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An Open Letter To All Posters Of Questions Since I (or others) have taken the time to respond your question, it'd be nice if you would at least read what was written as the response and respond in kind. I think that many people post, wait a very short time, and if they don't get an immediate response, they move on never to return. This wastes everyone's time. It wasted the Original Poster's (OP) time since they wrote the original post asking for help, but since they never bothered to read the replies posted in kind, let alone respond to them, what was the point of posting in the first place? For those who replied to the Original Poster (OP), their time was wasted because there is no discussion. In many cases, I've asked not only for the OP to please provided possible answers on what little information I've been given, but I've also asked for clarification of the question, only to never get a response from the OP at all. When this happens enough, people will not respond simply stop responding because they don't want to waste their time responding to posts that the OP won't read or care to respond to, and when that happens, this place is pretty much dead. You may as well walk out at 3am on your rooftop and shout "HEY!! I HAVE A LINUX PROBLEM. CAN SOMEONE HELP ME???" ...and wait for a response because whether you shout for an answer from your rooftop at 3am or post your question on on this forum, the results will be the same. Nada. Nothing. Zip. A big fat ZERO. So, if you aren't going to READ what people respond, AND post acknowledgement of it, I beg you to PLEASE not post in the first place. Thank you. PS: I don't mean to be crass or rude, only to call it like it is without sugarcoating it. UPDATE: 12-19-2011 - Just an edit to update this with a comment..... Did anyone else notice that prior to me making this update on 12-19-2011, there's been no other posts or updates at all in the last 10 days? TEN DAYS. Seriously.... do you think any active message board goes TEN DAYS without a single new post on it? This gives credence to what I said above about this place being dead. Think about it. |
The question has been closed for the following reason "Question is off-topic or not relevant" by jeremy 20 Jun '12, 10:56
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Unfortunately, you're right on target... >-/ I think part of the problem is societal. We went from albums to CDs to single songs on an iPod. We went from reading books to blog posts to 140-charater micro-blogging via Twitter. Along with people being on Facebook, texting, tweeting, emailing, and all of it quick, short, (and often shallow) communication, many people's attention and focusing abilities have been severely damaged, if not eliminated to the point where many people have the attention span and memory of a goldfish (which is 3 seconds). We live in a society where "like OMFG, like that is SOOOOOOOOOO 10 seconds ago. It's SO old news!! Like, you know.. like, uh, like, you know... you like, uhhh, need 2 stay current." gag.
(06 Dec '11, 10:52)
Ron ♦
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Although I understand that this is a bit frustrating, answering those messages has its uses! Consider the following Question posted on LEx: Temporarily Disabling Gold Linker On Ubuntu Even though the OP apparently left, the Question has >400 views as of now. The answer, even though it might not be marked as such, has probably helped a lot of people just stumbling upon the question. Those people might not be registered at LEx, having no way to upvote/respond to the question. In my opinion, even the questions asked in the answer could help other people! In the aforementioned example, Ron asked if the OP had read the manual. Someone might not have known that a manual exists, or simply didn't know where to start looking for help. This might not be the best example for good questions in answers, but you get the idea. ;) So basically, every good answer will help people, even if the problem itself is not solved. To circumvent the problem that answers don't get upvotes/don't get accepted if further information is needed and the OP left, the moderators will choose an answer to a problem and accept it. If people want to find answers and not worry about replies, etc, there's Google. LEx is part of that, no doubt. Just as what you said is true about people finding answers here too.. the problem is, I feel that as someone who replies and post answers, I'm not seeing results for my efforts to help people. Think of it like this... what if people called you up and asked you a question, only to hang up and never call back for the answer? After the 3rd or 4th call like that, you'd be thinking "What the heck is this bs? You call me for free help, (which I glad give), but then you hang up and don't answer my questions to better help you?" It just doesn't feel right to me, sorry. It feels like abuse. If I wanted to just make a searchable knowledge base of answers, I'd make one, or I'd build a search engine like Google. I'm looking to offer more personalized service to people who ask, versus a "Just go use Google and find something out there" approach. If people use Google and that leads them here, great..... but this place is dead. It's also kind of pointless asking questions here since only a few people seem to answer, and when they don't get any response from the OP, they feel like ti's a waste of time. there needs to be a give and take in any relationship, even if that relationship is between an OP and someone replying. There are countless things we can give our attention to, including other, more active message boards and communities. I'd like to see this one succeed, but if people can't be bothered to respond, then I'm, not going to waste my time marking old, ignored messages posted by people who don't care. If they don't care, why should we? If we don't care, they don't care, if no one cares, then why does this place exist? Why are we wasting our time here?
(09 Dec '11, 17:30)
Ron ♦
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Just performing a little thread necormancy" by reviving this dead post to prove my point.... has anyone else noticed the lack of activity around here - including the lack of responses. Now look at the date on my original post in this thread. Point made. 1
Perhaps no one replaies is because this question is off-topic and doesn't further the conversation at all.
(18 Jun '12, 13:38)
gmartin
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As this question is not Linux / Open Source related and is not in the spirit of the site, it has been closed. I'm leaving this as a notice for a few days, at which point the thread will be deleted. If anyone can any questions or comments, let me know. --jeremy |
Just signed up as it was advertised on Linux Questions.
As has been mentioned, some people are in too much of a hurry, they obviously need to use IRC or something similar.
I agree, people should be acknowledged for attempting to help, as we do it for free, but such is modern life.
I will answer what I can, when I am online & cruising around the various mailing lists & forums that I am signed up on, even if there is no response from the originator, as I know lots more people will benefit from answers given as they also just cruise around.
Keith
edit: I do this as my contribution to the free software world; as I was given the chance by them to use my computer how I want to without restrictions. ;-)