I have a question

[Mark Mitchell]

Does anyone award points to a problem anymore?

[Steve Sauve · Accepted solution]

I do :)

Steve

[James R. Ferguson]

Mark:

Darn good question! One wonders. There are an awful lot of attempts made to help with sometimes absolutely no points awarded. I've seen authors actually say "Thanks for the help!" and yet not award points. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

Obviously every participant likes to have the satisfaction of knowing that their contribution meant something (points). If one finds that objectionable then I submit that one consider awarding points to the answers received so that the NEXT reader (maybe weeks or months from now) can get an idea of just what answer proved to be the most worthwhile in solving the problem.

Thanks for asking the question you did, Mark.

Regards, Jim.

...JRF...

[Mark Mitchell]

I know, and the biggest thing that gets to me is when the resolution isn't entered. The point of this is to learn and I see a new problem, read 6 sugestions, and never see them post the answer. I feel like I spent time reading a mystery only to find that the last 10 pages are missing.

[wagley 2 10-18]

Hi all,

We're enhancing the Forums Public Profiles to show the number of answers each forum member has received & rated. The line will say something like, "this member has assigned points to 2 of 10 responses to his/her questions". This will help hold the author of the question more accountable to rate the answer. It will also help the experts see which people are not rating responses and then they can make the decision to answer or not.

To get a better idea of what the Public Profile will look like in the next release, please see the slides attached.

Kind regards,

Shayne
ITRC Forums Administrator
Hewlett-Packard Company

[Tim Malnati]

I had a somewhat lengthy talk with Shayne at HP World on this very topic. I attempt to go back to threads that I've posted to in order to determine if the originator needs more input and to get an idea of how well I answer the question/topic in the eyes of the originator (or others if I have missed the mark). A big part of why I'm here is to learn as well. When people don't respond with something (points or otherwise), I feel like there is a good chance that my reply was not even viewed. Points are nice, but some form of acknoledgement that says the originator at least read it would be better than nothing (an N/A is OK with me). If I've spent five minutes on a response, then so what. But sometimes I will do some considerable research to get things as complete as possible and then the situation becomes a bit frustrating.

Part of the problem is the system itself. If a user is not currently logged in, the assign points reminders will not be displayed. I suggested some form of internal tracking screen to display a list of unanswered responses when a user logs in. From what I've seen lately, some statistical analysis would show that many more responses are not assigned points than those that are. Some software changes are scheduled for the forums soon; lets see what happens.

There are some that post questions quite often that never assign points. I tend to put these people on the bottom of my priority list when responding. The other thing that I have noticed is that the specific group area can make a big difference as well. My guess is that there is more than software differences between the environments. :-)

[Tim Malnati]

Seems that the system lost my last message in this thread. I just did a quick analysis in the the new Printers group and found 7 responses with point awards of 66 total responses. This is not much different than the rate of return of a sales cold canvas. If nothing else this sort of shows the amount of effort that many have applied to get to the point levels they have acquired.

[Steve Massey_1]

Mark

About time - I to have posed several questions to this forum - and recieved good answers - to which points were awarded(I hope). It's easy in a crisis to put the question, go and solve your problem with the answer, be the hero at work - but forget where you got it !!!!

The wealth of knowledge out there - who happily help "lost souls" is outstanding.

It would be sad if contributers walked away - just because we were too lazy to respect the effort put into answering problems

So come on - if you can be bothered to pose the question - take the time to award points

Steve

[VAL AMIRAULT-VALE]

I just did...thanks to James R. Ferguson!!
Val

[Carlos Fernandez Riera]

No i nerver do it ( because a i never put a question).

But some times i`d like award same point to very good responses.