Forum rule suggestion

[ppera2]

After reading thousands of posts here, I can say what is that what really pisses me:
When someone asks help and is too lazy to write normal, well spelled sentences. When question is too general, without details, so it's almost impossible to answer.
So, I think that it would be good to add some new forum rules, or at least sugestions:

Please try to write so, that other people can it easy understand - correct grammar and spelling is very welcome. Keep in mind that many forum member is not native English speaker, so try to stay at literal English (official English).

When post question, be specific, don't spare with details. For example, when have problems with encoding, write all about used OS, software and even hardware - it all may have influence.

[Doom9]

well.. the not enough details is kinda covered by rule1.. I think it would be too much to ask for your complete computer details for every question. Usually, it takes the knowledge to handle a problem to know what information would be relevant to a certain question.

[ppera2]

Rule 1:
"1) Read up before asking! There are tons of guides, FAQs and each forum has a dedicated Q&A thread with additional info.

1a) Use the search function before posting. Chances are your question has already been answered."

I don't see here any note about 'enough details'.
I didn't talk about 'complete details', just 'necessary details'.
It can be discutable, of course, what is necessary, but some main details are certain, and it takes not much time to write them. At least forum members will see that thread starter is serious - actually this thread is inspired with non-serious posts and posters :)


Maybe it should be formuled with word 'serious' - when I see some posts, I have impression that they are made in 10-20 seconds. Why should then someone take 10-20 minutes to answer?

[Doom9]

well.. imagine you're a clueless n00b (like me ;) You have no idea what kind of info is required to get help. Except for GKnot, BeSweet and DVD2SVCD where posting the logfile is pretty much a must, users mostly don't know what info is required. So if you write "enough info must be provided", they don't know what enough is, and probably start with stuff that is completely useless.
I'm not trying to say that some people don't make an appropriate effort, but sometimes it's hard to know where exactly the effort is required. I fear it would come off as being a rather generic "strike if you don't like somebody" rule because it just leaves too much up to personal interpretation.

[ppera2]

I have feeling that we don't understand each other. And your replies have some burocratic tone...
Nothing about spelling. No explanation about what you said for rule #1... Getting tired from all this???

P.S.: maybe thread title isn't best... It should be more some recommendment than strikeable rule.

[Doom9]

Let's interrupt the discussion for a fact finding mission.

Imagine a newbie posts "help, I can't play my avi". So, leaving aside the obvious question now (where does that avi come from?), somebody would have to ask back "how did you create this avi? what kind of codecs did you use? what kind of player are you using, what kind of playback filters do you have installed?".
That is what you mean by not giving enough information, is it not?

I'll stop here so you have the chance of correcting me. Tell me if I'm correct or not and I can formulate the rest of my response accordingly.

[shevegen]

"Please try to write so, that other people can it easy understand "

Hmmmmmm.
Did your sentence pass the grammar_check.pl script, ppera2, or is the script bugged again? Hehe ;)

[ppera2]

Here is one example of unserious post:
"Hi has any body used this card VMagic Movie Ultra and what is it like dos it work with premiere 6 or other programs.
perdul:"

I really didn't want to start some discussion here. Thought that this problem is clear...

One thing is making ocassional errors, and another is writing whole post without commas and similar. Nobody replied this, and there is a lot of similar posts, without reply.

shevegen:
I don't use spell checking software (far from perfect, even useful...), never learned English in skool (yes, I know..). Here is talk about effort, not perfection.

[Doom9]

@ppera2: I thought I was asking a yes or no question ;)
But if you ask me, we are talking about the same thing. So please, either tell me I'm right or correct me because otherwise this is going nowhere.

[ppera2]

Originally posted by Doom9
Let's interrupt the discussion for a fact finding mission.

Imagine a newbie posts "help, I can't play my avi". So, leaving aside the obvious question now (where does that avi come from?), somebody would have to ask back "how did you create this avi? what kind of codecs did you use? what kind of player are you using, what kind of playback filters do you have installed?".
That is what you mean by not giving enough information, is it not?

I'll stop here so you have the chance of correcting me. Tell me if I'm correct or not and I can formulate the rest of my response accordingly.

No need for imagination - look some threads here. 2 scenario is usual: replies with asking for more details, or silence.

I didn't reply you immediately, because this is of course mostly newbie concerning thing. How to 'handle' such people, which maybe first time posted to some forum at all? Discourage them and be happy that they 'disturb' not more, or trying to learn them some basics. Not just for forum ethic and behavior, but even for some elementary computer usage principles. I think that most of them are beginners in that, some are very young, inexperienced amd similar.

There is link at bottom of 'Rules' page named 'Welcome/How to post a question'. I doubt that many people clicked it. How to write instructions for newcomers? Why link? Putting good formulated, short text would be much more effective.

[Doom9]

alright, so we are talking about the same thing.

Then let's go on.
All forum rules are strikeable, because if we have no enforcement mechanism, some people will never stick to them. Now imagine a rule that says "When post question, be specific, don't spare with details. For example, when have problems with encoding, write all about used OS, software and even hardware - it all may have influence.".

Now how do you judge if somebody is in violation? It is a matter of how much you know about this or similar problems. Take my avi playback example. So the guy tells you that he's using WMP, has ffdshow installed, and that the codec used was XviD. He then goes on rambling about his other hard and software. However, the problem was an improper fourcc code (as an example). So, since he didn't give the one bit of crucial information.. has he violated the rule? He hasn't give the information required to help him, has he? Now let's take the opposite.. somebody posting the question like I mentioned before. But, instead of giving all the abovementioned info, he just says "I have an AVI that I cannot play. GSpot shows it having a fourcc of DOM9 but there's no codec to play this. So, no info about software or hardware was given and almost no details about the problem either. But a "change the fourcc code to something your system knows like DIVX" would already solve the problem. So.. guilty because no software, hardware and detail list was given, or not guilty because the essential information was given?
Usually, you don't need many details.. you need a few crucial ones. So, strike if those are missing (how the heck is a newbie to know which details are important for his problem), strike if there are no details, strike if there are no details except the one that matters?

I know you see the posts that you don't like (and I don't like them either), but I'm the one who has to oversee the enforcement of the rules and gets all the complaints and I cannot shake the feeling that this rule could lead to decisions that seem arbitrary (because of the questions I've raised in the previous paragraph). It would be extremely hard to draw the line between violation and non violation. I think somebody trying to really explain his problem is not in violation even if the crucial piece of info is missing. Likewise, if the info is missing but the crucial bit is there, there's no need for reprimands, is there?

[ppera2]

OK. My mistake. It should be not rule, just recommendation. No need to strike people because of bad composed post.
It's enough punishment when nobody replies them :)

I think that link on bottom of Rulez page is not too showy. At least, I saw it first time after then visits to that page.

[SeeMoreDigital]

If poor spelling freaks you out, then maybe members could be encouraged to download and use ieSpell (http://www.iespell.com/download.php?site=rochen&key=70490c099c7c16cfee4a293f58417cb2&t=1069938053).

Hopefully that's one gripe that could ease your pain!

EDIT: It's also been my opinion (for a long time now), that maybe the first section of the forum should be renamed as follows: -

General Information, Announcements and Chat
01 General Discussion
02 Forum / Site Suggestions & Help
03 Test Forum
04 Newbies Q&A

So that newbies have a higher probability of getting their questions answered and see what's going on... in general!


Cheers

[ppera2]

Originally posted by shevegen
"Please try to write so, that other people can it easy understand "

Hmmmmmm.
Did your sentence pass the grammar_check.pl script, ppera2, or is the script bugged again? Hehe ;)

Hehe - did you tried it, or just write here to annoy?
I dl-ed latest version, installed and it didn't complained for mentioned sentence, and usually for nothing from me.

So: 1: This program is crap, buggy, or just checks single words, not whole sentences.
2: My sentence is OK, and you own me explanation why you thought that it's incorrect

[Doom9]

I figured that the suggestion for good posts was already there. You know, it is impossible to have a rule page that's short enough that people actually read it, and that still contains the essential, so no matter what.. there are certain parts that 90% of the people will not bother to read properly.

I dl-ed latest version, installed and it didn't complained for mentioned sentence, and usually for nothing from me.

actually if you have a "didn't", then you must not use the past participe with it (complained -> pp = complained), rather you use the infinitive.. and the rest of the sentence stops making sense somewhere ;) NO biggie, but since you were discussing grammar (I'm not perfect in that area either and I know it).

[ppera2]

Right. I learned it about past time after didn't earlier, during my forum postings and readings. That post was intended to people which proposed spell checking programs - it's obvious that they are primitive, and don't complain for such bad sentences.
I just checked above, ieSpell found only 1 type-error - better than nothing :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by ppera2
ieSpell found only 1 type-error - better than nothing :) What do you mean by 'type-error'?

In my experience, I've found that ieSpell works very well indeed with spelling errors!

Cheers

[ppera2]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
What do you mean by 'type-error'?....


Type error is for example when you miss key on keybosrd.
For above isSpell suggested keyboard instead keybosrd. Simple.

But following: 'it didn't complained' is OK by ieSpell.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by ppera2
Type error is for example when you miss key on keybosrd.
For above isSpell suggested keyboard instead keybosrd. Simple.

But following: 'it didn't complained' is OK by ieSpell. I'm not following you exactly!

If you typed the word 'keybosrd' and you meant to type 'keyboard' and ieSpell suggested the word 'keyboard', it's done it's job properly!

Grammar correction is, as yet, beyond ieSpells capabilities. Take your sig for example. You have written the following: -

"They spending lot of money on adverts to attract people to watch their creations, and then assure them to not to do that - with big prices".

The word 'They' is not correct. It should either be, 'They are' or They're (which is a contraction). And 'lot' should also be changed to 'lots'.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say with the phrase "and then assure them to not to do that - with big prices".

Grammar is far more difficult. Especially if the software can't understand the sentence to begin with!

Cheers ppera2

[ppera2]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I'm not following you exactly!

If you typed the word 'keybosrd' and you meant to type 'keyboard' and ieSpell suggested the word 'keyboard', it's done it's job properly!

This part of checking is OK, but obviously not enough.

Grammar correction is, as yet, beyond ieSpells capabilities.
[/B]

Right. I tried grammar check in Microsoft Word - it's also very limited.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say with the phrase "and then assure them to not to do that - with big prices".
[/B]

I think that instead 'assure' I should say 'ensure'?
Or something like convince...