Sorry I missed your response...I went out of the office suddenly right after this posting and must have never made it back. In regards to our use-case(s), it is more common for a group of people (Social Group) or list of individuals to be the target of a question, rather than a specific person, but even more the case of your latter proposal...which is that someone should answer it...
Questions are created via an Event in most cases, for example support. We guarantee a deadline for resolution, but we have the need to manage multiple dates through the life-cycle of the question...for example, a date of "Preferred Response Date" (more fuzzy and flexible, but still firm), as in I need to at least get some information by this date...but it doesn't have to be the exact answer...as well as a "Resolution Date", this is absolute...
Being able to sort by these dates, and possibly priority as well could be useful. I have 3 questions in my space that I need to answer today...which of them do I tackle 1st...and more importantly, being able to represent that in the UI via icons...perhaps different colors of Red, Orange, Green or something for questions of high-medium-low and blue for normal?
The ability to see at an aggregate level, in any view, the state of a Question is very important...when I can see a question's RED icon come up next to a document that I am viewing in the "incoming Links" section....it triggers a thought that there are some very high-priority things going on in relation to the context I am working, and it could draw me in as a possible solver to the problem.
That being said, I think a Resolution Date / Priority should be handled separately...the only icon treatment I would make for Questions that have passed their resolution date, would be similar to the overdue tasks....take the base treatment R,O,G,B icon....and add an explanation.
Those are the ideas I have for now...perhaps...these are some more features to be tracked? thanks for your interest =)
