... maybe you asked the wrong question ...

Does someone scan these forums* looking for idle questions which might find answers in some other thread?

Is there some way that the site can make a brief email report to those who post questions saying, "Your [date] posting on [subject] has been unanswered for X [interval]." Intervals might be 3-days, 1-week, 2-weeks, 1-month. After 1-month unanswered, the email might ask for a reply to "withdraw my question as [reason]." Reasons might be "answered elsewhere" "problem dropped" "found work-around" "see [URL] for solution"

For folks that are new == to Linux, some distro, *nix, some application, this forum, community support in general == it is often hard to get answers because you really do ask the wrong question. Well, it isn't that your questions in capital-R-wrong. More likely your question speaks to the symptoms that you see and mis-behavior that you understand based on knowledge and experience from some other environment [read "win-doze"].

LinuxQuestions has an "unanswered questions" feature but it seems that the focus is on those who might possibly offer an answer. In other words, "Folks who know something, please go look for unanswered questions and offer an answer so that you might earn some karma..." When this creates answers, that is wonderful. For questions in limbo == asked but not answered for a while == the new participant might simply feel that they made some mistake. After all , they are NEW. Worse they might leave the site feeling that folks here do not care enough to deal with such a newbie issue.

``` 0;-Dan

_______________
* what is the latin plural for "forum"? Is that one of the -um,-i -o, -um, -o, -i, -orum, -is, -os, -is nouns? Why do I still remember this? Why might I or anyone else care?

What is the question.

It is a second declension noun, so the Latin nominative/accusative plural is fora. But since it has long ago been borrowed into English, the plural forums is more typical.

Why should we use Latin plural endings when we don't use Latin case endings?

I don't feel that the answer is to spam them with automated followup emails. Many 'members' only make a single post, and if it isn't answered in 24 hours, move on. It would be nice if more threads could achieve closure, but does it really matter?

There are several categories of unanswered questions, for example:

• Issues that are vague, hard to know what they are asking.
• Issues that are obscure, only a few people know the answers.
• Issues that are genuinely difficult to solve.
• Issues that are hard to replicate.

'newbie' issues are not ignored; if anything, they get many replies (second only to the troll threads).

1 members found this post helpful.

Actually, by default (you can change the settings), when you start or post in a thread, you do receive an e-mail notification when there has been a reply.

Also, a lot of *unsolved* threads are the OP's fault- i.e. the question was too vague, and they failed to answer questions to help clarify their problem. In many cases, they don't even return/reply at all.

Cheers

1 members found this post helpful.

Yeah, I agree, most of the time the OP either does not give enough info for an intelligible answer, or just never posts back.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think linking up threads is a good way to help others find answers. However it takes time and as such I have only done that sporadically and only for questions which are uncommon.


Unfortunately some people don't understand that asking a question here means answering it here and that sharing information and reciprocity are two of the most important pillars supporting this community. So if a question is answered elsewhere or a workaround is found then the OP should choose to post the (URI to the) solution here so it might benefit others.


For the more experienced LQ members that shouldn't be a problem. Most here will recognise somebody who is being patient, shows the inclination to fit in, tinker with things a bit and overall put in some effort. It gets problematic if the OP drops out of coop mode and is only interested in sharing his frustrations, misconceptions or cluebie opinions, insists on doing things the mcrsft way, doesn't respond at all, crossposts threads, asks "easy" questions without searching LQ or asks for handouts. While such users can often be easily educated or nudged on, LQ members are free to pass up on it if they think they can't manage the effort of replying in a friendly, helpful and constructive way. That said there are LQ users who will check older 0-reply threads. I tend to go on NTLB runs myself once every few weeks when I can spare the time. LQ does value all members equally and we all try to make and keep LQ a good place to stay for everyone. Unfortunately we can't answer all questions. It's not right but it's one of those simple facts of life.

1 members found this post helpful.

I wouldn't exactly say it's wrong, either. As long as technology continues to advance (and Linux devs have to play "catch-up" with supporting new 'Built for Windows-x' hardware), it is, and always will be, simply a fact of life.

Cheers

In all reality most questions have been answered here at least 10 times over ... but the user is often too lazy to use the search function.

1 members found this post helpful.

I think it's way too easy to "blame" this on technological advance. If I read the OP right then this is much more about social aspects of being part of a community: (lack of) interplay, coherence and such.


Unless you've read Keith Laumer (and I don't mean the Bolo series) then please lets stick to this reality OK? ;-p

Sure questions have been answered before. I do not think however that it is wise to characterize those fellow LQ members as being lazy. For one because because you may not realize that for the OP the problem may seem like a mountain they're trying to conquer and any help is welcome.

Well, AFAIK there's only one reality.

If the question has been answered before and I remember that it has or search it myself I do provide the link. But, believe it or not, many times I am ignored. I'm not sure if the user is lazy or something else, but there's definitely a problem of some kind.

True, and I addressed that (at least in part) in post #5. Post #8 was a direct response to your statement (which I quoted), and was only meant to offer one other reason why the inability to answer all questions will always exist.

Cheers

For some reason, forums just sounded funny so I wrote the footnote. I read somewhere that mobile phone text messaging -- and its penchant for minimal character counts -- has also resurrected the -t ending as past tense as [i]smelt[i] vs. smelled or spellt vs. spelled.

Waaaaaaaaaay off topic, but a little linquistics is computer science and fun too.

~~~ 0;-Dan

Sometimes a posting gets responses almost immediately. Other times, nothing happens for days or weeks if ever. I'm not interested in researching details like Did you post on a day when lots of folks were online for holidays? or similar. I was hoping to get a serious discussion from serious folks ... seasoned with a little humor ... about (a) causes for questions to get ignored, and (b) actions one might take to encourage responses.As a frequent visitor and sometimes posted to LQ, my original posting asked my question as stated,

Thus, my original question stands as written,
~~~ 0;-Dan

I'm not advocating "spam" and automated replies and status reports are not spam a priori. Also, any sort of notice like this might reasonably have an profile based opt-in or opt-out setting. Computer data systems are wonderful for tracking things so that humans need not remember.

• I asked a question.
• Computer remembers when I asked.
• Time passes.
• Computer notices that "too much time" has passed without any responses.
• Computer reports status.

If "too much time" and "report" were configurable profile items then you don't have spam but a valuable service to those who "subscribe."

A question that becomes "stale enough" might get closed because it is stale. Perhaps some sort of "too old" vs. "closed" status might help identify classes of questions and problems that recurr yet never seem to resolve.

These are precisely the questions who would benefit from some sort of follow-up. Do we have 5 variants of a vague question or 5000? I know we are not here to teach question writing, but one person's vague is another person's jargon.

A follow-up asking, "How does someone else replicate the problem?" sometimes encourages additional details or even explicit troubles to float to the surface. Consider, "You need to type 'xyssy' ... Oh, that should be 'xyzz' ... That fixed it."

It is precisely the 'newbie' who would benefit from some sort of follow-up as opposed to no response at all. The new person will likely doubt themselves [aka, "I asked something wrong..." ] but follow-up from a moderator-like resource offering "vague question" or "wrong forum" or similar would help the new comer.

~~~ 0;-Dan