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Maybe we should make something like this included in the rules, or some sort of guidance. Sometimes I scan for threads with zero answers in the hope that all that's needed is a little more effort than most are willing to contribute to solve it. But over the last couple of years I have become a little more cynical about approaching those.
In my experience, I have seen threads unanswered for one of these reasons:
1. It can't be done. Occasionally someone will post a problem and they put conditions around it that make it likely to be impossible to solve. "I want to take a list of classes, with students enrolled in each, and their final grade, in Excel and then produce a report in Word that shows by student what classes they took and what their grades are. Oh, and I can't use a macro, and it has to update automatically." Well, someone might know a way to do this without a macro. I personally don't like to answer a thread by saying, "You can't do this without a macro" because I have seen some very creative people come up with solutions to things like this. If there are no responses, it doesn't prove that it's impossible, but may indicate that your conditions are too restrictive to solve in any straightforward way.
2. Nobody knows the answer. This could mean that the question is very esoteric, even for Excel fanatics. It may involve interactions with the OS or other applications that require specialized knowledge, such as writing macros in C.
3. Nobody understands the question. The question is so poorly worded or so confusing that it is not possible to figure out what is being asked. If there is an attached workbook as an example, it does nothing to illuminate the question (or even makes matters worse). Some folks will ask a bunch of questions to help the OP explain it better but if the first post is very confusing, experience shows that such a line of questioning will often be more frustrating than fruitful.
4. It's too much work. The question is essentially asking for free consulting work to be done. It is one thing to say, "I have a spreadsheet to track a football tournament. What formula would I use in a summary worksheet given the team name, to determine the number of wins for that team on another worksheet that lists all the scores for games that team has played?" It's quite another to ask, "I need to make a spreadsheet to track a football tournament. Can you make one for me?"
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Originally Posted by Marcol
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