Attn all : same problem over and over again

[Steve Post]

One reason why points don't get assigned is the author is so busy putting in the fix, that they forget respond.
Another reason is they are a remora leaching technical info from your brains?

I try to remember to put in points. But if a response comes in after I turned off email notification, or a response that's not a response? How would I know?

I searched for my OWN name in the forums and found that I did assign points to the answers for each question. But some answers had no points assigned.
It would be nice to have an option for the author to find all or their questions with un-pointed answers.

On another note. I try to respond to other people's problems if: 1. I know I won't lead them the wrong way. 2. I might be able to help. I consider it important to TRY to give back with more than points.

[Patrick Wallek]

Alexander,

I know how you feel. That was one of the reasons behind my "ITRC Forums Etiquette" document.

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x022718276953d61190040090279cd0f9,00.html

But, unfortunately that doesn't seem to have helped either. And Dan G. has even posted it on the ITRC Forums front page in his list of links.

I find some peoples behavior very frustrating, but in a community like this, I don't know that there is much you can do. You can put all the notices up that you want that stress assigning points but there will always be people that ignore them. It's a fact of life.

As many others have said, I do my best to answer a question and if I get points, that's great. If I don't, well, I might be irritated for a bit, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

There have been a LOT of threads similar to this during the 2 years or so that I've been posting here. It is always the same complaint, LOTS of people always respond, but very rarely does it do anything except give some us a place to vent our frustrations.

[Deshpande Prashant]

HI
May be it's time for Dan to add a hat or icon against the person with low percentils for assigning points.

Prashant.

[Shannon Petry]

Historically the people who dont assign the points are here once or twice a year (if that). Some dont care, others can not speak very good English so may not understand. I chalk it up to life. Most probably dont even come back to look at answers because they found a different free way to solve their problems.

Analogy:
--------
I hold doors open for people all the time, and dont get mad when they dont return the favor. I just know from that point that they wont be on my friends list anytime soom, but I dont bash them for it.

There will always be people who want and get something for nothing. As long as I know where my morals and ethics are they dont bother me in the slightest ;)

Regards,
Shannon

[Alexander M. Ermes]

To Pete Randall.
Hi Pete.
Written some of the things in a mail to Dan or some other people responsible for the ITRC.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Alexander M. Ermes]

To all the people, who have responded and the people who will respond to this.

I love this forum, because we can discuss ANY problem in a real nice and polite matter.
Nobody is really raising his/her voice.
That is one more attitude on people, who really try to help without asking for payback.
I could imagine many of you stopping on the roads to help people in an accident or for a wounded animal.
This makes the difference between this forum community and many others.
Thank you very much.
You keep up my hope.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Alexander M. Ermes]

To all the people, who have responded and the people who will respond to this.

I love this forum, because we can discuss ANY problem in a real nice and polite matter.
Nobody is really raising his/her voice.
That is one more attitude on people, who really try to help without asking for payback.
I could imagine many of you stopping on the roads to help people in an accident or for a wounded animal.
This makes the difference between this forum community and many others.
Thank you very much.
You keep up my hope.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Alexander M. Ermes]

To all the people, who have responded and the people who will respond to this.

I love this forum, because we can discuss ANY problem in a real nice and polite matter.
Nobody is really raising his/her voice.
That is one more attitude on people, who really try to help without asking for payback.
I could imagine many of you stopping on the roads to help people in an accident or for a wounded animal.
This makes the difference between this forum community and many others.
Thank you very much.
You keep up my hope.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Alexander M. Ermes]

To all the people, who have responded and the people who will respond to this.

I love this forum, because we can discuss ANY problem in a real nice and polite matter.
Nobody is really raising his/her voice.
That is one more attitude on people, who really try to help without asking for payback.
I could imagine many of you stopping on the roads to help people in an accident or for a wounded animal.
This makes the difference between this forum community and many others.
Thank you very much.
You keep up my hope.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Tim D Fulford]

Alexander.

I tried to politely point people who were new/hadn't assigned points to the etiquette site. All this did was "Blacken" my name. I see no real way 'round it.

On the one hand: this forum is for experts & beginners alike. It is not surprising that people do not assign points appropriately.

On the other hand: people who do participate in answering questions (for which most companies would pay many $$$$ for) get nothing other than points, so of-course people feel agreived when they have answered question & recieved no recognition for it.

One solution MIGHT be that if a person has not assigned points to sat 10 questions when they view the replies they are first reminded to assingn points then given a link to continue.

Tim

[Frank Slootweg]

Piyush,

People *are* already getting the 'warning' you want: In each and every (e-mailed) notification message it says:

> IF YOU ARE THE AUTHOR OF THE QUESTION:
[*How* to assign points]
> ** WHY SHOULD I DO THIS?:
[*Why* assign points.]

As others have mentioned, the point is that you can not *force* people to read/'obey'.

Steve (Post),

>I try to remember to put in points. But if a response comes in after I turned off email
> notification, or a response that's not a response? How would I know?

For that and similar reasons, I never turn off email notification. I understand from Dan that this hardly puts any load on the servers, so (I think) there is no need to turn them off.

All,

Re: requests for HP 'policing', 'punishing', 'outing', etc. the 'abusers': That is not going to happen. These are forums for the users by the users. HP provides the facilities, but is not going to 'police' (other than documented in the terms and conditions).

[John Dvorchak]

I personally don't care if someone assigns points or not when I am the one posting a reply. But when I have a problem and refer to the forum for an answer, I really like that I can sort on points to find the most relavent answer. Hell I wish I could go back and assign points to the guys who answered someone elses question and it ended up fixing my problem!

To all of you people that take the time to answer the questions, I thank you. I can't tell you how many hours I have saved by being able to search the forum and get the answers.

THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTING!

[Mike Hassell]

Alexander,

I find this very fustrating as well, as I like to know if my response was helpful or not.

Unforunately, some users in the forum don't put fourth the effort to assign points and that will *never* change.

I think this really comes down to human nature. Some people never say thank you, while others will.

Should we boycott these LAME users, by not repsonding to their questions? Personally I don't think so, as I just enjoy the challenge that the forums represent. I prefer to drop a simple reminder at the bottom of my posts to remind them that they should assign points to those responses that helped them solve their problems, but in the end a lame user is going to remain a lame user, that's life :-)

That's my $.02

-Mike

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Ok, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your opinion.