Newbie Users 7

[dyarwood]

I have been reading a little of the "Why do so many people not acknowledge help" thread (not all of it as its very long). I may be repeating some view of another user. I discovered Tek-Tips about 3 months ago and find it very useful. However, I do understand that some people may be just trying to learn. My thought is should there be a forum for learners? This way these questions would be kept (ideally) to this forum and learners could teach each other (IMHO the best way to test your learning is teach someone your skill). I throw open the floor to discussion.

dyarwood

 

[edfair]

Would suspect that over 75% of people who have used the site for more than a month would pass over any post with a partial title of "urgent" or "need help now" as these are people with no idea of what the site is about and are using it as a help desk.
Unfortunately, there is no way to test my supposition.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[Dimandja]

"...appropriate content for this site, as intended by owner of site".

This is the first time I have run accross any hint that the Dave's intentions have to do with any arguments put forth in this thread.

I agree that "bad" posts, in general, need to be red-flagged. But, nowhere did I see any reference to red-flagging "newbies" and other so-called "free-loaders", although the idea has its appeal.

This is a new one on me. Should you guys hold a meeting about this, let me know. If this thread is such a meeting, then let's clearly state or reveal the intentions of this site: so far, I only see allegations.

Dimandja

 

[TheRambler]

Hi,

If you look further down in red, it says:
"Promoting, selling, recruiting and student posting
are not allowed in the forums."

"Students are not allowed to post homework problems in the Tek-Tips forums for the purpose of getting answers to their homework. This is considered cheating. Offending posts will be removed from the site and offending members will lose their membership privileges."

I think the matter now is:

if newbie=student then red flag else answer question.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Dimandja - Have you read the "About Us" page, and on the right side, the link "Where Professionals Find Answers".

I think you'll see that the underlying notion throughout is "Professionalism". A site by and for professionals. It has nothing to do with "newbies", but rather it has everything to do with professionals, professional in what they ask, how they ask, and how they conduct themselves in the fora.

Professionals are not free-loaders. Professionals do not use HAXOR (et al) in professional communications.
Professionals ask professional-quality questions.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Dimandja]

Thanks for pointing me to those links. So, since there are rules already established what's the fuss - as expressed in this thread and that other thread? Are we trying to come up with new rules?

By the way what's HAXOR?

Dimandja

 

[CajunCenturion]

My only point Dimandja was in response to your statement "So, to say that TT was created for professionals who know what they are doing (or something to that effect) is besides the point. ", is not in my opinion an accurate assessment. That is the point of TT, and it's our responsibility as its members to uphold that standard. To me, it's not a matter of defining new rules, but rather enforcing the ones we have.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Dimandja]

There is a French tech forum, I had contributed to before. Then, I found out that it was the prowling grounds of students who openly demanded ready made code for their homework. I have since severed ties with that forum.

Here on TT, there are "students" who still sneak in to do their homework though. My strategy with them is either to give them another homework (other sites to visit, demands to see their code in its entirety, and other things designed to make them work for the solution), or simply ignoring the post (especially when a "guru" has already replied with a two page listing in response to a one liner question).

The only reason I am still on TT is that there are other professionals here who care about truly solving problems as opposed to blindly copying and pasting code.

Dimandja

 

[edfair]

If you know they are students, why don't you flag them on their homework questions?
Just because somebody else has the emotional need to prove what he/she knows doesn't relieve each of us from the responsibility of doing our part to keep the site professional.

 

[Dimandja]

edfair,

I don't think the idea is to flag all students postings indiscriminately. I flag postings that faal under this category:

"Students are not allowed to post homework problems in the Tek-Tips forums for the purpose of getting answers to their homework. This is considered cheating. Offending posts will be removed from the site and offending members will lose their membership privileges."

There is a fine but firm distinction there, in my humble opinion.

Dimandja

 

[lionelhill]

I don't flag homework questions, instead I try to decide if the person trying to do their homework is acting "professionally" or not.
(1) The vast majority are Not Professional. Instead of red-flagging them I tend to write a diatribe pointing out that if they cheat now they'll land themselves a wonderful job writing embedded software for a nuclear power plant's safety shutdown - And I for one don't want to live near it when the whole thing goes up in smoke because they couldn't be bothered to learn about linked lists like the rest of us did. I think this is more helpful to the world than the simple disappearance of their message.
(2) "professionally" means they've written code, and want to know about some aspect of it that is causing them problems etc. Their question is highly targetted, and the code is there for all to see. This sort of person will turn out a good programmer, so I don't have problems with them. This sort of person is very, very rare.

 

[dilettante]

But why add all of that clutter to the site?

Everyone is a bit unhappy with the search functions here when trying to research an issue before posting a duplicate. A lot of junk posts with sermons don't add a whole lot to help the situation. That's where the Red Flag actions help out.

 

[lionelhill]

dilettante, see your point, and you might have convinced me to flag a little more often. I'm usually replying in the pascal and assembly forums where there aren't enough postings to constitute clutter. I'd agree entirely in VB, which I don't (usually) bother reading because even some of the "professionals" there don't seem particularly clued up. The various C/C++ forums suffer a bit, but are still navigable.
To some extent this site is merely the internet in miniature. Most of it is clutter; you just have to get good at searching!

 

[Dimandja]

True enough, lionelhill. Even some professional need help in focusing their posts/questions. It's difficult to avoid clutter, especially when "clutter" is sometimes necessary in attempts to clarify the issue at hand. In fact, I sometimes learn a lot more from "clutter" then from the "solutions".

Dimandja

 

[sleipnir214]

lionelhill:
Redflags don't just point out an offending post to TT management. Flags can allow management to see a member's pattern of behavior or even the pattern of behavior of a group of members.

Late 2003, TT management blocked a school's IP range from connecting to the site. They discovered, through other members' flags of the students' posts, that a large chunk of the school's computer classes were using the site as free tech support and an answer pool.


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[Stella740pl]

http://www.tek-tips.com/feedback.cfm,

fourth message from the top. What do you think of that?

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

I think the key is how people use the site.

Someone could come on here and say

Hi. We are learning how to get data from different tables in my course. I'm supposed to get data from 3 different tables in 1 query but I am always getting less data then I expect. My query is

SELECT .... FROM .... INNER JOIN ... INNER JOIN ....

data in tables looks like
...



I don't get why I'm not getting the results I expect of
....
but get
....

Can anyone tell me why this is happening?


That is clearly a home work type question but it is possed in a manner where the person seems to want to learn the answer. This type of post I'll answer and not only that I'll probably put in a lengthy explanation about the HOWs and WHYs .

Would I tell students about this site? Yup, but then I normally taught in my classes that being great in IT doesn't mean you know everything as much as it means you know where and how to find out what you need to know about almost everything. I'd go in on searching the web and how to narrow down your results set, standard forum eticate etc.

That factious student above may well be a COBOL programmer trying to get their foot in the door of some desktop development. Or it might just be a guy on a factory line that has taken it upon himself to try to chain careers.

I distinguish the leeching student from the professional student.

I use this definition of "professional" when concidering answering a post.

[adj] characteristic of or befitting a profession or one engaged in a profession; "professional conduct"; "professional ethics"; "a thoroughly professional performance"


Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[rosieb]

This kind of post makes me feel uneasy.

I see myself as a professional in IT , but as a generalist not a specialist ('tho if anyone has a problem with Brs/Search I may be able to help).

I take, mainly by sculling around for an answer, sometimes by asking. I recieve immensely valuable answers.

I do look at questions, but by the time I've composed an answer, someone else has usually come up with a much better one (which I promptly snaffle).

What is meant by a "professional"? Do I count ?


Rosie

 

[dilettante]

Well, the "masthead" up there says Computer Professionals which I assume to mean:

[n.]
1. A person following a profession, especially a learned profession.
2. One who earns a living in a given or implied occupation: hired a professional to decorate the house.
3. A skilled practitioner; an expert.

This seems a lot more relevant than one's manner or conduct, though it's vey reasonable to expect professional conduct from one who is a professional. But at the same time just because eggs have shells it doesn't make a turtle an egg.

Also I found:

[adj.]
1.
a. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people.
b. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football.
4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

- The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

But we could play dueling dictionaries all day.

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Since there is no way to verify their actual profession (a student taking a SQL course could still be a professional doing the coarse for his/her job).

I'll teach anyone that is willing to learn. I bet that many people in this site aren't actually "Computer Professionals" they are Joe Blogs of Accounting that has writen a VB app to help them do his job or Jane Smith of HR that uses an Access db she made to help keep track of employee skill sets. The fact that Todd Bumbler is a student in a adult vocational school trying to learn SQL and VB to get a better job so he doesn't have to work in a factory doesn't make him less worthy of this site then Jane Smith and Joe Blogs. It, to me, is how they present themselves and their true motivation. Heck I don't care if they hate IT as long as they are willing to learn and put forth the effort.

There have been plenty of bonified "Computer Professionals" in here that I won't answer because I don't deem them professional.

It is just my opinion and how I handle others on the site. No need for dictionary wars as I said I use this definition of "professional" when concidering answering a post.. Key word is I. You need to descide what definition you want to use and hold to it.

Hope I've been helpful,
Wayne Francis

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[dilettante]

Sorry Wayne,

That didn't come off quite right. I was actualy poking fun at myself for my silly quoting of dictionary definitions - basically saying that practice doesn't get us anywhere.

The only real point to my last post was to say that I think we are really talking about the noun, and once we have that we hope the adjective follows naturally.

I apologize if it looked insulting.

But I've said too much in this thread already, and I think I've made my own position clear enough.