Why Does Nobody Want To Help

[Kobo]

why?

[mateo107]

in my honest opinion, this is one of the most active and friendly bunch of helpers on the 'net. There are plenty of forum sites out there, but this is the only one where i've gotten accurate fast AND friendly responses to almost all of my inquiries... of course, if the good folks who visit this site have to start sifting through garbage entries, they may be less apt to help. (just a friendly observation)

[Arachnid13]

Yea i have to agree with mateo107, and i have a feeling that one of the admin's will remove this post when they see it or at the very least move it to the chit-chat section

[Kobo]

Yes I agree. There is a wealth of knowlage here. Looking at most of the threads alot of things get resolved quickly. Compared to most others i think this site has more to offer then all of them, it is one of the reasons why i am always refering people from other sites on to this forum, but why is no one answering my question or pm's..?

[bushmobile]

It's the spamming of my inbox that put me off...

[user name]

It's the spamming of my inbox that put me off...

Thats what put me off aswell.

[MartinLiss]

Moved thread.

[iPrank]

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=383044

[Shaggy Hiker]

I have posted a few threads on which I have gotten no answer. I have never been bothered by this, because I never expected much of anything on those threads simply because of the question asked. In some of those, I was posting mostly so people could see it (e.g. posting about my attempts to destroy an SD card, or posting about a form definition in a class). Other posts were on topics so highly specialized that I didn't really expect to get an answer, I was just posting to see what people had to say. Since most of those posts did generate interesting views, I had no objection to the ones that didn't.

If you ask a simple question, you will get plenty of responses. If your question is highly specialized, you may not get a good answer. Everybody shares certain core knowledge, and everybody has some area that they know about that is not common. However, if you ask about something really uncommon, you may have to pry a bit to get answers.

As for PM's, these may not be answered for a variety of reasons. I often don't receive them for a variety of reasons (I'm often away, or they get filtered, or something else happens). Additionally, there are several frequent visitors to this site who don't like PM's for two reasons:

1) If a question is answered in a PM, nobody else can benefit from the answer. Whereas a post on the forum can be seen by all, and searched by all.

2) People don't want to answer questions this way. This one is hard to explain, though I have theories. I would theorize that a question asked in a PM is more of a demand than a request. Either you have to answer the person, or you have to ignore them. Most people are brought up to believe it is rude to ignore people, so there is a certain leverage to a PM that some don't enjoy.

[Hack]

2) People don't want to answer questions this way. This one is hard to explain, though I have theories. I would theorize that a question asked in a PM is more of a demand than a request. Either you have to answer the person, or you have to ignore them. Most people are brought up to believe it is rude to ignore people, so there is a certain leverage to a PM that some don't enjoy.

I have three reasons for not responding to questions sent via PM:

1. You are restricting yourself to only one person in terms of a possible answer. If you keep your questions on the open forum, all sorts of people will view it, and someone else may have something to contribute.

2. Someone else could be having the same problem, and could benefit by what happens in your question post.

3. In days and weeks to come, someone may have the same issue, and do a forum search to see if the question has been asked before, and if so, what was the answer. If everything is confined to a PM/Email, they won't find anything.

[RobDog888]

I have three reasons for not responding to questions sent via PM:

1. You are restricting yourself to only one person in terms of a possible answer. If you keep your questions on the open forum, all sorts of people will view it, and someone else may have something to contribute.

2. Someone else could be having the same problem, and could benefit by what happens in your question post.

3. In days and weeks to come, someone may have the same issue, and do a forum search to see if the question has been asked before, and if so, what was the answer. If everything is confined to a PM/Email, they won't find anything.

Ditto

[dee-u]

What you may do is to do a friendly bump after a day or two and your thread has no responses yet, it may be that it has been missed by the members. For the PM, you just have to provide the link to your thread and not directly ask the question and cordially ask the member if he/she may have a look at your thread...

[MartinLiss]

What you may do is to do a friendly bump after a day or two and your thread has no responses yet, it may be that it has been missed by the members. For the PM, you just have to provide the link to your thread and not directly ask the question and cordially ask the member if he/she may have a look at your thread...

I would like to discourage anyone from bumping their threads. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone did that? I also don't think it's a good idea to PM other members to ask for help. In my case, and I'm sure it's the same for others, I look at most of the threads and I answer most of those that I can, so PMing me is not productive.

[Valleysboy1978]

I would honestly like to help but my level of competence is fairly limited so most of the time the questions I can answer have alredy been answered. This is by far the best VB forum site because you will get good answers from fellow professionals without subscription. Keep it up VBF

[Shaggy Hiker]

Another thing to look at is the number of views. If you are getting no views and no responses.....well, that would suggest that either nobody is on at the time, or you are being ignored. Generally, even if you get no responses, you get lots of views. If that happens, then plenty have looked at the thread, but none have answered.

[jmcilhinney]

You've started four threads and three have replies. What's the problem? If you aren't getting PMs answered then I'm not surprised. I utterly refuse to answer requests for help in PMs. Are your questions more important than everyone else's? No they're not. They are no more or less important so they should be treated in exactly the same way. If everyone who wanted help started sending PMs the feature would become unusable. The forums are there for requests for help. PMs are for genuinely personal communication.

[RhinoBull]

@jmcilhinney:
why are you so angry?

[jmcilhinney]

@jmcilhinney:
why are you so angry?

I consider myself blunt, not angry. Who considers 1 out of 4 questions not answered as noone answering their questions? As for the PM situation, you just have to stop and think to realise that sending PMs as a way to get help would make the whole system unusable if too many people did it. Accept it for one and more will follow. I do get... more blunt... when people don't think for themselves. To not know something is not a crime, but to not think... I may push the bluntness envelope too far at times and for that I apologise, but I stand by my previous post in this thread.

[visualAd]

In my opinion requesting help via a PM is an invasion of privicy. When I visit a forum I choose the questions I wish to answer and If I choose not to answer them I don't. If someone asks me a question via PM I often follow with a polite reply and a link to the forum index.

[Raedwulf]

I just forget that i have PM inbox. - as usually my vbforum screen is always scrolled down from the top - i don't see the PM bit.

[iPrank]

In my opinion requesting help via a PM is an invasion of privicy. When I visit a forum I choose the questions I wish to answer and If I choose not to answer them I don't. If someone asks me a question via PM I often follow with a polite reply and a link to the forum index.

I did requested someone to help me on PM when I didn't get any resolving post after many days. I was using the code he has posted in VBF.
But, if I remember correctly, I said, "please help me in this thread", (NOT over PM).

If anyone ever needs help with my old codes, (thanks in advance for using my codes), please feel free to PM me. Sometimes I miss new posts in my old subscriptions, so PM is a good idea to get my attention.

But, please post the question in the thread too (if it is not a 'dead' thread)¹. If I have time, I'll definetely try to help you. Also, you'll have more chance of getting help from other members if you post the questions in public.

But, if you don't post the question in the thread, I will either not answer your question or I will post the answer in the thread (if I know it) quoting your PM without your permission.

¹ If the thread in question is 'dead', start a new thread linking the old thread and PM me with link to both threads. Mods/Admins don't like digging out old threads.

[RhinoBull]

In my opinion requesting help via a PM is an invasion of privicy. ...

I don't find it that invasive...
My only problem is that I frequently delete old messages so any pointers to that particular issue could be lost.

[VictorBiggs]

I'm sure this is the wrong place to post this, but I have tried everything else. I'm new, I have registered, etc. but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post/ start a new thread. Something dumb on my part I'm sure.

[jmcilhinney]

I'm sure this is the wrong place to post this, but I have tried everything else. I'm new, I have registered, etc. but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post/ start a new thread. Something dumb on my part I'm sure.

Open the appropriate forum for your thread and click the Post New Thread button.

[Pradeep1210]

You ask question to one person and expect an answer.. but you don't want to ask question to all the members (including the one you PM) and expect no one to answer?

The prime purpose of a forum is to help and get helped.
Asking questions via PM (and in rare possibility getting an answer) is just the opposite of that.

[jmcilhinney]

You ask question to one person and expect an answer.. but you don't want to ask question to all the members (including the one you PM) and expect no one to answer?

The prime purpose of a forum is to help and get helped.
Asking questions via PM (and in rare possibility getting an answer) is just the opposite of that.

This thread is over 10 years old. It was resurrected by VictorBiggs because he couldn't work out how to start a new thread of his own.

[Baekgaard]

To any moderators here, could you guys post my question because i really want to know its anwer.

[si_the_geek]

To any moderators here, could you guys post my question because i really want to know its anwer.

Welcome to VBForums

You posted your question, but it wasn't immediately visible - as we get lots of spammers, and that is one of the ways we stop them (it only applies to members with relatively few posts, so it wont happen for long).

Your question (with some replies) is here:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...et-Application

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm tempted to split out the recent activity to a new thread, but it should really be two threads, and I don't want the two new folks who asked questions in here to not be able to find the responses, so I'm going to go eat lunch, instead.

[jmcilhinney]

Who'd have thought that such an old thread would get such a flurry of irrelevant activity?