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A piece about forums in general, but mainly this one.
Please note this is a long rant, but I'm in that kind of mood.
I have been active on this type of forum for many years.
I started out on the excellent WHQuestion, now dead, and have been active on alot of other sites.
Overall I have had alot of fun and games and met some very fine people and had to put up with many idiots, flamewars and general stupidity.
What really gets me is the apparent inability of some users to follow even the most basic rules of etiquette when interacting with other people.
Small things like common courtesy, manners and respect are some of the things that come to mind. After all we all give our time and effort freely, but to be derided by, mostly forum newbies, is just plain bad manners.
While I’m on the subject of rules, simple ones like correct places to post. How hard is it to find the board you want and post a question? After all, the main index page has a whole list of available subjects.
Back to forum newbies, why is it that they feel that the use of English and punctuation are an optional extras.
This isn’t a chatroom, speed isn’t an issue, so why use chatspeek. Are they really so thick that a basic grasp of English is beyond them?
OK you can forgive grammar and spelling, we are all guilty of that one at some time, but the out and out laziness of chatspeek is beyond me.
It really doesn’t help their cause or get their question resolved any quicker, as we have to spend time in translating their drivel into useable English. Some of our foreign users have a better grasp and it’s a second, or even third, language to them.
Last couple of things I promise.
The ability to read what has gone before your post, both previous responses and mainly the posted dates. The most annoying thing is when an ancient thread is reopened by someone posting a response. How difficult is it to check the original date and whether the user has been online since? OK some feel they are helping, but please how does posting a response to two year old question really help.
While on posting, do they really believe that repeating the same question on ten different boards will get their question answered any quicker!
Bugger lost my train of thought now. Amuse yourselves for a moment while I try and regain it. Normal ranting will be resumed shortly.
I remember now, hackers, spammers and scammers. Come on are we really going to buy the next wonder penis enhancement pill just because you post it twenty times in two minutes. Are we going to send you our bank account number because you can give us an unlimited overdraft. Are we going to help you retrieve your webmail password just because you say it’s your account.
Come on idiots what planet do you think we are from???
Rant over you may now return to real life.
A final thing to think on: Why is Common Sense so uncommon?
So what really bugs you abot these kind of forums ?
Good points as usual, Fred. I think it's good if people have something to add to a thread, I do that myself a lot, but I don't understand the single sentence (or even less than a sentence!) answers. This seems to happen a lot in the movies section, for example. Someone will ask for the title of a movie, a couple of people will respond with the correct title and a bit of discussion, and then the thread basically dies. A couple of weeks later it is revived when someone else responds with the correct title again. They don't add to the discussion at all, or offer any new information. It just seems weird to me. Personally I'd feel embarrassed to do that. But I understand what you're saying, people do think of this as a discussion forum, so perhaps they just think they are enhancing the discussion by giving the answer all over again.
HI,
Much discussion has been put into answers; ie, when to answer, what to answer, read all the pages and pages of answers previously given, and this thread is a good example of it!
May become the longest thread of all.
Many of us see this as a Forum, where we can express ourselves, answer questions. Some give the same answers as already given, others add a little, others change the thread, and on and on.
It's all within Forum Rules. It is allowed to give a simple "6 word or so" answer, same as a previous answer.
I guess it all gives us something to do, whenever we see someone has added something else to it! Have a great week, and keep up the good work everyone.
The consensus I see from these discussions goes as follows:
1) If a question is technical in nature, once it has been answered adequately others should not repeat the answer. Instead they should add a comment supporting the answer.
2) In the above case, one should add an additional answer only if it adds substantively to the previous answer(s).
3) In a non technical question, additional comments supporting previous answers are more welcome. Since such questions are more a item of opinion, multiplicity of opinion is welcome.
These are fairly simple guidelines. Clearly there may be differences of opinion as to what is a substantive addition and what isn't.
But these are the guidelines I use in deciding whether to add an answer to an existing thread. I've been using such guidelines for a long time. They seem logical and reasonable to me. I would suggest that these guidelines be incorporated into the guidelines for this site.
Not incorporating such guidelines will give license to those who are intent on building their point totals by answering any question they think they can. Quantity becomes more important than quality and I don't think that's the principle we want here. I would suspect that such guidelines would be opposed by those who want to post whenever and whereever they can. But, from my view, they represent a small minority.
They don't add to the discussion at all, or offer any new information. It just seems weird to me. Personally I'd feel embarrassed to do that. But I understand what you're saying, people do think of this as a discussion forum,
It seems wierd to me to and, like you, I would be embarrassed to do it. From my experience, most people quickly pick up on people who do a lot of that. They see the pattern and start to wonder about the person who does it.
As for this being a discussion forum, that's only partially true. First and foremost is a Q&A forum. People ask questions and get answers. Once they get the right answer that should be the end of it. However, not every question has a right or wrong answers and some questions are a matter of discussion. So such questions need to be considered in any guidelines on the issue. I believe I have done so in the guidelines I listed.
Scott you know I love debating you for some reason so here we go,First I really don't see how you can control someones actions or agenda. Second the most attractive thing about this forum is the absence of restrictive rules and I'm sure others benefit from the freestyle manner you can answer posts to your heart content.As we know from this thread there are things that tic us all off sometimes but we are smart enough to either forgive a transgression or comment on it.This has seemed to work to some extent and most other problems have seemed to work themselves out I've tried to use other forums and call me spoiled but they don't do it for me as I think they are too structured for my taste's. I hate rules, the less the better for me.I think the members here can see and deal with the little things that pop-up. As for redundant or incorrect answer the way to handle it is simply to disagree. we all have that power and since your concern is the quality of answer a few red boxes should take care of those that are going for their own agenda and those who want to help.
Scott, I would hate to see a rule like that in many forums. It would work fine in the computer area where there are several people that usually agree. Frankly, I don't know enough about computers to tell if they are right. At least in computers you shouldn't have people perpetuating the best of the 50's tech.
In a forum where one person consistently shows much more knowledge, those familiar with the forum are going to want to see an answer or comment from the one they know they can trust.
This site has a huge problem with people answering for the sake of answering because apparently they have no other life. I am not here to occupy my day. I am here to help people by sharing my extensive training and experience. It hasn't been as much fun lately. It has become very time consuming and stressful. The administration is well aware many are tired of it. Many disabling their reputation didn't bring any changes. I am sick of it and doubt I will hang on another week if I don't see some changes.
Scott you know I love debating you for some reason so here we go,First I really don't see how you can control someones actions or agenda. Second the most attractive thing about this forum is the absence of restrictive rules and I'm sure others benefit from the freestyle manner you can answer posts to your heart content.As we know from this thread there are things that tic us all off sometimes but we are smart enough to either forgive a transgression or comment on it.This has seemed to work to some extent and most other problems have seemed to work themselves out I've tried to use other forums and call me spoiled but they don't do it for me as I think they are too structured for my taste's. I hate rules, the less the better for me.I think the members here can see and deal with the little things that pop-up. As for redundant or incorrect answer the way to handle it is simply to disagree. we all have that power and since your concern is the quality of answer a few red boxes should take care of those that are going for their own agenda and those who want to help.
Controlling someone's agenda is clearly out of range, controlling (though I would prefer to use the word influencing) ones actions is a bit different.
I disagree with the absence of restrictive rules here. This is actually one of the more restrictive sites I have worked with. Notice, also that I listed the three points I did as GUIDELINES. I don't see them as nor should they be rules. But I do believe that listing them as guidelines may influence some of the people who feel, since there is no written prohibition to the contrary, that they can do whatever they want, no matter how much it annoys others. But more than that, I think its protecting them against themselves. I think many think like Chava and I do that echoing previous answers is embarassing and does not reflect well on the poster. Peer pressure may work on some, but there appear to be others as shown in this thread) who are impervious to it.
But I'll also agree this is a fairly minor issue. The only one it harms are those who do the redundant posting by affecting their reputation. I'd still like to see my GUIDELINES codified, but there are other battles to be more diligiently fought.
I've recently found myself posting to a thread but when its submitted two other people have already posted that can get confusing has any one else had this problem?
Remember I'm not posing a rule, but rather a guideline. But I think the situation you describe is still covered. Simply use the comments to add an I agree, nothing more to add comment. That will reassure the poster looking for input from a specific person.
Tal,
Yes I've encountered such situations. That's why I always double check post times. If a post is within a few minutes of mine (or vice versa), I will give the benefit of the doubt.
I mostly stick to forums where there aren't many good people. Some might say none. Still it does happen. I try to think to look at the posting times and cut the second one some slack if they are close. This would be a problem if there was a rigid rule. I also spend a long time on some of my answers.
But I understand what you're saying, people do think of this as a discussion forum, so perhaps they just think they are enhancing the discussion by giving the answer all over again.
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