Why are people on this forum so damn temperamental?

[jimmyhauser]

I have been reading through alot of posts here over the last couple weeks.

There seems to be a lot of bickering, pointless debate, insults and flaming going on here. (I know am probably starting more with this post, but that is why I chose the off-topic forum) I know you get it on all internet forums, but this one seems to be worse than most.

I actually had someone pm me on something recently, I believe, because he was too afraid to make a post asking for help. I dont blame him. If someone here asks a question that may or may not have been asked months ago (therefore buried by 10 pages of more current posts) he gets flamed. I also notice he asks another newbie like me, instead of someone with a lot of posts, because they seem to be the most touchy.

And I know, that is why there is a search. But you know, search tools on forums like this are a joke. You are going to get a return of 1000's of posts, 99% of which have nothing to do with what you are looking for. And for me at least, half the time when I search, and I am rewarded with a blank page (in both mozilla and IE).

Just wanted report on what I see here. Maybe others see it differently.

[vijay555]

Jimmy - not to validate your argument, but I disagree with you!

Seriously, I respond to so many posts, probably even unnecessarily so sometimes, just because I like the community. The vast majority of us are here because we enjoy the community and are like-minded gadget freaks.
You do get some flaming, some bitching, some idiots, some spam, some divas. But the vast majority, in my experience, are very nice, helpful and supportive of newbies. We were all one once, and I hope that I'd rather say nothing then something unhelpful.

Anyone can PM or email me any time. I can't respond immediately, but I will try to respond.

The usual "use the search, Luke", response is normally only fired out when you've got a very new member blurting out things like "How do I switch the phone off?". My reasoning there is, teach a man to fish, he'll help himself a lot more then just filling his gullet with answers. But, for valid, non knee jerk questions, most people will try to help.

I think it's better no one answers if they don't know, and if they don't, feel free to bump. But don't bump twice in 5 mins - "COME ON, DOESN'T ANYBODY
KNOW HOW TO SORT MY CONTACTS BY FIRST NAME??!?!?!??!" is not a way to make friends with me.

Anyway, I could rant all day, but I think the board generally speaks for itself. Most are helpful, most are nice, most are here because we want to be here.

You get some bad posts, but seriously, in my year on the board, I've only had two encounters that caused me to contemplate leaving...

V

PS this was an interesting thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=329718#329718

[jimmyhauser]

I know it is not everyone, my subject should not have been why are people so temperamental, it should have been why are SOME people so temperamental.

I agree with you, if it is a repetive question, just dont answer. I just think it is bad when people are pm'ing rather than posting because they are afraid.

[newbie2]

You get some bad posts, but seriously, in my year on the board, I've only had two encounters that caused me to contemplate leaving...

V

PS this was an interesting thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=329718#329718

I gotta' agree with you on that thread, vijay. Those pics (the original ones) NEVER should have been posted. They provoked a LOT of ire from users and flaming, too. There's no room for politics on this forum. It's not here for that purpose and I felt like that was where that thread was heading. Even the world news networks don't show images THAT graphic!! Thanks for deleting them and putting that thread back "on course".

[Mac da Knife]

STFU! you think your so godd@mn smart, coming here and reading entries and you probably dont know your @ss froma hole in the ground when it comes to pdas....

whos says people here are temperamental?

[vijay555]

dont know your @ss froma hole in the ground

Gosh, in countries where you actually poo straight into a hole in the ground, this might cause some rather embarrassing situations!

V

[Rudegar]

maybe i hang out in the wrong forums or my level of what is hostile is wayy different from yours
but this is one of the most friendly forums i come in
or have ever come in (and thats a great deal)

i dont see telling people to use search and the likes to be hostile

personal attacks is hostile

[HDuser]

Dont know what the problem is, sure once in a while people get pointed to search, wiki or spend some time reading. And yes once in awhile there are no flowers in that reply.

Sure even I have had the balls to move a post out of news and tell the guy to post in the correct, forum, read wiki and use search. It pisses of our other users who think news is news and not news being somebody asking how do I upgrade my device.

I have seen a lot of threads, a few things I did not like to see, a few I have killed. I have seen nice, not so nice and far form nice askers and also answerres.

In general you get a lot more help here than on other places (yes I have had to look other places).

But hell its a free word, if anybody thinks this site is not good to or for them, well its a click of the mouse to solve that problem.

Mean while will I point a user to the answer of his question which in fact is the same question in 4 different sections. Hum let me think about that one.

[PPCNUT]

Personally I find most people on the forum very friendly. You always get a few who are a bit temperamental but that is life. But on the whole this would have to be the most helpful and friendly forum around.

[shogunmark]

I will have to agree and disagree with this.. i havent been a member that long and i did take the smart route, i actually read this board over and from top to bottom for months before making a single post, what stopped me from making a post right away was most senior people's complaints about newbs not searching, etc.. so i did just that searched and read... and here i am 3 months later of my first post and have made well over 500 now.. (i have point to all of this somewhere here:D ) This site can be a little confusing to newbs, but most of the confusion comes from other newbs making the same posts over and over again, you might search for one thing and come up with 50 posts of the same problem, however 49 of them are flames telling them to search to find the answer... and this is where it also gets frustrating for the senior people, people who have already answered this once before causing the temperamental flames.. Now i do try to answer what i can, we were all newbs once and i still consider myself one and i answer many pm's of people who are afraid to be flamed (which if they would have searched they would have found the answer) but im also not their personal wiki... ok, im done, oh yeah, vote for me for president :eek:

[prestonmcafee]

I came here from treocentral, which was much more supportive on average. Sure, there are some good-spirited and helpful people here, but it is overall much more antagonistic than treocentral.

As a practical matter, the search engine isn't very good and the recent upgrade of the forum didn't make it easier. It took me a few weeks to think of googling with the site:xda-developers.com, identifying the appropriate thread and then searching for that specific threads. Otherwise, one gets too much. Yes, we all find it annoying when someone starts a new thread that has already been answered fifty times, but on the other hand, there are pretty many 20+ page threads. It might be helpful to suggest to someone what they should have searched for, and try the search to see if it works. Just today I was trying to find the registry tweak that would eliminate the roaming indicator, but I couldn't remember what the thing did, so it took forever to find the registry tweak, and this for something I knew I had read on the board at some point in the past.

Here is what I think is actually better than most sites: the wiki. The wikis are uniformly high quality and some people have written fabulous how-tos.

My pet theory is that it is windows at fault. Things like activesync being so hilariously dysfunctional and the X meaning minimize on the PPC cause tempers to rise just a little too easily. Palm users are happier.

On the other hand, without XDA-developers, my MDA would have been approximately useless. The list of problems that were answered, either directly or indirectly, here is huge. Everything from ROM upgrades to TodayAgenda to 2.47 radio rom to wifi settings to wm5newmenu, I got them here. It is a wonderful resource.

[darky]

I came here from esato, former sony ericsson user ditched it with the p990

if you really want to get flamed say I didn't like the p990 on esato or god forbid the tytn is better than it (I had both got rid of the p990) :P basically compare anything or say anything is better than a S.E. phone and you'll get your diehard fanboys by the dozens.

anyways some people get flamed here beacuse they are total noobs who don't bother to read anything, I agree they shouldn't get flamed that bad but they should do a little reading, there is a wealth of information in these forums,

as for asking I try to reply to anyone who asks something I know and if anybody needs anything please feel free to pm me I will answer when I can, although posting a forum gives more views as well as future reference for future noobs :P

[PPCNUT]

I think this site provides so much useful information and it has kept many devices going when they would have gone in the bin. It has allowed a lot of older devices to still have the current operating system. I think half the time people have got home from work and are on a short fuse any way and any little thing pushes them over the edge and that is what causes the bickering. Just my thoughts on the matter.

[hanmin]

anyways some people get flamed here beacuse they are total noobs who don't bother to read anything, I agree they shouldn't get flamed that bad but they should do a little reading, there is a wealth of information in these forums,

I'm not sure if I'm the "temperamental" one here, but yes, that is a very annoying thing. They act as if the members here are google, and they just type in a search sentence "Nood here, please give me a clear, step-by-step, easy to flash my ROM", click a button, and you get the answer. Not to mentioned the lack of information they provide, which can be potentially harmful to them consider they don't even know which ROM to get. And when things go wrong, they will post a new thread with the title "Pleeeeaazzz help".

The another annoying thing is the lack of information. Some members will post problems with so little information that they delay the solution to their very own questions, and annoying for the helpers. Eg. "I downloaded the flash software and ROM, but now the phone won't start, please help". Then, you try to be helpful and suggest "Why don't you try program X?". Later, you will get the answer "Oh, I've already tried that, won't work. Any other suggestion?" .. I will be like.. why don't you said so in your first post? ggrrrr..

Anyway, now I've developed an habbit of ignoring such posts. Those (a) Step by step guide for total nood (b) Thread with Pleeazzz help title (c) Post with lack of information. This will make me.. less "temperamental", I guess.

Anyway, as for the Wiki, I still thinks there are not enough information in the Wiki, such that it makes members difficult to point noobs to simple/common tasks. And, it also makes the non-noobs (the oldies :P) going around the search function to answer something that they've forgot. So, for those who are happy to help others, please contribute yourself to the Wiki. Personally, I think it is much more influential to get one thing onto the Wiki than answering 10 PMs. And you get to point them to the Wiki if the same problem surfaced. :D

:mad: I'm temperamental beware :mad:

[HDuser]

Well I remember when I got my MDAIII back over a year ago and came across this site thanks to google. So like a noob that I was and in many areas still our I posted one of those "how do I upgrade my german MDAIII to English.

Well I can tell you what has changed over the last year. Back then I got NO ANSWER, no falming, no use search, no use wiki.

So over time this site has changed and now at least you can get a reply even if this is thought by many as beeing flamed at.

Over time I learnt 2 things, one to read and one to use search. The reading I have kept the Search well that is a Pain in the ass. In the blue angel section (upgrade) do a search for "new rom" and you get Zero, its a bug we are working on it but it still sucks. Now in the same BA Upgrade section do a search for Threads by "MDAIIIUser". Here you get "New Rom" "new rom:" "New rom!" and the like.

Myself I have stoped the use search as I cant use it myself in the form that I want. Sad but true.

So what is the solutiom, for me it was then wiki, sure I had to post on how to edit it but with time I could even work it out. So from there I found out how to upgrade and posted it on wiki, found roms and posted them, found an unlocker, cabs and a bunch of stuff that I thought was cool of intrest and useful. So I posted it in wiki, edited it when new roms came out, ect bla bal.

Well Time moved on and I got bored after the 3 WM5 rom and well nothing else happens in the BA section the device is dead only sold by a few and thus.... I left it.

Now there is lots of grest info here, lots of great people that have found out lots of cool tricks. Its what makes this site, not the how do I upgrade or should I perform a restore after a rom upgrade. However noobs, newbies what ever we might like to discredit them as have a right to be here, I riight to the information and a right to some constructive help.

What we should all do is keep wiki upto date which is a lot easiser for a new member as he is driven by the quest of knowlege than an old member that does nto realy care in which direction his rom goes to as there is nothing new.

So I am not going to search the wiki pages for who finds this sites attitude bad but himslef has failed to update wiki, nor try to work out which users are helpful or flame.

All I am trying to say and now we get to the short version, is be nice, remember that you to were lost on this site and Please update wiki.

Oh yes, you will find a posts from me that just read "moved to XX (BA, Universal, hermes) but you will also see my signature which should point some people in the correct direction. Could I have answered all of there questions, yes sometims, sometimes not. So why don't I? well that due to the fact that some of us try to keep the site clean.

[Lvballer06]

personally i feel the same way as the orginal poster...but i do see where some of yall are coming from with n00bs askin the same ? thats been answered before. i currently run a forum and have that problem sometimes. im no complete n00b just a novice with all this hackin/developin and i noticed i postd some ?s months ago with no responses at all and yes i searched for the answer and vj u had even posted in that thread :) but i never got a response. i didnt get mad....i pmd someone who helped me out the best he could since he was as new as me. i have found pm to be the best method of recieving help on this board....even tho at times "anal retentive" members dont even respond to say anything....no "f off" no "yea sure do this..." no "try looking here" just no response at all leaving n00bs to think i better not post if i dont know fully what im talking about.....i personally think the community would be better if everyone treated everyone as they would like to have been treated wheb they were n00bs. we all were at one point and time......shezzzzz......dont u guys remember? well all this is imho.
~mike

[faria]

this does not apply to newbie's only.
i have asked about five times for help in here, responses 2
so i have been forced to read ,sometimes i find the answer some times
not.
pm several user for help. reply; 1
i receive several pms asking for help every week, i try to help ,but some people never give up. suddenly u become their personal google.
i got a guy now asking to write a a full tutorial in how to cook a rom. yea right!!
like an don’t have anything to do.
so I email him and said I was very busy at the moment, I would try to help when I had time.
following day got word from him. have you got time yet? !!!! now I get an email from him everyday. he says hi is in a hurry!!!!

[HDuser]

faria

Love your newbie read this!

[darky]

I email him and said I was very busy at the moment, I would try to help when I had time.
following day got word from him. have you got time yet? !!!! now I get an email from him everyday. he says hi is in a hurry!!!!

rofl :P :P :P :P

[shogunmark]

here is a good example of why people get temperamental
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1038017&posted=1#post1038017

[PPCNUT]

Good example.

[faria]

faria

Love your newbie read this!
the thing is ...some people wants a step by step tutorial for their personal needs with 32 bit pictures nice bold letters and lovely shiny arrows, even then some will have questions. that would be nice.
some people just want a shortcut to accomplish their needs .well. most times you have to start from the beginning.
I considered myself good helper around, I try to answer all the post that I know the answer to. I do not claim to be an expert, ho no. ask me anything about any other device than the HTC WIZARD AND BLUEANGEL,and I drawn a blank. this does not mean that I'm an expert on this devices either.
I have also published 2 tutorials in this site.
I have updated wiki once.
to resume, this is the kind of tutorial I want;
in my next life[if there is one]at birth, I want a tutorial to be implanted in my brain describing in how to achieved the best thing in live with the little as possible effort ,and off course ,the address to this great web site.:D :D

[shogunmark]

wait... here is a better example than my last one...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1038036&posted=1#post1038036

[PPCNUT]

They should do a search and look through the Wiki before they ask a question.

[shogunmark]

thats a brilliant idea... i think they should incorporate a function in the boards that anyone who has less than 10 posts should get redirected to the wiki first then grey out the "Submit New Thread" button for 10 minutes then let them post their message

[PPCNUT]

That is a great idea!! What is the best way to implement it? I will be more than happy to help in whatever way I can.

[levenum]

I don't see what this whole fuss is about...

You can never satisfy everybody. Some people will be thankful if someone just points them in the right direction by giving them a link or an app name to search for, others will be insulted if you don't come to their house and install the app for them.
As for getting no replies, personally I would prefer that, to "f*** off" or similar and I think many others would too. Why would not getting a reply be insulting? After all this forum (just like most others) is attended by people who do this at their own time of their own free will and have limited knowledge (granted when it comes to people like buzz_lightyear the sky is the limit) but still this is not a professional help desk so it is always possible that no one knows the answer.

Also some people may find it more insulting to be called n00b than to be told to search (not a personal example).

Any way, I have to say that of the several boards on PPCs I visit this one is by far the most professional, tolerant and polite one. If there are better ones out there (there is always a greener grass somewhere) that's fantastic, but it doesn't make this forum any less great.

[bilbo_28]

I think one of the problems with the search is what people search for.

Putting a common word in the search will bring up lots of replies. People should narrow down the search criteria and the results will reduce increasing the chance to get a thread that will answer the question.

[cts15]

This forum is helpful and nice. But it's not the top yet. I own an atom and the guy on that board is pretty inconsiderate, even though he has many answers I think he can phrase it a bit better sometimes. But I think if you want to see a bad forum you should go see gamefaqs.com, it's amazing how terrible it is there even when curses are censored.

[Chatty]

This forum could be much better if people were to contribute to the Wiki and then ask a moderator to delete their thread - all this after the usual way: ask question x for the y-th time, get the right answer after a few calling names and then contribute! But moderators are sometimes not willing to help (have seen lots of: please delete this thread).

[hanmin]

I don't get it, how does a mod can help? by deleting thread?

[Elwyn M3100]

There seems to be a lot of bickering, pointless debate, insults and flaming going on here.

I think it is because a lot of people go out and get their devices, then discover a whole world out there they didn't know about. Because they can get no help off the service provider or have read the manual they go out onto the web and instantly get innundated with spam and false help, or just more people asking the same questions.

By the time they stumble into XDA Developers they have lost a lot of patience or don't even think this is the place for them.

Then there is the whole communications issue as well as their point of view for "how to get software". Slowly people are educated into their requested behaviour, guidelines and above all patience ;)

Once that has been managed hopefully they remember it to take to the next forum.

Another problem I've seen as well is people "expect" a certain level of response, and when they don't get a reply with, er, um, 10 minutes then they either get angry/abusive/annoyed/*negative* or they just don't return.

Because by default response email is switched off people just don't know there has been a reply to their original question because they have no link to it and a day later it is already behind, in some cases, pages and pages...

Ok, rant over ;)

Back to playing with databases :D

[Elwyn M3100]

I don't get it, how does a mod can help? by deleting thread?

Lock threads with a warning comment. If the original message has been left with a reason at the end it should make sense.

Of course, the mod could edit the post, star (***) out the offending word(s) and leave a suitable comment at the bottom.

A lot of the forums I am on have "Swear" filters on and their post gets (I think automagically) flagged for a mod's attention.

[TheBrit]

Lock threads with a warning comment. If the original message has been left with a reason at the end it should make sense.

Of course, the mod could edit the post, star (***) out the offending word(s) and leave a suitable comment at the bottom.

A lot of the forums I am on have "Swear" filters on and their post gets (I think automagically) flagged for a mod's attention.
One forum I was a member of had a swear filter and would display Scunthorpe as S****horpe. We had a real laugh about it at the time. :D

[vijay555]

Scunt .... lol..

If anyone's got any worries, you can report a post using a button next to the posts. The mods are normally then quite good at jumping into action.

http://www.midlandmemorabilia.co.uk/IMAGES/a%20team%20van%2010.5%20cm.JPG

V

[Elwyn M3100]

Exceptions can be made you know ;)

[aquasesh]

Well...i wanna share my 10 cents.

I agree that on some occasion people go a little overboard here. But compared to most other forums with such a big community, it is very civilized here. I feel very comfortable and i think that is most important in a support forum.
I know of people on other forums who refrain from posting, simply because they feel intimidated by responses that insult them.

Maybe its the products we are discussing here, initially developed for the
more mature consumer and business use (not exclusivley though).

I used to work in IT Customer Service. And if you think people here or in any other forum are rude. Then you couldnt do the job i did. Where people insult your competence and person at least every other day. Face to face.

If you want to see some RUDE brain acrobats, read shoutwire.com

:)

PS. I dont know everything, but i want to learn as much as i can. If i dont know it, i dont respond. If i know, i try to help. If i make a mistake, or say something wrong, i welcome constructive critizm...if you find any spelling
mistakes, keep em. I LOVE THIS FORUM since 2004 and keep lovin it.

sorry...more than 10cents...

[TheBrit]

...compared to most other forums with such a big community, it is very civilized here.I concur. On the whole people here are patient and very helpful. :)

[remixme]

Hi there, I'm not really a prolific poster here, but I follow this forum almost religiously due to the quality and knowledge of a great majority of the posters here.

I have some points:

Sometimes I feel this forum is a victim of its own success, with new sub -categories being added all the time it is difficult I believe to moderate all of them. Thus a good forum such as this, thrives on having a number of people committed to moderating, and there I feel there needs to be one for each sub-category, admittedly I am not sure how the moderation is structured, but I agree with the poster a few posts back about the number of untended posts.

A forum such as this will always attract "newbs" thus I also agree that the forum search is often as much use as my own attempts to "use the force" ;-) to the point whereby, I use google or I manually browse if I have seen the post before.
Most "newbs" will be unlikely to do this, so will naturally post a new topic, this isn't a problem as long as these posts are moved out of the way of important stuff quickly before a flame war breaks out.

I think that's where sometimes the hostility comes from, frustration between the people with a lack of knowledge seeking to find some, and people with a fair amount of knowledge wanting to keep discussions "stupid/simple question" free.

Just my opinion.

[Kazna]

Wow. Being new here (read for 2 weeks) and new to such depth in Smart Phones/Pocket PC's in general, though I was a regular user first starting on using altnet, usenets and gopher long back (so I know net qualities); I won't post any queries I may have missed somewhere etc, but after trying hard to find a solution myself. Especially seen as someone can have a wild rant at me and then make it legitimate by grouping me with posters that deserve it. I'm actually not afraid of it at all, but can;t be bothered with it and aware of it happening. Obviously even if I did ask a qs I wouldn't make useless posts like many users do and would try describing all I know, and I do agree that wrong replies as well as wrong questions are both available all over here.

vijay555, hanmin and shogunmark I haven't seen out of reason yet, nor seeming as ranters. I've thought they do pretty well actually for free and giving links or advising to search is also help not an attack.

I have seen ridiculopus posters, both here and everywhere on the net. Usually under 20's who can't even make a sentence or describe a problem with "U r n0t INsAn3" text speech which no one wants to hear nor see. I think they should be given an email at membership directing them to the Wiki, stating "please post if you are unsure or still don't understand an issue, after thorough searching & reading of our Wiki". Everything else such a descriptive thread title, has already been mentioned.

Unlike computers phones are less ventured into at this level and so you'd expect it to be alien to majorities.. so I'd ask for those in the "know" to bear patience on that as is done with PC's.

I'm only here to listen, read and learn the phone geekiness :D No time for other childishness or nancy acts but to be decent and human.

Great site BTW, probably the best I've seen on these issues. :)

Thanks.

[mestrini]

I moderated two mobile forums (i'm still mod but not visiting anymore...) and i must say that one gets REALLY tired of getting same questions day after day when all has been answered beyond the point of any doubt.
I may be curious by nature or may have started this 'mobile biz' a bit 'later' (after 27) but i always felt like it should be better to read what had been treated before instead of asking right away. Maybe i really wanted more than a quick unlocking solution, sort of a cool hobby, and because of that my 'begginer's attitude' might have been differerent from many.

So i think it's also understandable the moderators' 'not so kind' attitudes towards what they feel it's an unjustifiable ocupation of server space and database (less accurate search results). It's like a fly buzzing around a person's head; after a while one feels like getting a rifle to shoot the S****thorpe :D

I guess this web-generation 'one-time posters' are so used to get quick and free answers for so many subjects that they don't even reflect upon their attitudes as newcomers.

We musn't forget that mods are non-payed 'employees' of this community with different backgrounds and habilities and their responses aren't exactly a reflection of a professional selection where all play the same tune.
For me, a good (maybe utopic) solution would be to delete a many-times-answered thread and send an email with the link to the wiki or the adequate thread with the desired answer.

that's all...

[AlanJC]

I'm hostile to people too lazy to help themselves :D

If someone has taken the time to try, and they have failed, then I will help, if they are too lazy to even read up on their issue, and ask the same question someone else has asked several times on the same page, then they will get sarcasm, abuse, and maybe a hint of help ;)

Give a man a link, and he will solve his problem that day.

Teach a man to find links, and he will solve his own problems for life.

[vijay555]

Lol, I just had reason to use this due to a noob serial triple cross poster:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/thumb/a/ac/Wario.jpg/180px-Wario.jpg

Temperamental, moi?

V