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.

[Kenn Chen]

i agree with u, hope others will more proactive to assign points in future.

[wagley 2 10-18]

Hi all,

RE: assigning points
The forum community have taken time out to help you, so please take a moment to give them credit for the assistance they have provided. Also, your rating will not only help your peers earn points toward their Forums status, but your feedback will validate the quality of the solution you've received. Others will therefore be able understand which answer best helped you solve your problem, making the community knowledge being shared here that much richer.

In our next release, all Forum members will be able to see the number of answers they're received and the number they've rated. This will be shown in the Profile area. The line in the profile section will read something like this, "This member has assigned points to 3 of 10 responses to his/her questions." Hopefully, this will put more accountability on the individual to rate the response, and will help our experts see which people are not rating responses. The experts can then make the decision to answer or not.

Kind regards,

Shayne
ITRC Forums Program
Hewlett-Packard

[Eddie Warren]

Hi Mark,

You hit the nail on the head. I admire all the people that take the time out of their schedule to try and help. I dropped off for a while because I did'nt know if I was helping solve problems. Good Question!!

[Rick Garland]

Here is a post in which all of the replies are not being shown. Granted that a lot of individuals do not award points or let us know the resolution, there are some situations in which the points cannot be awarded because all of the responses cannot be seen.

[Andrew_4]

I agree,

People need to ensure they do award points where appropriate, otherwise, those people who actually spend time answering questions will be discouraged to help those who never (or don't know how to) award points.

Where someone awards points... you always find many willing contributors !

Andrew

[Mark Mitchell]

Thanks everyone, i was finnally able to see
all of your posts and have kept my word.

[f. halili]

This FORUM helped me a lot. THe first time a used this was months ago and when I have a problem, I get the right solution in the Forum. I was, and still am eager to assign points to thank the person who placed some time and effort to respond to my question. Now I'm trying to respond to some questions, and at times I won't see any points assigned on a much discussed problem.

`fnhalili`

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

I'm quite new in this forum and thus only asked a couple of questions.
I was sincerely believing that I had assigned points to all the answers and the new forum demonstrated that I was wrong.
On my profile page, I see the following:
"This member has assigned points to 9 of 11 responses to his/her questions".

I checked the answers for which I didn't assign points and realised that those were duplicate posts, for which I had already assigned points for the first answer.

I thus assigned those extra points, even if they were not really deserved, but now I have a 11/11 ratio ;-))

Cheers,

Dan

[Ossie de Jongh]

I agree with Dan Hetzel, like him, I'm also fairly ne to this in this far only posted one question, but my points assigned percentage are 7 out of 11. Which I am not pertualrly pleased with, since I think the point allocation system is very functional. The reason for the 7 out of 11 is basically to do with our famous "submit" key: Messages posted more than once. Although I would like to have a 100% points allocated record, its a bit unfair to award points for duplicate posts.

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi Ossie,

I had a closer look at the points and realised that I could assign 1-10 or, more interesting, "N/A".
I'll check with my next question how this "N/A" is accounted for in the points/answers ratio.

Dan

[Jim Adamson]

I would just like to say that I find the 'System Admin' forum absolutely brilliant. I am the only administrator my department (and we are the only one using HP-UX)so I find it a great help and reassurance. I always assign points to a useful answer as a way of saying thank you.

I have attended a couple of HP Admin courses but find the forum a lot more useful. You can learn a lot just through reading other peoples queries. To those who reglarly answer questions (see the score board) - if you are ever in Aberdeen ,Scotland I will buy you a wee dram.
thanks,
Jim.

[Alex Glennie]

Jim, thanks for the vote of confidence, this is what the forums are for ... Assistance ! (& not necessarily points).

When can I come up ? :)

[Tommy Palo]

Assigning 10 points to a reply on this question is a shame. Did the reply solve your "problem" ? I guess not. It's not the first time people are earning points on dissapointed forum members as well as for happy ones congratulating each others for reaching new levels. There's nothing wrong in discussing the points system in this forum though, just assign N/A to the replies, including this one.
Never the less, the recent discussions on this topic has now made HP make some changes in the system, hopefully they will make a change for the better.
What is the incentive to reply ?
Well, probably a wish to help and getting recognised for it. So in that respect the points system is good. As beeing relativley new in taking active part in this forum I would also like to get "iconified". But in striving to the next level I hope I don't get addicted to earning points, as I dare say some of the members (subconsciously) maybe are.
It's nice to be a king, and I do pay respect for the effort all the top forum members must have made to be where they are.
But lets say that the top 10 list was removed, just keeping the tiers of forum status. Thus you would only see for each member the level they're on and not the exact score, making it more relaxed. Would this affect the frequency of replies ?

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

I have wanted points for a long time now.

Many of the posters to the OpenView Forum have forgotten all about points.

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Anytime I've received answers I've awarded Points.

So how do we get everyone else to follow suit?