Point Morons

[Patrick Wallek]

I agree that it is in the authors best interest to assign points to EACH AND EVERY REPLY to his / her post and I think that the author has an obligation to do so.

After you author a new thread and click the submit button, a screen comes up with an explanation of the points process and what each point level means. So EVERY person should see this and hopefully understand.

What I don't necessarily agree with is Mr. XX's posting his little piece in the threads of the authors he deems deficient in assigning points. I am actually starting to find it annoying!

What a post author should do is periodically go to his / her profile and click on the 'his / her questions' link and see if any of the questions have had recent responses that he / she is not aware of. The 'date' column on that page is the date of the LAST RESPONSE TO THAT QUESTION. I try to go to that page at least once a week to see if have any new responses to any posts.

I don't look at whether an author has assigned points or not, I just try to answer the question.

While I do think something needs to be done, I don't know what exactly needs to happen. I do know that I don't necessarily agree with Mr. XX's methods.

[Joseph C. Denman]

WOW!!!!

How about a big group hhhhuuugg!@#$%^&*(


...jcd...

[Scott_14]

Hey Shannon:

There are all kinds of people, don't let the few people whose answer to your question is about points, or lack of or what ever discourage you. I think as some pointed out, there are people who are more satisfied by points, rather than of solving a problem, then there are some that maybe just pointed out to please assign points, even if a 1 or 0, to somehow thank them for the response, but then how are you suppose to know that, as well as how can they make a determination for you not having a high assign point number?

I know it if you post a question, and the first reply is points, it can be offensive, because your asking for help. I would try to lean on the side that most people enjoy helping others out, and enjoy trying to resolve an issue.

[Christopher McCray_1]

Shannon,

I have seen this person post in the past and let me say that this has not been the first time this person has "stuck the foot in the mouth", and I suspect it won't be the last.

I must also say that whether or not it is affecting other's choice to answer or not, I guess it will have to be up to that individual. We are all adults at varying degrees of maturity and are capable of taking the role of leader or follower. Speaking for myself, I will answer each and every question that I am capable of answering. I do, however, care whether points are assigned or not because of two reasons:

1. When I first came to this forum, I had almost 0 familiarity with HP-UX and to me it is a reminder as to how far I've come as well as how far I have to go.

2. It gives me an indicator to the strength of my input and how much it helped someone.

I find it very sad that someone has decided to implement a such a practice. I do believe that points should be assigned (N/A, 0-10). I am aware that people have, technical or otherwise, difficulties with assigning points. I had decided to remain silent and not worry about it, especially for every one person who doesn't assign points there are 5 who do. I only voiced my opinion because the issue was raised.

In closing, when this whole thing with point assignment, the unamed person wasn't the only one posting like responses; they simply stopped, leaving one "Point Patrolman". I do notice that amid these posts from the unamed, there are others that do reply, so obviously there are many who don't care as to the amount of points assigned. I think that these people are very, very few and these absolutely wonderful forums should not be judged by their actions.

I hope not to have bored anyone.

This is Chris signing off (for now)

Have a great HP-UX day!!!

[harry d brown jr]

I am the guilty one. :-(

Shannon, when I firsted used the forums posting a few questions a couple of years ago, I knew nothing about the "etiquette" of the forums. But needing another answer almost a year later to yet another question I returned to the forums and realized that I had not assigned points. I had to didg to find my questions, but I did, and I assigned points. Of course I got hooked on the forums, and the forum has been one of the first places I turn when I need answers. Too bad it wasn't around in the late 80's when I first started into unix.

Today, the personal profile gives us that QUICK link to our questions of yore, plus the ability to view questions we have responded to. Plus we can quickly assign points to MULTIPLE people at once, which is probably the best "new" feature.

I have seen people have literally hundreds of responses to a few dozen questions and yet they have profiles like this:

This member has assigned points to 7 of 172 responses to his/her questions.

This member has assigned points to 49 of 318 responses to his/her questions.

Assigning points is not mandatory, but neither is answering questions. Assigning points is helpful to the question asker and to the responder. I'd rather spend hours looking for an answer (of which I do often) to someone's question, when I know that I will be rewarded for my efforts. If I don't get rewarded, point wise, I usually will take the new information I have gathered into the future for my own benefit. But, if I see that someone has had over 300 responses to their questions and only 49 were acknowledged, then I'm not going to spend hours looking for an answer for them. It's a little fustrating when you spend hours on an issue, trying this and that, and finally coming up with an answer, only to be ignored by the questioner. Actually it's more fustrating when a questioner gives 10 points to everyone and never responses back on what they used to "fix" their issue.

Assigning 0 (zero) points is perfectly OK, especially when the response has no benefit to the answer, like this response.

I checked out that previous thread where you responded back to me, and somehow I missed it later that day. Which is too bad because I don't want you to leave the forum, especially over something like this!

I want you to stay, because your contributions, like everyone else's is important to this "community", and without the forum, where would we turn, M$ ??.

Do I owe the first round of drinks?


live free or die
harry

[Scott_14]

Chris:

who are you refering to sticking a foot in his mouth? me? if show please explain your point.

[Pete Randall]

Shannon & Harry,

All I can say is that I certainly hope we can lay this to rest now. The second round is on me.

Pete

[Christopher McCray_1]

No, Scott, you are not to whom I'm referring. I am not familiar with your name (apologies). I was trying to keep in line with the anonymous theme of this thread; I was letting those whose "feet fit the shoes" take my comments to heart, or not, for mine afterall is one opinion of many, and I have been around long enough for any and all people to form one of me. I take any comment into consideration and either disregard, or take as a learning experience and grow from it.

Every day is an adventure.

Chris

[T. M. Louah]

Hi Shannon,
It is not about Points ... It is about the human contribution to the process of knowledege propagation & sharing in the IT community .. We are building together a great knowledge mining zone (Gold mine) .. for futur IT Pros to be ahead and deliver their tasks better if not best!
that is really the spirit of HP Forum !

Best regards to all contributors,
T??

[Scott_14]

Thanks Chris....

and agree lets rest it.

[Sanjay_6]

Boy Harry,

You have been acting naughty.

Shannon,

I think you should take up harry on his offer of buying rounds and shake hands and forget something we all are guilty of one time or the other.

Thanks & Regards
Sanjay

[Wodisch_1]

Hi Shannon,

not being a native speaker (and not able to find "concurrance" even on Webster's site), but kind of a "veteran" on the forums myself, I did not reply when I read your thread the first time, which was when you started it.

But I give you credits on complaining about the "silence", as I do not like the "random acts of self appointed forums police" myself (though I do care very little about it - you might have read my replies on some of those "point-threads" in the past) ;-) And you might have noticed me mentioning the "lack of point-assignment" sometimes AFTER answering...

IMHO there is at least a dilemma (for me):
- you are a valued member of the forums, no doubt about that
- points should be given to all replies to make the whole feature of "points" working, no doubts, again

So, should *we* veterans/oldtimers (forums-wise only, of course) are permitted to behave differently from what is considered the "forums ettiquette"?
When Patrick posted his ideas on this, we were all given the chance to tell our opinions, and some of us did.

The way I see it, is that we oldies should behave even better than the others, to give proper examples for the *newbies*!
But it is NOT about somebody's "worth"at all!
And according to that the "forums police" does NOT have my blessing!
Still I try to assign points to all replies to my threads (but then, I have very few).

I would like to know how many times somebody refused to reply due to the points-ratio, though (but that's quite impossible :-( I am afraid).

But I will send that question to Vera, as she is doing some investigation on that - maybe she can answer?

Can we all be friends now, again, please? :-)

Wodisch (CA76779) (aka Wodisch: BR8935)

[Seun Ewulomi_1]

Hi Shannon,

It is your right to vent and so you should because you were offended.
Im sure no one here main aim is to accumilate as much points as possible. We are all here for the love of what we do and are willing to share our knowledge and learn from others. The point system is a part of being in this forum so we have to abide to it. If it wasnt then this wont be an issue but it is.
There 100's of other forums on the internet but HP move with the times and didnt want this forum just to be just another forum. HP(Dan and co) brought the point system, the hats, the wands just to spice things up and make it interseting for everyone and at the same time make the point system a useful tool for others who are refrencing(while doing searches). In everything in this world there are going to be negative opinions no matter what.

If some users choose to remind other users to assign points so be it. If some choose not to so be it. If some users then choose to not answer and ignore questions a user who doesn't assign points also so be it, although someone else will be loosing at the end of the chain but im afraid we all have different characters and personalities) I personally answer any question I know I can contribute too and thats just me. The main reason why the point system is in place is to aid search purposes so other users can benefit when they want to search for solutions instead of posting the same endless questions over and over again.

I can imagine how difficult it was for you to post this. you must have been really offended most people will probaly just ignore the comment/statement. For the person who affended you I APOLOGISE to you for that person.

Your contributions are valuable to these forum or anyone who takes their time out to help someone they have never seen or owe anything to who could be across the atlantic.

Please dont let petty things like that bother you again. The same way you dont know me is the same way you dont know the person that offended you. Just ignore comments like that im sure the person that made the comment wont probably do the same thing again. But whose to say someone else down the line wont take the police sit and then do the same thing(and probaly again to you). If you know its offending just ignore them.
Its becasue of issues like this that Patrick took time out and worked hard in producing that forun ettiqutte which we should all follow and some new users innocently dont catch wind about the points issue, if someone then decides to remind them then so be it because the user might not have been aware.

At least all in all Dan and the team have worked very hard to make the forum easier to use the least we can do is to abide to what rules they have set and make their efforts worth while.

regards,
gab

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi Shannon,

We all do appreciate your contributions and also your frustrations.

Well, think about it "What's in a point?"

One point more or one point less or even no points - does it really matter? Even if it takes one more year to get a crown - i believe the joy will be much greater! ;)

We should all learn to give advices that can help people without expecting something in return - points are just bonuses!

"ASK NOT WHAT THE FORUM CAN DO FOR YOU...ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE FORUM"

Cheers up!
We need you here!!
Yogeeraj

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell · Accepted solution]

Shannon , Harry, et al

I have been following this thread for a while and now believe that enough has now been said.

Each and every member of the forum is valuable as they all have something to contribute and I would very much hate to see ANY member leave.

As previously said :-

???GROUP HUG???


LOL

Princess Paula of Bromley.

XXX

[Shannon Petry]

Well, Princess Paula gets the last word (magic hat) other than me (cuz I started the thread).

First, appology accepted Mr. Anonymous. (Didnt want to get names involved, so I'll close that way too).

Next: What have I learned from this?
Not much, just a vent is all. I think that too many people still think points are more than what they are. I.E. When people have little time here, is it more valuable to help people or go back and assign points to old in-active threads? More than 1/2 said go back and assign.

Is the point system flawed? Yup, all systems are flawed. I saw a question today that was answered and the user even thanked everyone for fixing his problem yet assigned 1's to all responses. I saw another question last week which had 10's to all the answers, and the problem was still not solved.

How do we fix it? Cant, but can maybe make some improvements.

For starters, I'd like to have the ability to close threads.
Second, I'd like to see a way to change the points given after they are assigned.
In a few of my questions I needed to assign a magic answer, but points were already assigned.
Yah, why not the first time around? Because it may take some trial and error, or a mixture of answers to get the real answer. (you can lead a horse to water but not make him drink).
Third, there should be a toggle button for a magic answer next to the point button, and not just a 10point given. This is supposedly what the points are for. Now you can look directly at the "magic answer", and not look at the 10's assigned.
Like someone else pointed out, I too have seen 10's assigned to an overwhelming number of bad/irrelavent/unrelated/redundant answers. These answers could not have fixed the problem, yet they are searchable as a key?

Next, it is a shame that messages like this are put into questions. Just keep silent if you dont want to answer a question. Noone here knows all of the circumstances regarding everyone. So if you think they dont assign enough points, then dont answer. Just dont spam!

Lastly, the regular people here help each other the most, and should respect each other the most. We help each other more than we help the noobs with in depth explenations, and how to's and gizmos. We ask only hard questions, and get hard answers.

Thanks for your input!
Shannon

[Sachin Patel]

Hi Shannon,
Well you close this thread but I just did what you didn't like. I told someone to assign point. I have said that two times in two years.
And I think I did right thing. When I was introduce to this forum I didn't assign a single point to my first 25 answers. Then I read thread like this and from onwards I do try to assign point to as much as possible.

As you said in last reply don't take it personally. No one is going to tax us for this or that in forum it is just plain education.

Please don't say good buy say I will be back.


Sachin