Disclaimer: I already looked for combinations of "unanswered", "help", "request", and "tag" before posting. Forgive me if this is old stuff.

Suppose I wake up helpful one day and spend sometime answering help requests. Right now the only way I (am aware of that I ) may do it is "sort by number of replies (ascending)". Those with zero replies are sure unanswered (but maybe they're not requesting for help). For those with replies I have to read the thread to know if the original poster got a satisfatory answer (for her/him) .

So I propose (I don't know about the drawbacks, feel free to flame me):

Some way to tag my post as a help request. Ideally this tag could be use for filtering and searching.
Some way for the original poster to clear the tag and say either "I found the answer by myself, forget it" or "thanks xxx you solved my problem. No further replies needed".

I guess this could be integrated into the antipoint scheme (reward useful responses).

Just my 0.02$