| Subject | Re: [Firebird-general] improving firebird-support |
|---|---|
| Author | unordained |
| Post date | 2010-07-03T02:11:10Z |
---------- Original Message -----------
From: Milan Babuskov <milanb@...>
Hmmm. You may not be able to force them, but maybe you can give them incentives
and reminders to? A follow-up email might be enough for most people. If already
using incentives for other purposes, setting up an escrow account where you get
your own points back if you answer your own question, or get points for
submitting something to the FAQ that gets accepted, etc. might work.
I agree that point-based incentives for getting questions answered isn't ideal in
a motivated community. I think people already mean well, they just have trouble
focusing on the areas that need help, or they keep holding off, hoping someone
with slightly more knowledge than themselves will step in. They could do the
research, it'd take 2 minutes, but if someone else is *just about* to answer, why
bother? And thus the question never gets answered. So yeah, I'm all for a
solution that assists, doesn't force.
Young or old, the list doesn't have reminder/join emails on etiquette, proper
follow-up, etc. You can't really blame them for not knowing to, or not thinking
to -- even the grumps don't bother most of the time. In fact, if you answer your
own question, you wind up looking a bit foolish for asking first, then doing more
research. Maybe that's not how it should be, but you need the right community
atmosphere to foster that kind of public self-correction. Instead, you feel like
you're just posting noise, making it harder for everyone else to get help.
-Philip
From: Milan Babuskov <milanb@...>
> > thinking along the lines of a "clean-up" process; after you solve the problem------- End of Original Message -------
> > (thoroughly, slowly, with conversation) come back and give a summary that's
> > useful to someone reading the digest, or searching the archive, or looking
> > through an FAQ, or a problem-solving wizard. But after, not during.
>
> Well, you can't force people to do that. When someone gets a solution
> to their problem, they just move on. The only problem I see with
> current approach is that newer generations of developers don't have
> the same habits as old school. Younger folks have grown up alongside
> Internet from day one, and they expect to be able to find anything on
> the web. Subscribing to a mailing list and asking a question there is
> something they need to learn about, because they are not used to that.
Hmmm. You may not be able to force them, but maybe you can give them incentives
and reminders to? A follow-up email might be enough for most people. If already
using incentives for other purposes, setting up an escrow account where you get
your own points back if you answer your own question, or get points for
submitting something to the FAQ that gets accepted, etc. might work.
I agree that point-based incentives for getting questions answered isn't ideal in
a motivated community. I think people already mean well, they just have trouble
focusing on the areas that need help, or they keep holding off, hoping someone
with slightly more knowledge than themselves will step in. They could do the
research, it'd take 2 minutes, but if someone else is *just about* to answer, why
bother? And thus the question never gets answered. So yeah, I'm all for a
solution that assists, doesn't force.
Young or old, the list doesn't have reminder/join emails on etiquette, proper
follow-up, etc. You can't really blame them for not knowing to, or not thinking
to -- even the grumps don't bother most of the time. In fact, if you answer your
own question, you wind up looking a bit foolish for asking first, then doing more
research. Maybe that's not how it should be, but you need the right community
atmosphere to foster that kind of public self-correction. Instead, you feel like
you're just posting noise, making it harder for everyone else to get help.
-Philip