Rant about Forum Posting
 

I apologize in advance for this little pseudo-rant, especially to Jeremy, to the moderators, and to the members who don't do this. I'm also not trying to target any specific users. And yes, I know it's been covered before.

I love being a part of this community and being able to help others. However, I feel that recently people are (once again) not learning how to post.

I'd like to just address a few issues, mainly to get them off my chest, but also in hopes that someone sees a solution.
[list=1][*]Members do not read the rules -- this is evident in the following items.[*]People do not provide distribution names, software versions, or exact error messages. "When I type foo, it gives me an error." WHAT error?[*]DO NOT post in multiple forums. What is so hard about that? One of the most helpful things on here is the contributions of multiple members: IN ONE PLACE.[*]Do not say "help me!", "urgent!", or similar things in your title. Just because it is urgent to you does not make it urgent to me.[*]Do not bump threads all the time. Ok, we get it, you want an answer. We'll get to you if/when we can.[*]I speak/read/write English. And some German. Not l33t, not 'half-sentences', and would prefer not to have to read a stream of obsenities about something not working.[/list=1]

Now that I'm done ranting, I want to say THANK YOU to Jeremy and all the moderators who do work to keep the forums clean and operating efficiently.

Closed. No, not really :D You get used to it, yes it's annoying but, to be fair, the vast majority of transgressors do learn not to do it. The best thing to do is to report the post(s) and to calmly and politely explain to the user what they have done wrong. That way they come back and don't leave in disgust.

I agree about STUPID PEOPLE!! but again, grace so they don't leave in a huff.

titanium_geek

Thanks for the comments guys. Part of that "grace" and "calm" you asked for came in the form of me making this post. We all need to vent once in a while, I guess. Better here than in some poor guy's thread who just happened to have the bad topic that broke the camel's back.

In this case, it was just a "View Threads with Zero Replies" list that looked like:

• Urgent!!!
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• I'm a duplicate thread
• Need help...
• can u guys h3lp?

:D Thanks for tolerating my rant.

What I really hate?

LOL. Exactly. Or how about:

Can you all stand a serious suggestion here ;)?

Will there ever be a way to auto-censor "semantically null" (ESR?) crap out of peoples' posts, esp. the titles? I have in mind you type "URGENT" & the forum chides you for excessive capitalization as well as using a stupid word.

If that isn't practical or politically correct, how about giving the moderators a 1-click access to standard correction msgs. for the most common stupidities. For that matter, how about adding a menu of std. complaints to "Report this post" -- don't eliminate the text comment, just streamline reporting "double post" & the various idiocies mentioned above.

How about a "Lame Title" sub-forum in each of the existing forum areas, where moderators could move such stuff.
(BTW, are threads ever deleted rather than just closed?)

One "bug" I believe still exists in the site software is that if someone realizes that s/he has a bad title on his/her thread, editing to change the subject does not change the reported title. Not a whole lot of incentive for people to fix their mistakes.

Forgive me, I think I'm venting too.

I do think thread title editing is a critical point.

Matir, great post! :) Let's hope they make this thread a sticky (not that anyone will actually read and/or heed it)

You know, my comments are actually derivatives of things in most of the stickies.

You know, I see many threads where the only replies are "ok, what error? and what version are you running?", etc. So many threads waste the energy of anyone willing to help on pulling information out of the OP like pulling teeth.

I agree, we don't need them to go away mad, we just need them to go away!
Seriously, yes, the hlf wrds R (sic) annoying as @#$, as is the 1337 crap, but I think alot of these people are just kids who don't yet know any better. At least, that's what I tell myself when I feel like shoving my hand down the digital cable modem line and strangling them at their computer.:)

I think you missed the point in my humor. I know some people don't read them, or even if they do, they ignore them. :(

I share your pain, the crap thread titles and everything do my head in :(. People shouting at you, LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME is also very annoying. There's someone on LQ (his name escapes me right now, but he's a Brit too, IIRC) who has a cool signature about using English properly in posts :D.

Edit:

Yeah, I believe vB has the ability to let users edit their thread titles. Hopefully Jeremy and the mods will look into enabling it. Apart from fixing mistakes, it'd be good to be able to put "(Solved)" or something in our titles, for obvious reasons.

Please use search on both these things, as they have been discussed countless times before.

Jesus, sorry :/.

I agree with the sentiments in Matirs post. I usually find that a link to the rules and a polite message telling the *culprit* the error of their ways resolves the problem. :)

And don't you just *HATE* all those bloody threads that are just rants about Forum Posting ...:rolleyes:

.
.
.
.
.


(Aussie humour folks, just a joke)

Now this has come up again, I think the ability to edit the thread title by the OP is a must!

Seriously, I've heard plenty on this, but no single convincing argument against it.

Please allow us to edit thread titles. Sometimes we do make mistakes and want to correct a thread title. Since we're allowed to edit post contents, why not the thread title (which shows up in the forum view?) I mean, ok, it's open to abuse, but then what isn't?

At least if 5% of users used the [solved] header , it would be a good thing. Why not? Who cares if the 95% didn't use it? At least it would help 5% of us show the community that we have solved a problem and hopefully help others find a solution.

I know many members who want this facility. For some odd reason, the moderators seem to be extremely conservative on this issue and want to maintain status quo.

As a matter of fact, moderators can't edit thread titles either. Only Jeremy can do this, so we're in the same situation as you! ;) It does seem somewhat odd in vbulletin that the thread title in the not title of the first post of a thread, just a copy of it on creation. To me that's an illogical way to build a thread in a database, but it is simpler i guess.

If moderators can't edit thread titles, then if somebody advertises "Come visit www.mysiteurl.com" in their thread title, how do you handle that?

That seems to be rather of a handicap!

This may or may not be a useful suggestion. I'm sure you all will let me know. So here goes.

How about adding a little note at the bottom of the page where the post reply box is or in the post reply area. Something like

"Please do not use the following in your thread title"
URGENT, Plz help, I have an error, or numbers for letters.

or a more simple note could be.

"Please be descriptive in Thread title and post."

While these may be posted in the forum rules, considering that people may not read the rules, a small note on the post page may be helpful imho.


peace V

We already have this message and a guidance in the "Post Thread" view. You can see it on the left hand side of the input fields.

It says:
It's just that most people don't read it or ignore it.

Sorry 'bout that. Well it shows how many threads I have posted. Which is maybe 3 back in 2004 I think.

Thanks Harishankar


peace V

correction: I posted one thread this year in July about ibuild.

Put it in a red div and use jscript/dhtml or CSS to make it blink. This is one of the few occasions where the use of the blink tag/style would actually be appropriate.

A couple notes:

- If you post a thread title in all caps, it will automatically be lowered cased. We can't just start filtering arbitrary words - for instance what if "URGENT" appears in a valid error message?
- The mods already have 1 click access to common responses.

--jeremy

Anyway we can exclude some of the these types of characters from being used consecutively in titles:

@!!!!!!@%$^%&*#%^(($)^)(

Note: I took this from an actual thread, I truly believe titles with garbage characters that have nothing to do with the title should be removed from the title.

Either that or some sort of scripting that checks thread titles for "!!!!!!" "help meeee" "plzzzzzzzzz" the post goes out until the author removes the lameness factor. I know I, for one, won't even click on a thread titled "help" or "help me".

I agree, but some (odd) error messages might include some of those things. Though I guess that should be kept to the thread body.

I doubt that most error messages would have so many consecutively, like I mentioned.

Perhaps limit it to maybe 3 in a row.

limit "help me" hlp plz plzzzzz hlpppppp !!!! #@$%@ etc is a yes please! perhaps if not remove the word urgent, perhaps throw a popup- "Are you sure you want to use the word urgent, remember that many members will not look at your question if the title contains the word urgent.."

um... I think a popup would be great in the search function too- enter one word and it will tell you "one word searches are a heavy drain on our servers. please refine your search (add more words) to help us and find a more specific answer."

anyway- perhaps a warning system- users who have more than 5 threads (after a certain date, to avoid hurting reformed members) and then a more strict remove list is enforced for a time period.

titanium_geek

I don't like the idea of a popup (I use the popupsmustdie extension and it is a pain to keep enabling popups for each site I want). How about just taking you back to the message post page instead but have in clear, red letters (or some other colour that stands out) that warning that you suggested. If they are sure, they can click submit again.

Extended ascii characters like (( # :: etc. may be in the name of a program or may be contained in a piece of code, error message, or other important item so I don't think filtering out higher ascii characters is a good solution.

You need look no further than the Linux kernel source for error messages like:

CPU#%d ALREADY INITIALIZED!!!!!!!!!
Some sort of error for INTR EP !!!!
racSendCommandWait: HASR_FIRM_READY EXCEEDED!!!!

...you get the idea. Automatic filtering is a very tenuous thing, and is something I'd like to avoid if possible.

--jeremy

Are there any errors like:

OMFG CPU FR33Q3D LOL!!!111!!! THIS 5UXX0R5!!!111!!! FIXING IT WOULD ROX!!!111!!!

:D

Forgive me tk, for I have sinned. I was but a stupid newbie, unaccustomed to the ways of the internet, and highly frustrated with an alleged OS, who shall remain nameless, but this does not excuse mine error.
Or, more colloquially, sorry tk. I promise never to do it again.

Edit:
lol@kimvette

I agree that people post the sos over and over, same thing over and over, but it also gets old when you are googling a solution only to find a question that's answered by instructions on how to google or patronizing answers on how to search forums. If they were smart enough to search forums they wouldn't be posting the same question over and over.

I think it's more helpful to either point a user to a thread where the question is answered or just paste the answer into another thread. The N00b is not the only one reading forums, but rudeness definitely stands out...


It's just as easy to give a quick answer as it is to lecture.

That really does depend. If the thread title is "Help" but the content is detailed, then I agree that it's easy to provide a response over and above Google. The majority of these threads are:
At that point, the poster isn't even trying to help us help them. With over 300,000 members it is easier to divert time to the people that put in some effort. Forums like this are entirely volunteer run, but even if the help was fully paid for, examples such as I have posted wouldn't get an immediate response.

Let's remember that this thread was dormant for THREE AND A HALF YEARS until last night... many points discussed aren't as relevant as they were back then.

I hadn't noticed that. I think I assumed it was one of the other posts about posting.

exactly ;-)

ha ha, sorry I didn't realize the age of the thread, that's funny

generally I do read and search threads, and really I haven't needed to ask too many questions but I do appreciate it when I find answers rather than suggestions to run a google, which is generally how I find my answers in the 1st place.

I don't mean to mock anyone that does help here, believe me it is invaluable.

I should point out that one of the best things about using forums is that you get to ask people that know systems a lot better than you do, or have other ideas, smarter people or experts in certain areas. Maybe more pruning is necessary, etc.

Anyway I just find it kinder to either ignore, or post a link to those not as gifted if you have the time. Even if it means recommending a kinder distro or a book, or a Ubuntu guide.

All points taken I guess that was my own rant/outburst to ranting and forum posting.

Thanks and cheers all.

Isn't that a little steep ... Calling ppl names???
:(

Linux Archive

no, THREE YEARS AGO when it was said, it wasn't considered rude by modern society at all. Now, please... old thread. please leave...