Here's an idea. Since some problems are dependant on hardware, and since most people don't put their machine specs in their signatures(or elsewhere). What if there were a machine specs field under the username, on the left.(You know, under the "Distro" etc. fields).



Like right....
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This has been brought up before and is being considered. The problem is that most people have many different systems, but a nice interface that would allow you to enter all your systems and then pick a specific system at post time might not be a bad idea. I'm not sure people would actually use it though (it's hard to get everyone to list their distro and that's something trivial). Another problem would be getting the data in a consistent enough format to be useful.

--jeremy

There has been discussion about this in the past - may not be on the live system though.

I would like to see something like this but:

• not everyone puts their distro down, they won't put their system down either
• you have 3 distros listed, some have up to 10, potentially they may need to post a half dozen pc specs up
• it could make the sidebar very crowded and heavy

My workaround would be to have a profile page in which we could post our specs and a link to said page in the sidebar. Obviously, whoever posts would have to say "this thread is about PC Description 2" and keep it up to date.

ok, I could see how it would make the sidebar a little crowded, but what if at post time, they had a dropdown menu to choose which machine they were talking about, and then once it was posted, this became a link for people to check.

If people don't want to give the information, that's up to them, just as it is w/ the distros section. However, the people who do give the information would help out the people trying to help them.

Yes, I know that last sentence is ambiguous.

Also, some problems/questions may affect more than one machine (slow network transfer, whatever). That being said, this might be helpful, at least in the - Hardware forum.

true, but there are also some problems that aren't related to the distro, or where you live...or when you registered. Now granted, those are silly examples(except for the distro one), but the point is the same. The more information given, the more likely something is to get answered, or at least find the cause of the problem.

I like the "dropdown", or similar, idea. And we'd just have to trust that those specs were kept up to date.

I don't know how that would be coded, or what kind of work that would take. However, it can't be overly difficult, especially since we can now post "quick replys" w/out reloading the page(probably my favorite part of the new site).

I'm going to lay out a scenario for you- A stands for Asker and H stands for helper.

A: please help! I have a problem with XXX
H: (thinks) *it's a hardware problem, I'll check out A's specs. *
H: *oh yeah! the problem is related to YY piece of hardware. *
H: the fix is XXX
A: oh- I'm on my sister's computer, which is completely different, its a ZZ
H: *ARRGH* (leaves the thread in disgust)

ok, so maybe it wouldn't happen like this (I hope H wouldn't quit) but it is really no excuse, the asker should post completely.

Sure it would be annoying, but maybe newbies get a popup that asks them:
Have you included the appropriate specs?
Have you posted a good title?
Have you included what distro, what version of software?
Have you included the make of hardware?
*and on and on adnauseum*

The best way to deal with non-complete posts is to ask the OP to elaborate.

titanium_geek

That is perhaps an overly etreme scenario. If one were able to add as many "machine profiles" as they wanted, then chose one at post time, I'm not sure how this scenario would fit. The OP would just have to make sure the machine they choose at post time is the machine they're having problems with, not the machine they are currently using.

I suppose there could be some confusion at post time, between the machine they are currently using, and the problem machine. That could be fixed by being specific in the instructions though.

What if machine specs have nothing to do with the problem?
It could be an added annoyance.


titanium_geek

ok, then are we to ban people putting machine specs in their signatures? Some peoples signatures are really long, because of these machine specs being there. Ok, I'm being unresonable here, but you get the idea.

My current idea would be to just have a link underneath the name, so that if machine specs were part of the problem, people could click the link, and find out what the problem may be. If the parts of the machine have nothing to do w/ it, then it's just one extra line of text under someone's name.

mmm- like LQ Wiki edits, and LQ bookmarks etc etc. yeah- I like that idea. (re link under name)

It could be a cool feature- like when people have a web site programming problem and forget to post the link, then you can usually check it out by looking at their home page. Of course, when they are talking about some OTHER site...

I think it is a cool idea for a supplement, but in no way should it detract from posting complete questions. It would be cool if we could analyse it and see the stats. (ie- 80% of LQ users use intel processors etc)

happy new year

titanium_geek