©¿© is getting bored with guru nominations and other blatant misuse of the Forum Feedback in order to boost post counts.
Get your act together and go and play with the Chit-Chat forum if you haven't got any constructive suggestions to make!
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©¿© is getting bored with guru nominations and other blatant misuse of the Forum Feedback in order to boost post counts.
Get your act together and go and play with the Chit-Chat forum if you haven't got any constructive suggestions to make!
Exactly!
Why does everybody keep nominating people to be Guru's. We all know who are the helpful ones, and as John has said on countless occasions, it is not down to people nominating others that gets them elevated, but down to John and a few others who decide on a certain persons credentials.
Lets just stop all the nominating, I'm not saying the people suggested shouldn't or should be Gurus, I'm just saying that it is pointless posting about it as it is not down to us.
Also can we stop all the pointless posts in the Forum Feedback, as it is getting quite out of hand now. Something is suggested and you read through the thread, then it gets silly and you just can't be bothered to read through the rest of the posts, meaning you could be missing a decent post at the end of the thread. It's starting to creep into the General Questions forum as well as certain people seem intent on upping their post counts.
This site has been and to a certain extent still is an excellent site, but it is begining to become tiresome trudging through all the useless crap to help somebody who really wants some help.
Just my 2 cents.
Stevie,
I couldn't agree with you more. I have refrained from posting my comments in the Forum Feedback section, as i thought my thread would get trashed by certain members, they know who they are. It also goes against my point on useless posts in this topic.
The thing is, the problem has got so out of hand, that i now feel this is a valid point to raise as feedback. Fair enough the Chit Chat room is there to chit chat, but forum feedback has been getting worse and worse. I usually don't even come in here anymore, what is the point, i will just be wasting my time wading through a 100 or so useless posts.
The sad thing is that it has been creeping into the General VB questions as well. Now i don't just mean the useless off topic posts that are getting more and more frequent. I am also talking about members posting useless replies long after the question has been answered. If the new answer is relevant, well thought out and fully explained, then fine, go ahead and post. The problem is the answer usually doesn't meet those criteria.
It is really beginning to bug me that certain people feel compelled to reply to every topic, even if it is obvious they don't really know what they are talking about. Why is this? Are they really that bothered about there post counts? Is "Guru" status on vb-wolrd really their highest goal in life? I hope not. If you don't know what the answer is, why bother posting. What is the point in me posting a reply to an API question, when my knowledge of the API is on par with a monkeys knowledge on cricket? None.
Now i am sure that there is not a lot John can do about this, unfortunately we may just have to wait for some people to grow up a bit. The problem is, if we do that, we may be in for the long haul.
Iain17
Hey are you meaning me...hmmm...actually you might be as l have just answered this. I don't think the situation is getting any worse, it just sort of cycles around every now and again.
Have to agree with the general forum comments though.
Megatron
Give some one guru status and.....just had to get that one in:) So what happens, John nominates some one and you guys vote or something. Come on tell every one who should be elevated in your opinion.
I think Megatron is talking about JHaussman, I think I heard him mention that in another post...
'only my opinion of course.
The ideal is to scrap the Guru and all other status crap and just let people help people.
Experts Exchange does the point system and people are ready to take up arms and go into battle over a few lousey points. I joined here, left here and went there: accumulated 45,000 points in the process and then left cause it was getting a little nuts in my opinion.
This forum is headed in the same direction. Yes, there are some who have a good handle on things and only answer if they know or think they know the answer but there are too many "I don't know that but someone must" answers posted on this site.
You can't get a loan based on Guru status and I think the leaders of this site should step forward and ask John to kill all status symbols and get back to people helping people.
With all due respect, in the years I've been here, I can count on one hand the people of this site who are dominant in relation of their Visual Basic knowledge. Actually 6 if you count John.
Wayne
Why is it that I feel that this thread is directed at me?
Hmmm.
I'll have to take you on one by one.
The guy with the glasses which my keyboard doesn't do:
I think we're supposed to nominate Gurus. That was the idea I think
Stevie
Sorry :(
White Flag
Iain17
Sometimes the thread has been answered and after that another quesstion has been asked. Also some threads are like a chain. If you post towards the beginning, then you can't edit it (although I try to do that) but jou have to posts another at the end of the chain.
Megatron
I think that anybody who has posted over 1024+ is good at VB
Maybe they're not professional programmers, but I think everybody listed for Guru deserves a reward for their hard work. I think that Guru is more of a prize for contribution rather than actual skill. (The two are quite close, however)
parksie
Backstabber!
Jethro
Some questions in the VB Forum aren't strictly VB, but they are still computing questions (John could move them to Chit Chat, there are only a handful)
denniswrenn
How unassumingly modest ;)
HeSaidJoe
If you scrapped Guru, then a lot of people (possibly including myself) would not have any motivation to help. (And I do help, sometimes) I think titles give people a reason to log on every night. Simply helping people is good, but sometimes I have better things to do.
I can't really notice any big difference in posting. It sort of goes in cycles: once every while there's a sort of mad post race invloving some off topic posts in on topic areas. It's just a phase
V(ery) Basic
It's not my fault. I'm ... er ... improving morale. I think.
Please.
Everybody needs a little comic relief.
Not a backstabber...
I think I mentioned in a different thread that you should be a "Humour Guru"...we need people to take the p**s out of everyone and everything :D
That's why you choose to help? To become Guru? If there weren't any titles, I'd still choose to help. It's fun and helping people makes you feel pretty good. If your helping people just because you want Guru title, than it's not even worth it. Not trying to offend you V(ery) Basic, I have no problem with you at all. I see nothing wrong with you.Quote:
If you scrapped Guru, then a lot of people (possibly including myself) would not have any motivation to help.
But some people take this Guru stuff a little to seriously. Megatron and Kedaman were both awarded Guru, yet they still seem the same to me. Still helping and everything. So what happens after you get Guru, do you plan to leave and not help anymore because you made your point and got what you wanted out of this site?
And maybe HeSaidJoe's idea would be a good one. Than we will see how many of the people who helped out leave this site and never come back.
I'm not directing this all at you. Some people actually do let this Guru thing get to there head. It's just a site, help people out, ask questions, get answers, be happy, etc etc. It's not the real world where you have a job and you are going for a high position in it. So everyone, calm down and take it easy!
Whether or not you choose to help people on this site or not, that's your choice, no one makes you do anything that you don't want to.
Hope I didn't offend anyone. Sorry if I did.
I have made my point..spoke my mind, and now I feel better. :)
I never originally cared about the guru nominations - I agree with Matthew. Also, this "Fanatic Member", "New Member" crap is a bit annoying, because it can imply things about the person that are completely wrong. (as in - they're no good when they probably are).
John
Immediatly institute this status and award it to Very Basic, always get a chuckle from his posts.
Very Basic
Take you point. A number of people have mentioned starting threads in general cos it's the only place they can get answers.
All
Kind of think the guru status should stay, cos if you post a question and an answer from Meg or kedaman or Serge et al you can be pretty sure it will work.
Agreed, posts that don't even attempt an answer are a pain.
Megatron
You can now start winging about pointing to other sites again. I still think this is a legit answer, have had a couple of people sending me thanks for pointing them to ww.planetsourcecode.com. This approach will hold validity till John gets the zip upload thing working....though l am frightened by what some people might post up.
I think scrapping all of the titles seems a great idea, you can keep the post counts to get a rough idea of how people are committed to the site.
I don't really look at someones title as I could tell you from memory who the most helpfull people on the site are. I'd still think they were the most helpfull if they didn't have any title.
The gurus on the site started out as junior members at some point, but they were still a wealth of knowledge then.
I'd like to suggest to John that instead of having titles, when someone has a question answered they give a star rating out of 5 for anybody who's answered. An average rating for members can then be displayed instead of a title. A bit like the rating system used for reviews on the Amazon site.
batRobin has found the batSolution to his own PostCounting on Furum Feedback problem.
batRobin's secret Identity (Sam Finch, it's not a very well kept batSecret) will not post on batForum Feedback anymore. batRobin will post instead. Thisway Sam Finch's Post count does not batincrease when Robin Posts.
batRobin Does not advise others to do the batsame, batRobin Registered as Robin at the same time as Batman Registered and did so for batDiplomatic reasons. Other people sould not rush out to register as other names because we don't want lots of batsplit personalities on the site. Multiple names leads to multiple personalities and people should not have split personalities without seeing a batPsychiartist first, Robin is putting V(ery) Basic, our batPshchiatrist in charge of multiple personalities and anyone who wants to register as someone else must must first check with batV(ery) Basic to check if they are sane enough to have 2 personalities, or if there sanity is so far gone that being several people can't make it any worse.
V(ery) Basic is instructed to say no to bats wanting to be multiBats unless there is a very good batReason.
batRobin's views on batGuru Status
batRobin is getting vary tired of people posting just to increce batPost count, It is easy to tell when people are doing this, some people post not answering the question, or post an answer to a completley different question, batRobin is busy at the batMoment and only looks at post with 0 or very few replies, batrobin used to think that posts with 3 or more replies have been answered sufficiently, now robin has to read through many batreplies to see whether one of them actually answers the batQuestion.
When batRobin answers a post he tries to give a full explanation of what's happening so people can understand not only how to solve the batquestion, but how to solve similar batquestions, that is what Robin liked about this site when he joined. now when people answer questions they just say the first thing that pops into their batHeads.
batRobin thiks it's great when people add a bit of batHumour to the site and If a reply is funny then it is helpful even if it doesn't answer the question because it makes people happy an a happy programmer is a good programmer. V(ery) basic, who seems to be taking a lot of batS*** for his humerous postings is not posting just to inrece bat post count, he batposts to spread a little happiness into people's lives, and Robin is very pleased with him and others who do the same.
As for the Guru Status when batRobin Joined he knew very little about VB, and batKedman also knew far less than he does now, answering questions is a great way to learn, and that's why getting an answer from a guru means that it is answered, because they have lots of experience answering questions and knowing what people want.
Robin thinks we should keep the batGuru Status but making gurus is a decision only batJohn and batJames can make, Voting for gurus does not and should not have any affect on somebody's status.
batRobin doees not think the rating system will work, sometimes people do not see the answers to their batQuestions and then that answer will get a rating of 0, also people will give their batfreinds high ratings no matter how good their batanswer and some poeple will get insultad if they get a low rating, plus different people will have different scheemes for rating answers, some would be very harsh and not give any stars unless it answers the question perfectly, whereas others may give 5 stars if the answer is even a hint which allows them to work out what to do. Then people will not answer posts from people who they know give low ratings, and in the end either everyone will give every answer 5 stars ot there will be total batChaos and everybody will hate everybody else.
batRobin likes things the way they are but wants people to stop answering posts if they don't know the answer and to give full answers if they do.
I was saying people should link the specific code rather than just the site. None the less, it was just just an idea and it really doesn't bother me much anymore.Quote:
Originally posted by Jethro
Megatron
You can now start winging about pointing to other sites again. I still think this is a legit answer, have had a couple of people sending me thanks for pointing them to ww.planetsourcecode.com. This approach will hold validity till John gets the zip upload thing working....though l am frightened by what some people might post up.
Robin made a good point......
I think taking away the titles is a bad idea,
because, although it wont effect me(I just post here because I like it, and like robin says sometimes I have to push myself to answer a question, so I learn something I didnt know before) me, I dont care about titles, but some people will stop posting if they know you wont be able to get guru status..... not to point fingers or mention any names... but *cough* *cough <dimava is one of those people>*
I think we should all listen to robin, But I have on more suggestion...
there should be another forum for complaints(not forum complaints, but complaints for people, like reporting someone).
and if people see a rude non-related answer, or rude non-related reply, they post the persons name and a link to the post where he did what he did.
Then I think john should suspend the person from posting for a number of days depending on the rudeness of the reply.
(and I think everybody should agree when I say this rule shouldnt apply to the chit-chat forum)
I'm taking Sam's (aka Robin's) lead on this one.
Is this alright with everybody?
Will people stop throwing eggs at my house now?
And also stop throwing chickens at my house, the walls are going on strike.
I need the phone number of a rehousing institute for the emotionally and phsically interesting.Code:_ _ _ _ _ ________________________
[_][_][_][_][_] ¦ )
[_][_][_][_][_] ¦ We refuse to come )
[_][_][_][_][_] < Dum dee dum dee dum )
[_][_][_][_][_] ¦_______________________)
[_][_][_][_][_]
Ok.
I think I've been here
enoughCode:Long
Dennis,
I believe it would be best if we all addressed user complaints personally (via email) simply because things will get ugly between people. (But ultimately, this is John choice as he is the one who will be getting loads of 'complaint mail')
V(ery)
I did say I didn't want everybody rushing out to buy new names, although you're sanity might just improve if there are 2 of you. But everybody else has to Get V(ery)'s permission first, we don't want a whole site full of scitsophrenics.
Dennis
I'd agree with Megatron, it's not going to help much if we have a forum specificly for bitching about each other.
Stevie
Great idea, but iosn't that just another form of status
denniswrenn
Get to agree with Robin on this one, or batRobin, or whatever.
Megatron
Point taken, but....what if more than three or four good examples of problem fixing.
Robin/batRobin
So you can just use anyones site handle? That sounds like a bug in the database, most sites first check if the handle is in use and if so will not allow you to use it.
I know.Quote:
Originally posted by Robin
I'd agree with Megatron, it's not going to help much if we have a forum specificly for bitching about each other. [/B]
I'd spend all my time there and I wouldn't be able to help people on the other forums.
Although nobody can match teenage girls for bitching, I come close.
I also think we should have a spelling competition to see who can horribly scramble up a word. I had to read over scitsophrenics a couple of times until I realised it was actually schizophrenics.
I knew I spelt it wrong, but I didn't have a real dictionary on hand and I couldn't get close enough to the real spelling for any dictionary search engines/ spellcheckers to know what I was talking about.
I am eternally greatful to you for enriching my use of the Engish language.
I'm going to say my two pence worth and no more
I couldn't give a monkey's toss about the title's.
I give help and take help on the basis that it makes me happy that I could help some one and grateful for help that was given.
I couldn't care less who gave the help and what title they have, if it solves problem so be it and thank you very much.
I help people not to whack up my post's and have a higher status, I do it one becuase I like helping people and two I know what programming can be bloddy like(stuck on that one error that you have looked at for a week and still can't work out why it isn't doing it).
status is just a label. nothing more, nothing less.
Yes people should be awarded things for their contributions(all I ask for is a simple thnx if I was able to help), but that should be awarded by people who can monitor the event and give out credit where it is due.
Right, I'm getting off my soap box now.
Ian
Ok, Ian has brought up another pet grudge of mine.
Before i have a good old moan about it though, i would like to apologise to anyone i have offended in the last week or so. It seems i have been letting my moods work their way into my postings. There are a couple of people i think i may have been a bit short with, you probably know who you are if i have, so please accept my apologies, and i will try my best not to let my temper get the better of me again. Well after the rest of this post, which is another moan. ;)
People who don't say thank you. These are the ones that really bug me. I am not so bothered if the post was a case of "How do i put text in a text box?", or something similar. I hardly expect a thank you from a post like that, as i will have spent next to no time answering it.
It is the harder questions, the ones that take you a while to put an answer and some code together for them. If i have spent my time helping them, it is only common courtesy for them to say thank you. Now i know this has been brought up before, and other people have different views on this matter, but like someone said in the other thread, it will only take them a minute to write a thank you response. Is that really asking that much, especially if you have taken the time out to help them.
Now admittedly it is not a life or death situation i am talking about here. I actually enjoy writing the code anyway. The amount of VB i have learnt from just helping people on this forum is phenomenal. It is just that it makes it more worthwhile if you know that your response was appreciated. It is also nice to know if the answer actually helped or not.
So i am going to take the time now to thank anyone that has helped me again.
Mark Sreeves :> You are the man. :D
Sam Finch :> Thanks, even though you are a maths student ;)
kedaman :> A well deserved guru :)
Paul282 :> You're the one that started me on file access, my speciality now :)
Buzby :> I think you are the one that answered my very first question here. Cheers. :)
There are others that have had suggestions that did not quite fit what i needed, but thanks to them as well.
I agree with Lain(sorry, couldnt resist :D)..
I am also an allexperts expert(at http://www.allexperts.com), and I have helped lots of people, I would say, at least 50, and I didnt get one frigin thank you from any of the people, and some of the questions were quite a pain in the --- to answer..
And if you are worried about some one bitching at your for uselessly raising your post count, then thank them by email(if you can) I have done that at least 3 times..
Although its not necesary I am more motivated to help other people if I get a thanks here and there, because I know that I am helping.
One thing that really P*****S me off is when I make a posting and I get absolutely no feedback as to whether it was helpful or not.
There're a few members on the ASP forum who ask lots of questions But never post any thanks.
I find that very disheartening because I always put a lot of effort into my replies and test them before posting.
A few weeks ago I spent hours crafting one ASP problem and I got no thanks what so ever. OK, I do it because love coding but that's not the point.
On a brighter note, I have over the past 10 months or so received a few email thanks even though the email address bears no resemblance what so ever to any screen name and I'm left wondering what it was I did that was so great.;)
Anyway, my pledge of undying gratitude goes to Aarron Young and ClunieTP (2 trueGurus) and thirdly to some dude who helped me a lot via email with MQ series - I can't remember his name of hand.
The post count is a poor method quantifying someone's ability because is actually just a measure of how much time the person has on his hands. I think one person who deserves recognition is GenX he doesn't post much (probably because he's too busy working) but it is certainly a case of quality rather than quantity.
Thanks for the mention Iain17!
who is this ©¿©¬ dude anyway?
if l hadn't said thanks to all the people who have helped me over the months l could be even less popular. Will try and improve on that....actually l wont, it doesn't take much to thank some one.
Lain, Dunnis, Muck, Iancaker
Good posts guys, though the opposite shouldn't take place if posts don't help. I remember some one went off their nut at Sam(?) about his answer not being 100% easy to understand and applicable. At the time l vaguely remember that the answer was spot on to the problem. Death to lamers who do this....l think John may have done it:)
Thank you pethro