Large amount of threads left unanswered...
 

Hi all,

I know that with only about 100 posts under my belt I shouldn't really be complaining, and don't get me wrong, LQ is a great site, but I am sometimes amazed by the numbers of threads left unanswered...I mean, it must be quite offputting for some newbies who have only ever posted twice (in two of their own threads) and have received no answers each time. They probably go away thinking "[sarcasm] wow, what a bunch of GREAT guys at LQ [/sarcasm]". I know that most members try as hard as they can to answer no-reply threads, and I've been trying to answer other people's threads more often now, but there are still a large amount of threads left unanswered. Just take a look at the Linux - Hardware forum. There are TONS of threads with 0 replies, all over the page! I know that sometimes their problems are so rare and specific that it is difficult to answer them, but I just think it would be great if we could welcome the newbies in a nicer way ;) Anyway, sorry if I've bored you to death with my endless rants!

J_K9

At this moment I wrote this, 309715 of the total 334,568 we have here have had some type of reply. To me, that's a very good % of answered threads. And you have to imagine, many of these are older threads or threads in General, or news to the site, etc.

This has been brought up before in the past month or so, you should try searching to see what others thought about it then.

Like you said trickykid, lots of them are old ones, and I guess they won't get answered unless we want them to be. I have seen unanswered threads dating back a couple of years already, thats a shame.
One problem might be that the name of the thread is not apropriate for the question it contains, such as: HELP ME! or I FIXED IT! and a lot more that I can't think of. I try to anwere those threads as best as I can, but they sure can be very hard to respond to sometimes:p !

I agree, some of them are really complicated (e.g the ones in the Hardware forum!) and especially difficult for a n00b like me...lol. Anyway, thanks for replying, I just wanted to point this out and see what your replies would be!

J_K9

P.S Sorry for not searching about similar threads before making this one....a mistake I shouldn't be making by now ;)

If the threads are really old and someone wants to answer them with correct answers, all power to you. Those who reply to them just to get them off the list, that's the wrong approach.

My personal opinion is leave them be and focus on the more recent threads with 0 replies. This is a free site where members help other members with questions they have, its not like we have to meet goals and quota's to answer all questions.

Does it suck that some go unanswered, yes. Do I partly blame the thread starter for not getting an answer, yes. I think those seeking answers that don't get any replies after a certain amount of time should make their own followups and not depend on us to dig up their old threads or questions. ;)

Well at least you state your reasons for your thoughts in a clear, concise, coherent manner :P Sorry what I meant was that there are in fact quite recent threads with 0 replies, and that even though I pity the very old threads which received 0 replies, I'm much more concerned about the recent threads which go unanswered. This is because the unanswered threads are usually the ones that are started by newbies (emphasis on the word usually :D), and if their threads are unanswered they may be scared away from LQ. Anyway, I think that's pretty much it for this discussion, although feel free to carry on if you want! I believe my question has been answered and therefore it is time for me to go to bed....

[/stupid big-worded smart-ass paragraph]

hehehehe...Thanks tricky and ctkroeker for actually answering, I was afraid this thread would go unanswered! And according to my "thesis" above that would have made me a n00b...:D

J_K9

Working on the more current issues will be better than worrying aobut the old ones.

I see your point. I know a couple of friends who tried out LQ but did not like how long it took to get an answer and both of them did not get answers to some of their first posts. AFAIK they are not using LQ any more know than before.

The thing we need to "fix" this is just more people with more knowledge. I think that as LQ grows we will probably see this problem shrink. Some people here who started out as newbies are certainly becoming more competent and I bet they will help out answering other peoples questions. Time will tell.

Regards.

Their questions could have been complicated and could take time to recieve answers. The best thing for them to do or anyone for that matter to make their thread get more exposure is to bump it after 48 hours and keep adding more information, what you've tried or done, etc.

Some questions might get an answer within a matter of seconds, others might be days or weeks, others never, that's how free forums and sites like this go.

I started out as a n00b, as all linux users do ;) , and have found myself helping people with problems that I myself might not even be able to fix or I know nothing about, but have read a lot of other posts on how to sove them.
For those people that gave up on LQ, just after 1 or 2 posts, I don't feel sorry for, but if the guy has posted like 10 posts and threads, and get's no replies, that's a poblem.
I think the threads that get the fastest replies are the "which distro" ones, really should be a forum just for those:) .

We call it the Linux - Distributions forum.

Ephracis: when was this, and perhaps you could encourage them to try again- you never know, someone might be able to help them with something else.

the fact remains that newbies don't know howto word their questions. (a lot of the time, anyway.)

titanium_geek

Hm, I think it was some time before Christmas. AFAIK at least one of them are good in asking questions and he knows how to present a problem (he had prior experience in IRC chats, but he did not like them since they tend to be more aggressive in IRC channels).

I have tried to encourage them both but they thought that instead of waiting for an answer that never may come it was easier to give up (one person I recruited in late autumn last year even switched back to Windows, since "there you don't have to ask how to do stuff". I am not blaming LQ for this. But I think that it would be great if at least sometime, someone, could dig into a question/problem that s/he does not have any answer to. I know I do that sometimes, and I bet other people do it to. But it would be great if even more people could take a question and explore it and try to find an answer.

I just believe that we can do better, without blaming anyone. :)

Regards.

I also think some of them may find answers elsewhere but never post back, with the solution they have found, (which by the way would be helpful to others) therefore leaving some of these post unanswered.


Just my two pence

I very much agree with the sentiment of this thread. This is one reason we make such a major push toward members answering threads with 0 replies. What else could we be doing to help promote this?

--jeremy