Worthless answers

[haazen]

This forum is such a great resource for new scripters as well, I asume, for experts. It seems to me that everytime someone answers a question with a worthless answer such as, "Do a search" or "This has been answered before" does nothing but clog the system up. With all these non-answers, when someone does do a search, they get back tons of threads with no help. If the folks answering the questions spent half as much time actually giving answers as they do giving garbage, this forum would be an indispensable wealth of information. So the question has been answered before, maybe your expert answer is a bit better. Is there only one way to do a specific task? If 10 folks now how to do something, that could mean 10 ways of approaching it. Yours might be the best for the inividual asking for help. How much easier would finding answers be if every thread had information? Seems some folks think there is a prize for having the most posts. I've read posts from folks that have thousands and maybe 1 in 10 has useful information. That's 9 posts of wasting server space and making searches harder. If you don't have answers or are not willing to help, don't feel obligated to display that by posting. Just leave it alone.
Worthless answers are worthless. It just leaves the impression you don't have the ability or smarts to answer the question, so why broadcast that?

[icemallet]

Worthless questions are worthless, why answer a question more then once?

[David]

If you had any idea how many times I have answered the same question... The first thing that happens is the answers get shorter and less detailed. Then you diligently try to direct people to the thread where you know the answer exists already. Then after you get tired of doing the search that they should have done in the first place you either ignore the question totally or get frustrated and perhaps a bit too harshly say "do a search."

The flip side to your argument is if those people had all searched in the first place or God forbid even read the Sticky posts, there would be no need for so many duplicate questions to "clog up the system."

Not upset here, just pointing out where some of those answers are coming from.

[Hybrid]

David, so true.

Besides its much better to show people the faq and/or search.
Once they found them and start to use them 80% of their questions are gone.

I havent been here that long, but still when I see the
"how do I remove the test center question" it gets my blood boiling. * shrugs *

[psz]

I'm trying to remember the last time someone was told to just do a search without other info involved...

[Tru]

Originally Posted by haazen

This forum is such a great resource for new scripters as well, I asume, for experts. It seems to me that everytime someone answers a question with a worthless answer such as, "Do a search" or "This has been answered before" does nothing but clog the system up. With all these non-answers, when someone does do a search, they get back tons of threads with no help. If the folks answering the questions spent half as much time actually giving answers as they do giving garbage, this forum would be an indispensable wealth of information. So the question has been answered before, maybe your expert answer is a bit better. Is there only one way to do a specific task? If 10 folks now how to do something, that could mean 10 ways of approaching it. Yours might be the best for the inividual asking for help. How much easier would finding answers be if every thread had information? Seems some folks think there is a prize for having the most posts. I've read posts from folks that have thousands and maybe 1 in 10 has useful information. That's 9 posts of wasting server space and making searches harder. If you don't have answers or are not willing to help, don't feel obligated to display that by posting. Just leave it alone.
Worthless answers are worthless. It just leaves the impression you don't have the ability or smarts to answer the question, so why broadcast that?

I agree with David as an example look at the Sickness System rereleased thread and look at how many times I explained how to use the system....
You honestly think everytime someone asks the quetion "How does it work" it should just be answered...even though its been answered over and over? Especially when they don't have the curtosey to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!!!
As another example look at the Doom Gauntlet submission people are still asking how to set that up and in the thread probably more than 5 times I (or someone else) has said you dont even need that scipt as its in 1.0, but they still ask "How does it work"

[Phantom]

I try to be as cryptic as possible, only fun I have anymore

[stormwolff]

There are much more worthless questions floating around than worthless answers.

All of us try to answer every question that comes along, but we do get sick of answering the same question over and over again when all it takes to find most answers is a simple search if not that then an advacned search.

Here is one example I was tracking a few days ago.

In a 5 day period I read or responded to 6 topics about a pre made world file or spawn system with premade spawns. 3 of these topics were posted on the same day.

help please
Water color change?
Possibly not the place to post this but... I think its interesting
Server Port
Character Creation gump...
Palm Pilot Games

Im sure I could track similar instances every week if I wanted to. If the question has already been asked and the answer has already been given multiple times it does stand to reason that telling somebody to search or giving them words to search for is not out of line.

I have been here since november. I have started 4 topics to ask about things and I have replied 1,421 questions or other postings looking for help. I run my own shard, I make my own scripts and I have rarely asked for help on anything. Did I need help? Yes I do, but I do not ask for it because I search first and find the answer to my question 99% of the time.

Search is your friend, learn it, love it, and use it.

[sidsid]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I try to be as cryptic as possible, only fun I have anymore

Phantom if you are not going to give a helpful rebuttle get out of the thread!!





HAHAHAH JUST KIDDING!

[Pyro-Tech]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I try to be as cryptic as possible, only fun I have anymore

hehe...that's the truth.

When i first started here, i am sure i was just as annoying with the whole "How do i make my world work" crap....but after looking, i found out ALL my questions have been answered. Now the only time im posting for help is with someone's custom script....which i also read through what is allready there first

I can see both sides to this

on one hand, if everyone posted an answer everytime a question was asked, then when they did search, they would always get something back

but not everyone searches, so what good would that do


but then when you go search, you pull up all these worthless threads (sometimes not relating to what your needing) that some (won't say most as i have not check) just say "do a search" because the retard had allready asked a question that has been asked

although searches would be easier if they posted with topics that were more to the point...instead of "I need help" or the classic, "i have a problem" if your topic title were to be a bit more descriptive, the search would be alot easier and more usefull....for instance this thread "worthless answers" is ok for this type of topic....although it could have been more descriptive as "why do people give worthless answers"

Too bad people as a whole can't just work together for a common and greater good there is my 2 cents

just do your part to make it easier....you can change the world, but you can change what you do in it....if you feel this way, then answer every question ever asked of you....otherwise, don't piss and moan about what you don't want to do yourself

also on a side note....Phantom's crypticness is what taught me...i got fed up with every stupid newbie question i had being answered by him in the most blunt, to me far off way possible....so i just started looking...and it was alot easier

[cward]

Usually if I know a question has been answered before, I often tell people to do a search but only after I make sure the thread still exist. If I can find the thread so can they.

[ASayre]

Yup, search vs just telling them is like, "Give a man a fish & he eats for the day, Teach a man to fish & he eats for life." Or something.

[DontdroptheSOAD]

ya its something along those lines.

[Phantom]

I just tell them what bait, let them figure out how to put it on the hook, and cast off.

Like I said the only fun I have anymore is infact telling people as little as possible and see the outcome.

[Bradley]

The problem I see is that the more people ask the same question and get a "do a search" reply, the more the search becomes useless. What I mean is if you do a search on your question the odds are that you will get a result back with your question asked, but no answer in the thread. The longer this happens the more "poluted" the search will become.

I would propose some sort of "Helpfulnes rating" for threads that people vote on. Search results could be sorted by that rating. I think something along those lines would GREATLY boost the usefulness of searching and have less people ask repeated questions too, as the most helpful posts would rise to the top of the search. Perhaps some sort of "moderation system" similar to what what www.slashdot.org uses.

[stormwolff]

Originally Posted by Bradley

I would propose some sort of "Helpfulnes rating" for threads that people vote on. Search results could be sorted by that rating. I think something along those lines would GREATLY boost the usefulness of searching and have less people ask repeated questions too, as the most helpful posts would rise to the top of the search. Perhaps some sort of "moderation system" similar to what what www.slashdot.org uses.

Thats a great idea.

[Bradley]

Originally Posted by stormwolff

Thats a great idea.

I think something at the top or bottom of each thread's page have something along the lines of "How helpful did you find the information in this thread." With radio buttons, or a drop down with options from 1 to 10, or some other scale. Only logged in account could vote, and one vote per thread per user. You could change your vote, which would recalculate the pages score. I think that would be the best way to prevent abuse with this system.

Damn, I knew I would have a good idea eventually

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Bradley

I think something at the top or bottom of each thread's page have something along the lines of "How helpful did you find the information in this thread." With radio buttons, or a drop down with options from 1 to 10, or some other scale. Only logged in account could vote, and one vote per thread per user. You could change your vote, which would recalculate the pages score. I think that would be the best way to prevent abuse with this system.

Damn, I knew I would have a good idea eventually

People who don't like people, will just vote they thought the information was bad.

I don't like this idea, it won't be taken serious.

First time its abused, it will be worthless.

[Bradley]

Originally Posted by Phantom

People who don't like people, will just vote they thought the information was bad.

I don't like this idea, it won't be taken serious.

First time its abused, it will be worthless.

Thats why one person only gets one vote per thread. make the scale have no negetive values, only posative ones. Most people want to be helpful, even if they don't feel like answering a question. People who abuse the system could have thier vote right removed. There are several ways that the system could be balanced.

If you are tired of answering questions over and over, why not do something to allow you to not have to repeat yourself. make teh sorting of results an option, that way the worst that can happen is what we have now, and most likely it will only make things better.

[Bradley]

I first suggested somethign along the lines of thread scoring along the lines of www.slashdot.org. People are randomly given the opertunity to rate posts. When they are picked they get 5 votes. They can only vote once per thread. There is a "meta-moderation" system that everyone has access to. What this allows is for people to vote on other's votes, wether they think the vote was fair or not. It has a lot of checks and balances in the system to help prevent it from being abused, yes, it's not perfect, but the search system we have on here now is getting more useless with every new thread.

[David]

We have the ability to rate threads now, but hardly anyone uses it. True it does not show in a search, but that seems easy enough to add. I'll suggest it -- or you can Bradley...

[Bradley]

Originally Posted by David

We have the ability to rate threads now, but hardly anyone uses it. True it does not show in a search, but that seems easy enough to add. I'll suggest it -- or you can Bradley...

I think a moderator would have more clout then I would I'm jsut trying to do my part to make RunUO better, and I think a better way of searching would go a long way to helping people find information. So go ahead, take my idea and run with it if you think you can get the powers that be to consider it.

[haazen]

Well Im glad I got some folks thinking. And I agree with most of what has been said. People should search. I do searches. The less asked questions are easier to find answers then the more asked questions. One of the points I tried to get across is: If no answer is going to be added to the thread, just don't post. I have had questions that recieved no answers. This is fine with me. It tells me either noone know this answer or its been answered before. In either case, it tells me to keep looking and keep trying to resolve it myself.

But all and all, thanks for the responses. It will make me think before each and every post I make from here on out. Thanks folks.

[cward]

Usually if you do the search and select Last Post Date : In Ascending order. The answer is always in the first 5 threads you find. This will pull up all of the actual answers (if any) before people came in and asked the same question 500 timesand got told to do a search. Another good method is to search the FAQ first.