tatarko and Alon Cohen cite COVID-19’s impact on its core business: pro subscriptions. The subscriptions are for home remodeling and design professionals to find work

If there is ANYTHING you have saved that you do not want to lose, you need to print a hard copy NOW. Do not think it will be there later or someone will buy GardenWeb. I did that on another forum and they just dumped it. Everything was gone, in the trash, never to be found again.

If there is ANYTHING you have saved that you do not want to lose, you need to print a hard copy NOW Do not think it will be there later or someone will buy GardenWeb.

I have no doubt that this could well happen i.e. GardenWeb forums lost in the "ether" forever. Having said that I would have no idea where to start if I wanted to save materials. However some of us might think of reaching out to fellow GW members to exchange email addresses if up to now you have only maintained contact through GW messaging.

Oops, I brushed best answer when reading ... 😏

Well, I can "like", "save". or "flag", but no best answer.

Well that option has gone again for me too. And your answer above mine is no longer labelled best answer. Sorry.

This might be of help in retrieving websites that have disappeared: The Internet Archive

Here's a screen shot of what some of us are seeing:

eastautumn..thanks for showing us what you've seen..I haven't seen that..

' Oops, I brushed best answer when reading ... 😏 '

You mean you can't ' undo' it after it's hit?

Yes, you can. But I left it up for fun. However, it disappeared again of its own accord.

It's still showing up on screen (I'm on a laptop). I also thought it was linked to whichever response had the most "likes" (that seems to be the default on other threads), so that's interesting that the OP can actually select the best answer. I agree it's annoying and unnecessary.

I saw the green "Best Answer"..I was logged into Gardenweb to edit a comment..if I'm just looking I use Houzz..

I'm starting to see it even on old threads. :rolleyes:

Won't it be wonderful?

Who will be the leader with highest number of 'best answers'? I can't wait..... :-?

I still have yet to see this "feature"......other than in the screen shot displayed above. It has not shown up for me in the 40 or so forums I frequent on a routine basis.

Again, I have to wonder about the randomness with how these things appear to some not but not to others.

Okay this is kinda confusing. I do not see the best answer on my desktop, ever. Windows running Chrome.

On my Apple Ipad Mini, I have started to see it if the following happens:

I have a direct link that takes me to GardenWeb. I don't see it.

If I click on the bell, for notifications, and go to the thread. I don't see it.

This just started.

When I hit the arrow back, it logs me out of Gardenweb, when I hit log in, It logs me back in without me giving my password. If I go to the next thread on the list, it has the best answer junk. The address bar now shows Houzz instead of Gardenweb.

If I just scroll and don't use the bell notification, it doesn't do that, unless I don't change from Houzz. However, no matter where I am in the posts, once I look at one and hit the back button, it takes me all the way back to the first post, not where I am now.

The above is 95% of the time. The other 5% I don't see the best answer. Someone is playing around with the programming and they are an idiot.

I wrote about this exact issue about a week ago. I received an Inadequate response from Houzz. BTW, RL Relocation, I did do not understand your demeaning of “public schools.” Certainly you did not go to one, as public schools teach better manners, something you are obviously lacking.

dj,

I don't think RL was demeaning public schools, I think RL was referring to things they now avoid to do in public schools, like giving certain awards etc., that might make other students feel inadequate.

I can't see the best answer thing anymore, it's like it comes and goes.

I was given the best answer award for a post in my own thread on tree seeds 2020. haha!

Now it's back again. It's the last post I made in Trees from seed 2020 today but now it shows up at the beginning of the thread.

There's a programmer playing with this in the background, trying to figure out how to make it work. hmmmm.

All of a sudden, there's no longer an option to change your profile pictures. Why? This is a non issue for all you shadows.

Ahhhh.....Thank you Bill for taking a screenshot! Very clearly see what they are doing with this policy. They're short handed, they can't always keep up with the technical troubleshooting, but they have time for this?

And again - how do they know what the 'best answer' is? Have they hired someone with a horticulture degree to analyze the content of our threads? [g]