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"Help me" questions
#1
I have a question to the forum moderation team. I am just puzzled by all those question with generic titles. Don't you have some mechanism to enforce proper behavior? Disallowing answering before a meaningful title is assigned?

I need help, I am a noob - don't you have some tools to fight this phenomenon? Can't you lock the offending thread?

Also - questions without code tags..
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
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#2
I think this would just create a lot of extra work for the mod team with no real results. I mean, newbie #3281 comes along and asks a question with a vague title and no code tags. The thread gets locked and newbie #3281 learns that he needs to ask better questions with code tags. Then newbie #3282 comes along and does the same thing. And then newbie #3283. Each one is going to have to learn anew, each time.

I think the current moderation (point them in the right direction, lock down repeat offenders) is as good as your going to get.
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien - xenomind.com
I wish you happiness.
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#3
(Jun-15-2018, 08:25 PM)ichabod801 Wrote: I think this would just create a lot of extra work for the mod team with no real results.

I tend to disagree - the result will be a proper formulated question that can draw attention of someone asking a similar question.

When I started typing the title of that thread (I haven't open threads here for many months, I believe), several thread names popped up. Someone may get an answer even before asking - clear benefit.

As for the a lot of extra work - well, I do not moderate this forum, but I think that you have a lot of mods who are active in threads, so I do not think you'll be overworked. Of course, that is your choice.
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
Reply
#4
I'd be willing to consider a policy which would apply to users with a certain number of posts (2, 5, or something else). For all the single-thread users, I'd rather the community crowdsource improved titles, like you all can report them with an alternative suggestion and then we can copy-paste (the additional work, in my mind, isn't the clicking but rather than intellectual load of constantly solving one of the two hard problems in computer science using only usually-bad posts).

There was certainly a time when I would make more effort to cleanup bad subjects, but for exactly the reasons Ichabod pointed out, I got discouraged. If I feel like I'm part of a group solving that problem, I'll happily contribute.
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#5
(Jun-15-2018, 08:48 PM)micseydel Wrote: I'd rather the community crowdsource improved titles, like you all can report them with an alternative suggestion and then we can copy-paste

Sounds fair - when (if) reporting choices are expanded to allow that. I think that Improperly formatted may be a nice option too (now I click very generic Breaks forum rules)
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
Reply
#6
It really bugs me when people use crappy titles. Anyone in the future might search titles and not find it due to crap titles. If i see them i usually give the person a mod note saying dont do that and send them a link to the help docs (which does have it saying somewhere to use proper titles, not sure where at this moment) and i change the title for them to fit their question. If they do it a second time i usually give them a warning, but i dont normally have them do it a second time. Its normally the people
with their first post.

I agree with micseydel. If users could report those threads and give a new title it would most surely get replaced.
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#7
(Jun-15-2018, 08:39 PM)volcano63 Wrote: When I started typing the title of that thread (I haven't open threads here for many months, I believe), several thread names popped up. Someone may get an answer even before asking - clear benefit.

That is a possible benefit I had not considered.
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien - xenomind.com
I wish you happiness.
Recommended Tutorials: BBCode, functions, classes, text adventures
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#8
im currently working on adding custom report reasons. We have custom ones active, but for some reason the templates are not showing when you bring up the report options.
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#9
As a newbie myself, I can understand how people tend to write such titles, they don't realize that the title has to pertain to the topic in question instead of what kind of topic it is. And in general, when people write "help me" they usually have a problem with a personalized script, they are not asking for ideas, but usually are completely clueless.

And also people who come from using forums that do not have specific subforums might do this.

I think that the titles need to be changed when necessary by moderators using the help of player reports. If this will be stressful for the moderators, then I think you should elect special "community managers/moderators" which are basically intern moderators or moderators with restrictions.
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#10
(Jun-16-2018, 06:50 AM)Nwb Wrote: As a newbie myself, I can understand how people tend to write such titles, they don't realize that the title has to pertain to the topic in question instead of what kind of topic it is.

The forum has some reading material - that most skip. Being inexperienced is not an excuse to skip RTM part - on the opposite, the less experience you have the more you need those hints. How do you expect to learn if you don't read? And the help session is rather well organized and curt.

There are two types of help seekers:
  1. Those who want to learn and get stuck
  2. Those who want to cut corners and let someone do the hard work for them

Yay, someone will find the right title for me - in my eyes (again, I am just a member of this forum) is not much better than Can you give me a solution, pretty please?
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
Reply


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