Why do so many people not acknowledge help 27

[johnnymac43]

When a question is asked in a technical forum, the first reply is usually a useful piece of advice or a request for more details. In some tek-tips forums, the number of occasions when there is no response from the originator is substantial. In my view, a word of thanks or a simple answer to a question should be the 'normal' outcome.

I recently raised this topic in a technical forum. When it disappeared after a short time I was unsure whether it was because it was in the wrong place, or because the thread attracted some unexpected abuse:- (What is your problem?) (What are you complaining about?) (Why haven't you given more stars to us for our good advice to others?)

After some deliberation I have decided to try this forum in the hope of getting some serious discussion going.

Cheers

John

 

[edfair]

Sure, answers are gifts. And mine are freely given , too.
But the questions are gifts, too. They give me fodder for thinking. And for clarifying in my mind how I would handle the same problem when I see it next,either here or in real life.

But duplicate questions because the asker was too lazy to look in the history, or in the FAQs, are not gifts. They are a demand from a lazy, inconsiderate, jerk. And those need to be sent on their way.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[dilettante]

I even developed a product idea from the germ of a "goofy" question once. Too bad I seem to be taking forever to fully implement it, maybe somebody'd buy me out. ;-)

 

[CajunCenturion]

Whether you consider them gifts or not, whether you choose to answer or not, is really not the issue. I do agree with EdwardMartinIII, there is definately benefit to person answering the question by exploring new things, and finding out about tools and techniques that otherwise, we would have no need to investigate.

To me though, this issue really down to basic human manners, simple things like saying 'please' and 'thank you'.

It's a shame that too many people who post questions here simply don't have the common courtesy to acknowledge those you have given of their time by simply saying 'thank you'.

I wonder how many of them would poke their head into your office, ask the same question, and not leave without saying thank you. I fear that the lack of face to face communication, and the anonymity behind the moniker so de-personalizes the conversations that many forget that there is a person on the other end of the exchange, thus causing the neglect of even the simplest of basic manners.

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

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

edfair: But the questions are gifts, too.

Yep, that's why I'm going to deliberately find the gift in each one. Perhaps I've been slacking off on that.

But duplicate questions because the asker was too lazy to look in the history, or in the FAQs, are not gifts. They are a demand from a lazy, inconsiderate, jerk. And those need to be sent on their way.

It may be that people are lazy and inconsiderate jerks, but it's only my problem when I elect to make it so. I can easily ignore the questions I wish to ignore and even when people post the inevitable "waht R U all stoopid I axed U a ?", I don't bother, because someone's sure to do something about it who is far more qualified than I.

The world and this corner of it is not skint on people willing to hammer a schmuck, so I see no reason why I can't -- on a lark, if you wish -- cast my own personal vote for answering in earnest those questions I wish to answer and simply ignoring the ones I don't (for whatever reason I wish to ignore them). I'll also point people to specific FAQs or if a thread is recent in my head, I'll point 'em to the threads, too.

I'll be the first to admit that I get tired of people asking the same things over and over when a hamster-ball-driven robotic monkey could find the answers. I'll also be the first to admit that I haven't always followed my own preference, having been at times a teensy bit snippy ("Quick -- hit F1!&quot. (shrug) I'm only human.

Thanks for getting me to think about these boundary issues.

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door

 

[edemiere]

I think in a thread I had directed someone to their answer by having them to someplace rather than spoon-feed them the answers.

I was trying to teach them how to find answers on their own. Some Tek-Tips members didn't necessarily appreciate my approach to the subject.

It all came down to my question of "does he want a fish? or does he want to be a fisherman?"

Because making someone find out something with a little effort on their own outside of these forums might challenge them enough to think like "Hey, I could have done that" so maybe next time instead of coming here to the 'drive-by helpdesk' they might give some thought and either search this site or another in quest of their answer.

It's just how I see the subject of help. I like to help, but at the same time teach those people on how to help themselves and how to be resourceful.

Cheers!

 

[KornGeek]

Just to add another explanation, I know that I have sometimes failed to respond answering if a suggestion worked or not, because I am still waiting to implement some of them. Sometimes, I'm working down one path and come across a problem. If I can't find any answers, I come here and ask for help. However, sometimes after getting suggestions, I get pulled onto other tasks and never get around to trying them out. I always try to at least thank them for the response and let them know I'll try it, but I've slipped up here and there.

For me answering questions, the most satisfaction I get is when I give an answer to the best of my knowledge, and somebody else comes along correcting me or taking the idea further. I sometimes think I learn more from the answers I give than the questions I ask.

 

[sleipnir214]

KorGeek:
Your reasoning is sound, and probably accounts for some of the behavior.

But for a lot of these wangdoodles, I'm convinced it's because they simply weren't raised right.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[lespaul]

What's even worse is the people who think it's YOUR (my) fault that they can't get the problem fixed. For example, I was trying to help someone develop a SQL statement to return the correct information in a complete unnormalized database. She continually implied that it was my fault that the query wouldn't help. I finally stopped helping because she was so ungrateful for the assistance (I kept trying to explain the benefits of normalization, but that's not what she wanted).

Leslie

 

[sleipnir214]

KornGeek:
I mistyped your handle in my previous post. Sorry about that.


lespaul:
The last time I ran into a user like that, I not only stopped helping, I redflagged the user's last post in the thread with a comment of "criminal ingratitude". Interestingly, the thread was removed.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[lespaul]

"Criminal Ingratitude" - that's perfect, too bad it's not a real crime! It should be. Have a star for a perfectly coined phrase.

Les

 

[manarth]

I eventually tired of answering the same question (How do I fix my hijacked browser?) so ended up writing a FAQ...now whenever I see a browser-hijack question, all I have to do is reply "try faq...."

Amusingly, I rarely answer the question now - usually by the time I've read the post, someone else has mentioned my faq!

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[sleipnir214]

A thought that just occurred to me....


You know, it's customarily polite that when someone says &quot;Thank you&quot;, you should respond with &quot;You're welcome&quot;.

Since we've all been playing Miss Manners for the last little while, let me ask the converse of the original question: When a person in the fora expresses gratitude for your help, how many of us say, &quot;You're welcome&quot;?

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[jrbarnett]

Sleipnir,

A good point. I don't normally do this. I did, however, say &quot;Thank you for your complements&quot; when two separate people in the same thread described me as a genius for solving what was, for me, a fairly trivial problem.

John

 

[dilettante]

&quot;After you, Alphonse.&quot;

&quot;No, Gaston, after you.&quot;

http://www.toonopedia.com/alphgast.htm

 

[johnnymac43]

Thank you all for your interest in this topic. It has given me a sense of having achieved something worthwhile by starting it. I too have learned a lot by testing solutions before posting them.

Apart from all the bad manners stuff already mentioned, some worrying behaviours (closely related to the above) that I have observed are:

> Helpers who fail to sense the questioner's level of expertise, even after several exchanges, and continue to post good stuff that is not understood by the recipient.

> Helpers who appear to take a dictatorial approach to the process, as in, for example, failing to understand that something, eg. data quality, is beyond the control of the questioner, despite having been told so in plain English.

Any thoughts? (Please feel free to start a new thread if you think it appropriate)

Cheers

John

 

[edfair]

Thank you for starting it.

Item 1 relates to how much experience the helper has in helping. After a while the way a question is asked pretty much points to the experience level you are dealing with.

Item 2 is pretty well identified by the more experienced people also. Most experienced helpers will gently request clarification of the details that affect the help we can give.



Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[sleipnir214]

As to the first point, the assistance process is two-way.

I agree we all must adjust the level of our assistance to the level of understanding of the person we're helping. I think the purpose of the fora is not to just provide answers to the expressed problem, but to share understanding of the topic of the forum, and teaching over the head of the student accomplishes nothing.

However, none of us have ever claimed to be mind readers, and the medium of this site limits the &quot;out of band data&quot; from which we might determine how well our help is being received. If the questioner does not understand what he is being told, the onus of making the lack of understanding known lies with the questioner, not with the answerer. Only the questioner definitively knows what he does and does not understand.


To the second point, there are times when jump-starting a fellow member can cut through a lot of fog.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[ANFPS26]

Great thread!
First of all, thanks to everyone who has helped me with problems over the last couple of years. (Just in case I didn't show it at the time).

Also, it seems like there has been a rash of new posters lately who fancy themselves as &quot;experts&quot; who obviously haven't a clue about anything. I've been RFing them and a couple are gone, but sometimes they re-register with another handle and start again. I guess that is my biggest pet peave at the moment.

Jim

 

[sleipnir214]

Just wait. The new school semester (all of high school, tech school, and college) is about to start in the U.S. We're going to have all kinds of new student posters over the next several weeks.

I love to hate those users whose misbehavior in the fora get their handles locked, so they create new handles and start posting &quot;Tek-Tips management is mistreating me&quot; threads in the &quot;soft&quot; fora or scatological comments in the &quot;hard&quot; fora.

That's one of my pet peeves -- people who are stone cold busted yet still try to weasel out of the consequences of their actions. I learned a long time ago that telling a bald-faced truth and accepting a butt-chewing gracefully can go a long way in those situations.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[BakeMan]

I think we should make an unwritten rule that for every question you ask in a particular fora you should at least attempt to answer two other's questions. Being that there are always multiple levels of questions in the fora, we should all be able to do this. I know I haven't always followed this as a rule but I plan to make an effort to do this in the future. I think that this is the best way of showing gratitude to the fora as a whole.

BAKEMAN