Mistreatment of new members

[i2dx]

QUOTE(Jim Kring @ May 2 2007, 04:42 AM)

How about this? When a homework hustler posts a message that does not conform to the forum rules and expectations, a moderator will do the following:

1. move it into a special "Homework Hustler" forum (maybe, not syndicated via LAVA's RSS feed)
   
2. reply to the topic with a standard, canned response (which includes a "Homework Hustler" emoticon, of course) explaining why the posting was rejected and how to "try again"
   
3. lock the topic so that neither the homework hustler nor the homework hustler hecklers have a chance to butt heads.
   

Moving the posting into a special "homework hustler" forum will create a nice archive that will amuse the homework hustler hecklers and create good examples of how not to post questions to LAVA.

100% ACK

locking that topic makes sense to me, because then nobody can choose the *wrong tone* in an answer. A standard answer is a more or less friendly but clear signal, that we don't like homework hustling around here.

@Admin

if you need a Mod - I volunteer - if you don't find anyone more suitable

[Dave Graybeal]

QUOTE

lock the topic so that neither the homework hustler nor the homework hustler hecklers have a chance to butt heads.

QUOTE

locking that topic makes sense to me, because then nobody can choose the *wrong tone* in an answer. A standard answer is a more or less friendly but clear signal, that we don't like homework hustling around here.

I'm not sure i think the topic should be locked. I would be more in favor of it being locked to people other than the creator and moderators. Locking the thread altogether would fail to allow the poster to rephrase the question.

Maybe a procedure should be more like this.

1) Unclear, Nondefinded posts get moved to another topic (maybe something other than HH to prevent new members from being offended.. maybe something like Rework Needed?)

2) A default post from the moderator that moved the thread to inform them that the post needs some work in order to be acceptable on LAVA.

3) Lock the thread from everyone but the original creator and mods

4) Send the creator a PM informing them of the move (maybe with a link to the new post)

4) Let the post sit for some period allowing the creator to fix the issues with the way they posted it.

5) After the creator has the post fixed they send a PM to the moderator(or whoever originally moved it) requesting it be moved back

Something like this might help promote the following of guidelines in a non-offensive way for someone that just didn't take the time to read the post guidelines before posting. Obviously after the same account makes numerous of these poor posts it could be set upon the moderators to take futher action.

Hope these ideas are useful.

Dave Graybeal

[crelf]

QUOTE(Jim Kring @ May 2 2007, 12:42 PM)

How about this? When a homework hustler posts a message that does not conform to the forum rules and expectations, a moderator will do the following...

Sounds like a good solution to me, but I'm not sure we should lump all of this on Mike - it's going to be a lot of work, and Mike already does a fantastic job of supporting LAVA with no financial gain. That takes me back to one of my earlier ideas: is LAVA at the stage where it's large enough to warrant a couple of Moderators standing alongside the Administrator?

[i2dx]

QUOTE(crelf @ May 2 2007, 02:17 PM)

Sounds like a good solution to me, but I'm not sure we should lump all of this on Mike - it's going to be a lot of work, and Mike already does a fantastic job of supporting LAVA with no financial gain. That takes me back to one of my earlier ideas: is LAVA at the stage where it's large enough to warrant a couple of Moderators standing alongside the Administrator?

as I allready wrote: I volunteer as Mod ... (if Mike does not find anyone more suitable ...)

[Dave Graybeal]

I agree Crefl, this shouldn't fall solely on Mike. I would also be willing to help out as a Moderator if we would like for this purpose. I'm sure there are plenty of members willing to help with this issue. I know that my recomendation would take more work than just moving the forum, but I think in the end it would help fuel more constructive posts and act as more of an encouragment towards new members to get involved properly.

Dave

[Doon]

I understand that this thread is mostly aimed at old members. I, myself, have been 98.9 percent lurker on this forum for almost two years. But I cannot help but be a bit concerned. What would happen if new moderators were comprised of the very members who inspired this thread?

I can understand the frustration you have with HH questions. It's the same thing that drives IT people to wear those silly black shirts with rtfm across the chest (no offense to those of you wearing those shirts).

I would suggest setting up a means for members to relieve their frustrations at HH-type questions -- perhaps with a button to click. Enough clicks by enough members could send the topic to a different section, as described above. Perhaps this can be done as a ratio:

"""After 12 viewings, 63% of the readers found this topic to be poorly formed. Please revise your question and resubmit."""

This would establish more of a consensus system. It would also save from a lot of the "please send code" responses. And isn't that the point -- to make the forum more productive? Furthermore, I'm sure everyone gets the same satisfaction I feel when they click a button labelled "HH"

-H

[Dave Graybeal]

QUOTE

I would suggest setting up a means for members to relieve their frustrations at HH-type questions -- perhaps with a button to click. Enough clicks by enough members could send the topic to a different section, as described above. Perhaps this can be done as a ratio:

"""After 12 viewings, 63% of the readers found this topic to be poorly formed. Please revise your question and resubmit."""

I think Doon might be onto something here. This would make it an anonymous vote sorta thing on every post that could likely be automated. This would eliminate the need for a large moderators group and still inform the poster that they need to do some more work before they resubmit the question.

Thanks,

Dave

[i2dx]

QUOTE(Doon @ May 2 2007, 04:29 PM)

perhaps with a button to click. Enough clicks by enough members could send the topic to a different section, as described above. Perhaps this can be done as a ratio:

If I were the Admin here, I'd refuse to do this, because this means a lot of work. This "simple little button" means, that you have to go through the PHP-sources of the forum software, search for the right position to implement that code, eventually change the database, etc ...

As long as this feature is not provided by the forum software "as delivered" that means, that you have to redo this on every software update, that comes along, you have to rewrite your code, adapt the buttons to new templates. I'd calculate at least one day for the first implementation, and at least a half day for the implementation on the further releases ...

Moderators are IMHO a more suitable way to repell HHs and encourage newbies.

[crelf]

QUOTE(i2dx @ May 3 2007, 02:51 AM)

As long as this feature is not provided by the forum software "as delivered" that means, that you have to redo this on every software update, that comes along, you have to rewrite your code, adapt the buttons to new templates...

I totally agree - if it's not an out-of-the-box feature of the forum software then I don't think it's fair to ask Mike to code it in.

[Yair]

I would suggest again the suggestion we made once of having a very simple LabVIEW test in order to register. If you haven't passed the test (let's say four out of five multiple choice questions), that means you never even tried using LV and you would get a polite message telling you that you should learn how to use LV first and pointing you both to the NI forums and to some tutorials.

I believe that if these tests were comprised of a series of randomly selected questions from a preset pool no HH would bother passing it and would simply use the tutorials or go to the NI forums.

Note - this is not me being a snob. I really do mean for the test to be simple. If you've actually used LV and understand how it works, you should be able to easily pass it. Even if you get it wrong, there should be no limit on how many times you can take it (with new random questions each time of course).

I do believe that this really is a valid solution. Anyone else?

Michael, how complicated would that be to implement (assuming you get the members to help with formulating the questions)?

[crelf]

QUOTE(yen @ May 3 2007, 05:41 AM)

I would suggest again the suggestion we made once of having a very simple LabVIEW test in order to register. I do believe that this really is a valid solution. Anyone else?

I don't agree - being a LabVIEW newbie isn't necessarily the same as being a HH. IMO, we really really want more newbies, we don't want HHs.

[Tomi Maila]

QUOTE(crelf @ May 2 2007, 11:19 PM)

I don't agree - being a LabVIEW newbie isn't necessarily the same as being a HH. IMO, we really really want more newbies, we don't want HHs.

I think it's very ok to ask help for a homework as well as long as the help request is specific to a particular issue or feature and not generic help me request.

[Yair]

QUOTE(crelf @ May 2 2007, 11:19 PM)

I don't agree - being a LabVIEW newbie isn't necessarily the same as being a HH. IMO, we really really want more newbies, we don't want HHs.

Question - you need to learn a new programming language. What do you do?

1. You just open the compiler and begin guessing.
   
2. You try looking at the getting started document you hopefully got with your compiler.
   
3. You look for a proper course or tutorial which can explain the basics of the language.
   
4. You go and ask someone "How do I do this?".
   

If your answer was 3, you should be able to pass the test if you went through the tutorials. If you haven't put it the minimum effort of trying to learn the language, you will most likely be an annoying HH.

Again, as I said, the point is for the test to be very simple. It should only deter people who really haven't tried to understand LV at all, but once you have used LV, you should be able to pass it.

[crelf]

QUOTE(Tomi Maila @ May 3 2007, 06:27 AM)

I think it's very ok to ask help for a homework as well as long as the help request is specific to a particular issue or feature and not generic help me request.

Absolutely - I have no problem helping out members with homework - I've done it many times, but if you're doing homework and you don't tell us then I think you're misrepresenting yourself.

[Tomi Maila]

QUOTE(yen @ May 2 2007, 11:47 PM)

Question - you need to learn a new programming language. What do you do?

1. You just open the compiler and begin guessing.
   
2. You try looking at the getting started document you hopefully got with your compiler.
   
3. You look for a proper course or tutorial which can explain the basics of the language.
   
4. You go and ask someone "How do I do this?"
   

I learned LabVIEW complitely without option 3.) course or tutorial. Indeed I think that's what makes LabVIEW so great, it's so intuitive that you don't need to study tutorials, just start wiring and if you don't understand something, open the help. If you still don't understand something, ask you collegue. Thanks Matias for patiently answering my questions

Tomi

[Dirk J.]

It's not so much about newbies, but about homework hustlers.

In my opinion the most annoying HH posts share two common characteristics:

1) no evidence showing understanding of the actual problem (that needs to be solved using LV)

2) SMS/Chat-type spelling.

Both points don't really relate to knowledge of Labview nor to English language skills.

Even with limited knowledge of a programming language an (engineering) student should still be able to analyse the problem and come up with some sort solution or algorithm. If they do, most if not all members will be happy to constructively comment.

Regarding the second point: it's hard to take such posts seriously. It has nothing to do with English language skills. These posters are able to read this forum (and we all asume they searched and studied it, before posting their question) so they have a huge amount of examples showing them how to effectively ask a question.

So being a Labview newbie using "charcoal english" (is that term only used in the Netherlands?) is not a problem, as long as you communicate about your problem -and more importantly about your approach to solving- it in a manner that is conventional to the forum.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE(yen @ May 2 2007, 12:41 PM)

I would suggest again the suggestion we made once of having a very simple LabVIEW test in order to register.

This is out of the question. All are welcome here on LAVA. I don't want to exclude anyone. Some may want LAVA to be an exclusive club but quite frankly, if it comes to that, it will cease to be interesting for me. In addition to that, the forums will die because everyone will be a lurker reading Tomi and AQ's posts on Greek philosophy.

This discussion is going in the wrong direction. My original comment was not to HH's or newbies. It was directed towards the forum regulars. Be nice! We all already acknowledge that Homework Huster's are not liked. Fine, that is an issue separate from all other. Other than that, ALL other questions are welcome whether they be simple or complex. I am the first to post stupid questions here on LAVA. If we don't then NI will never fix the problems that plague new users of a feature. Remember, we are all new when it comes to the introduction of new features regardless of how long you use LabVIEW.

There has been discussion of forwarding new users to the NI Forums. Again, the wrong attitude. I mean, if that doesn't sound like "we don't want your kind here" I don't know what does? Forwarding people to the NI Forums is not acceptable. Links to solutions or key examples/articles are fine but a general "brush off" to the dark side is just wrong and insulting.

In order to put a closure to this discussion, I am implementing the following policies/procedures:

1. Homework Hustlers are not allowed on the Forums. No exceptions.
   
2. If you think a certain post is a homework hustling type question. Click on the report post to moderator button. This is the only recourse available to you. DO NOT respond to the post. You are not a moderator and posting negative or disrespectful comments will be considered abuse and results in a penalty by suspension of your account for a period of 2 days. If a post has been determined to be a Homework question, the guilty party will be contacted via PM and a clarification will be requested. If the issue is still not resolved to the satisfaction of a moderator, then the users' account will be deleted and all their posts removed.
   
3. In general. Do not post comments to any discussion about how the user will be better off on another website or forum. Any comments that imply that the original poster is not experienced enough in LabVIEW or should not be on LAVA is considered disrespect and follows the same 2 day suspension penalty.
   
4. Moderators: Only the moderators are authorized by the LAVA Forums to perform any user account suspension/deletion, post editing, post deletion and post moving. In addition, only moderators can decide if a post is a Homework question. Moderators do not read every post. This is impossible. Please use the report post to moderator button to bring anything to the attention of a moderator.
   
5. Posting in the wrong forum. Do not respond to a post located in the wrong forum to let the user know it's in the wrong forum. This is the job of the moderator since they have the power to move the post. Again, please use the report post to moderator button. Making comments of this fact is considered impersonating a moderator and is not acceptable.
   
6. Spam: If you think a specific post is clearly spam use the report post to moderator button. Replying to such posts only adds visibility to them and makes the problem worse.
   
7. Personal Messages: Do not use the personal message (PM) system for LabVIEW technical support, dating, abuse or LabVIEW SN requests. If a member reports to a moderator that their PM inbox has been abused(for any reason) then the abusers' account will be suspended for 4 days.
   
8. Member's privacy regarding moderation decisions. All moderator decisions and outcomes (suspensions, deletions etc) will be kept private and confidential. This will allow offenders to recover from what may possibly be a mistake or error on their part.
   

I will add these rules to the [wiki]Forum Guidelines[/wiki] as soon as I can.

[crelf]

QUOTE(Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 3 2007, 09:37 AM)

In order to put a closure to this discussion, I am implementing the following policies/procedures...

:thumbup:

[Gary Rubin]

QUOTE(Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 2 2007, 07:37 PM)

...Do not use the personal message (PM) system for <snip> dating <snip>

What, no LAVA romances?

[Jim Kring]

QUOTE(Gary Rubin @ May 2 2007, 05:45 PM)

What, no LAVA romances?

Probably want to avoid the heartache that will occur when they turn out to look nothing like thier avatar

[crelf]

QUOTE(Jim Kring @ May 3 2007, 10:50 AM)

Probably want to avoid the heartache that will occur when they turn out to look nothing like thier avatar

Are you trying to tell us that yen's not a Transformer?!?!

[Yair]

QUOTE(Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 3 2007, 02:37 AM)

In order to put a closure to this discussion, I am implementing the following policies/procedures:

The master has spoken!

As I said, I don't think that people or questions per-se should be excluded from LAVA, just that there should be a minimal level of understanding of LV (minimal meaning not "what does a type cast do", but "what's the data type of Indicator in this image").

http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5712

This is for two reasons. One technical and one more conceptual.

The technical reason is that from a usability standpoint I believe that LAVA would perform badly when faced with a large amount of users. The servers are relatively slow as it is and the interface becomes inconvenient when there is a large number of posts to go through. These are technical and so could probably be solved.

The conceptual problem is embodied nicely in the NI forums. The LabVIEW board occasionally has very interesting threads, but finding them is hard because that board usually gets 200-300 posts every day. When I read LAVA content, I know that it will have more interesting threads. Restricting the level of members to those with minimal knowledge will at least ensure that the HH-level users will not get through the filter and that I will still be likely to get high level content. This is not to say that there can not be "simple questions", just that you can assume that there will be less "stupid questions".

By the way, I don't have a problem either with "stupid questions" or with the NI forums. I myself contribute to the NI forums and would answer "stupid questions" both here and there. I would just prefer that LAVA be saved for the better stuff (not the better people).

Of course, I'm not the guy who started and runs LAVA, so my opinion doesn't matter that much.

QUOTE(crelf @ May 3 2007, 05:43 AM)

Are you trying to tell us that yen's not a Transformer?!?!

C'mon Chris, the song does say "Robots in disguise"... :ninja:

http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5713''>http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5713'>http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5713

[Tomi Maila]

QUOTE(yen @ May 3 2007, 09:13 PM)

As I said, I don't think that people or questions per-se should be excluded from LAVA, just that there should be a minimal level of understanding of LV (minimal meaning not "what does a type cast do", but "what's the data type of Indicator in this image").

http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5712

It's all about marketing. You should have called it LabVIEW CAPTCHA and everybody would have loved it . CAPTCHA is an acronym for those spam prevention systems where you need to enter the letters in a hard-to-read automatically generated image to be able to register a web site.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE(yen @ May 3 2007, 11:13 AM)

The servers are relatively slow as it is and the interface becomes inconvenient when there is a large number of posts to go through.

The server is the fastest it's ever been. It's a dedicated machine. There is room for upgrade but it's already at about $109US a month which is about breaking even at the moment. Also, we are located in North America so regardless of speed your location will also be a factor. I'm wondering what feature of the NI forums makes it better for viewing a large number of posts? can you elaborate?

[Yair]

QUOTE(Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 3 2007, 10:49 PM)

The server is the fastest it's ever been. It's a dedicated machine.

For me it's fairly slow. Getting a page to even start appearing can often take quite a few seconds. You could blame my browser, but this happened both in IE and FF, both relatively clean (no toolbars, etc.) and in clean versions of Windows.

This may not be LAVA's "fault", but it still is the reality and it hurts usability. Not to the point of not being able to use LAVA, but to the point of making it somewhat of a hassle.

QUOTE

I'm wondering what feature of the NI forums makes it better for viewing a large number of posts? can you elaborate?

There are several features which I believe I have mentioned in the past. I believe that they originate from the difference between the Invision board software and the Lithium board software.

Some examples:

1.

Most critically, LAVA is partitioned into many forums, but with the available content, I would usually want to read posts from all the forums. The only way to do this (as far as I know) is to click the View New Posts link. The problem with that is that this page only displays posts since the last time you logged in. Every time you close your browser this is reset, regardless of whether or not you actually read the messages, so this forces me to either log in when I know I will have time to go over all the messages or lose posts.

The NI forums, on the other hand, have a small number of interesting boards. You can float these boards, see if they have any new posts, go over each board and then mark the entire board as read. If you haven't read a post, it will not be marked as read, regardless of how many times you log in and out. This may be the same with LAVA per-forum, but as I mentioned, you can't follow each forum seperately.

The solution to this would probably be a threading RSS reader, but I use Google Reader, which for some reason lacks some of the very useful features Gmail has, like threading and storing the old messages. In any case, I think the site should handle this in its own interface.

2.

Visually, the NI forums are much easier to use. A thread with unread posts is marked with a prominent bold font, unlike the LAVA one, where you get a small image. The board page seems much cleaner.

The sparse colors really help. You have black on white (mostly) with the occasional grey bar and blue font.

It's simply easier to read.

This also relates to the LAVA message editing screen, which is very feature-rich.

BTW, this does not mean that the LAVA forums don't look nice. In fact, they look very good. The NI forums are simply easier to use.

3.

The NI forums properly mark posts as read. If you opened the page where a post is displayed, it will immediately be marked as read. In the LAVA forums, you could spend a good number of seconds in the thread page, and when you would click back, the thread will still be marked as having unread posts.

4.

The NI pages seem to have much less HTML and load faster. I haven't done a comparison of the source, but it just seems that way. When you go through a lot of posts, this is important.