Please Post Forums Issues - August 2005

[Cheryl Griffin]

Trying to force anyone to assign points is like trying to herd cats. It will never happen.

The majority of people who post here continue to do so, regardless of the points.

[Mel Burslan]

Cheryl,

At the risk of sounding triteful, I need to say this. Yes we all post here regardless of the points but there are certain people here in the forums who get this place as a free hpux information search grounds without ever giving back anything, not an answer to others questions, no points, absolutely nothing. When I see their questions, I'll skip over them regardless how well I know the answer to their questions. This is my passive resistance. I am not these people's search drone. They need to do their own legwork in my opinion.

One thing that would be useful is to announce the points assigned percentage of the person by means of some star scale, who is asking a question, next to their names or some place. This may put some to shame and think about the consequences of their actions or lack there of.

[Uwe Zessin]

Well said & fully agree.

[Patrick Wallek]

I disagree. You are never going to get everyone to assign points. Have a "scarlet letter" next to someone's name isn't likely to help either. Those that don't assign points will most likely have no clue what it means anyway.

"there are certain people here in the forums who get this place as a free hpux information search grounds...." -- Well DUH! That exactly what this is. There is nothing anywhere that says you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to contribute anything back. The points process, or answering others questions, is voluntary.

Don't get me wrong, I do get mildly irritated when someone doesn't assign points. But then I forget about it and move on.

When you originally post a question a screen does come up that tells you about the points process. Yes, many people ignore it, but at least it is there.

There have been numerous threads in the forums about the points issue. I personally think things work pretty well the way they are. There is no easy solution and you will never get everyone to assign points, and you will never make everyone happy.

[Alex Lavrov.]

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=947083


Think this should be moved.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

this does not look it anything like HP.
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=947021

Michael

[Mel Burslan]

Patrick,

I did not mean to assign the scarlet letter with your words to shame them. It just helps the person who is contemplating to answer if their efforts are going to be appreciated or not. For those who answer few questions here and there, get to the point where they have a green hat or you see their names on some posts and know one way or another they are at least trying to contribute. They may not know anything about points system or totally ignore it but it is not the point I am trying to make. It is being a part of a community. I am not a bleeding heart but if you take something from the community you have to give something back. Let it be points or your efforts to help some less fortunate.

I know, you as a regular ITRC forummer, notice the personalities I am talking about. They ask a question without even making an effort to search for the answer. I know the search engine of ITRC suck in most cases but for some questions asked, typing two words into the search box is more than enough to find the answer. They, do not want to go into even this much trouble. That is what irritates me the most. And someone responds to them with the answer (god knows it is not me lately) and what happens. Absolutely nothing. In my opinion, this is not fair trade. For the person who is genuine and wants to help others as much as he wants to get help, I will offer what ever I am capable of to these types, but not to the others.

I think I came to the brink of my ranting quota. Back into my soapbox now :)

[Alex Lavrov.]

Just wanted to put my 5 cents about the points. I'm with Mal. Ofcourse none is doing it for points, because they are just for fun, but the attitude of some ppl, just to ask ask ask ask ask and ask, and then close the thread and in many cases without even saying thanx, is more than annoying.

I sometimes do say that it will be nice to get some points, just to make a person realize that someone actually wasted time to help him.

I think some mark of the "unthankfull" users will be good. I'm not speaking about ppl who register here for one question and then go away forever, I'm talking about ppl who are registered for years and asks alot and don't assign points.

Alex.

[Andrew Merritt_2]

Problems today getting listings of the messages in a forum. I can see individual messages fine, but trying to get the list of messages in, e.g., HP-UX sometimes works and sometimes comes back, after a delay, with the error:

system unavailable

The system is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

wpa-pl-wpaframework-10000

Andrew

[Andrew Merritt_2]

Working ok now, by the way.

Andrew

[Alan Meyer_4]

Candidate for re-assignment???

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=947485

[Mel Burslan]

Referencing item #7 in Pete Randall's first response on this thread :

Are we really going to get this "code snippet insertion" feature, which will use a fixed pitch font without squeezing spaces etc. ?

It should not be rocket science as many bulettin board software has it already and had it for years. Considering this is a bulletin board aimed at IT professionals, whose daily life revolves around code, one way or another, I am not sure why such an important feature gets so low of a priority on the totem pole.

If we already have the feature as Pete put it in his post, where is it ? How can we make use of it ? Can someone put out some enlightening explanation somewhere ? Please...

[Stuart Browne]

Hrm.. With regards tot he points assignment, how about an extra reminder screen when someone is starting a thread (or after starting a thread) which bugs people who have low point assignment ratios, and requires them to 'accept' or something before it allows them to actually post.

just a thought..

[Mel Burslan]

Stuart,

With all due respect, I know the additional screen is going to be another annoyance to those who have no intention of assigning points, will be duly ignored in a second or two, unless maintaining a certain minimum ratio is made mandatory by forum administrators, which is likely to happen when the pigs fly. And in my opinion it should not be necessary. Like all other large congregations, this one should be self sustaining without much need for policing. I am doing my part by ignoring the so-called "blood suckers" if they get the treatment they deserve from everyone, uniformly, they will either: 1) tidy themselves up by showing some effort; 2) quit using itrc forums. In my opinion, either case is more favorable than the status quo.

[Devender Khatana]

Cheryl and Dan,

Duplicates

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=947943

&

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=947942

Regards,
Devender

[Alex Lavrov.]

I'll post it here, bacause I don't want to post it in several threads here, so not to be rude.

I see many questions, that ppl here are giving the same answer, again and again and again. It's pretty annoying, because if I'm subscribed to this thread because I'm interested in the thread's development, so when I get the email and I go to check the thread, I see ppl are giving the exact same reply over and over again.

Just some point that I wanted to rise for a long time here ....

Alex.

[Kurt Beyers.]

It is a good feature that one still can respond at a closed thread.

But then again, what is then the purpose of the feature? Shouldn't it just be removed again then?

Kurt

[Pete Randall]

Today when I try to go to the Forums home page ( http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/home.do?forumId=1 ), I get a completely blank page. I've tried Netscape under HP-UX and IE under Windoze. I suppose I could try others, but ususally if those two don't work, nothing will.


Pete

[Alex Lavrov.]

Same problem here ...

[Kurt Beyers.]

A thread that should be moved:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=948562

regards,
Kurt

[Steven E. Protter]

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=948569

Appears to be dettached from the thread its answering.

SEP

[Rick Garland]

Got the blank page as mentioned. I had saved a previous post in my bookmarks and when I display that post it is OK. Then I go to top of screen and select the HPUX and it works.

But the blank page at initial startup...

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

Hi,

this is a hardware issue for all I can tell, please move it to servers->9000 . I hope someone there from HP will notice it and help him out... :)


http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/postanswer.do?threadid=948571&forumId=1&closedFlag=0

[Rick Garland]

Don;t see blank page anymore...

Thanks!

[Kurt Beyers.]

Can you edit my coingratulations post for Leif please:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=948682

Two typing errors:

'You fond Leif's profile' instead of You find Leif's profile'

and

'you certainly derserved it' instead of 'you certainly deserved it'

Too much in a hurry to start the post prior to another forum member.

Editing a post would be a good enhancement feature.

Kurt