How To Better Serve New Members and the LQ Community?

I like some of the ideas. OK pretty much all of them.

For instance canned responses, not universally, but my own canned responses. I'd like to be able to recall good advice, in fact somewhat complex advice, to be able to re-offer it. I actually started a thread long ago about this discussing how each of us recalls their former advice when they feel they're going to repeat stuff they've said in the past. It'd be nice to manage that. What capability was this vbulletin that moderators use? That available to me? Any reference?

I do like the link you mentioned in post #1 Jeremy. I'll need to remember that one more often.

And when you people are talking about BOTS, you really mean automated software? Isn't one way to deal with that the uh ... type in a set of letters/numbers which appear in a visual validation field. I forget the term, ... the thingy they use to make sure you're a human. And instead of making that apply to everyone, make it apply to newbies. That way automated flood posting can't get in. I however saw that about a year ago with all those astrological and religious things, but it's stopped. Maybe I'm just missing alot of that, but I do look at zero reply, new posts, and my collective set of forums on a regular basis except on vacations.

You know what I think might be a great idea? Flagging threads to someone. I know that's like projecting, but ... honestly I'd miss this thread unless it was cross referenced. I thus far have missed it, if you call 5 days "missing", but there you go. I guess it was flagged, just by way of being referenced in another thread. And maybe I'm being stupid. Maybe I can subscribe to all messages from a particular forum if I want, or see a digest. I haven't played much beyond the defaults, answer a thread - you're now subscribed to it. And general viewing of threads.

Originally Posted by rtmistler I like some of the ideas. OK pretty much all of them. For instance canned responses, not universally, but my own canned responses. I'd like to be able to recall good advice, in fact somewhat complex advice, to be able to re-offer it. I actually started a thread long ago about this discussing how each of us recalls their former advice when they feel they're going to repeat stuff they've said in the past. It'd be nice to manage that. What capability was this vbulletin that moderators use? That available to me? Any reference?

It's custom to LQ and at this time is only available to mods. It's possible we'll roll some form of it out to some members in the future, but we have no specific plans at this time.

Originally Posted by rtmistler And when you people are talking about BOTS, you really mean automated software? Isn't one way to deal with that the uh ... type in a set of letters/numbers which appear in a visual validation field. I forget the term, ... the thingy they use to make sure you're a human. And instead of making that apply to everyone, make it apply to newbies. That way automated flood posting can't get in. I however saw that about a year ago with all those astrological and religious things, but it's stopped. Maybe I'm just missing alot of that, but I do look at zero reply, new posts, and my collective set of forums on a regular basis except on vacations.

Bots are *substantially* more sophisticated than I think many people realize. We use CAPTCHA's, custom heuristics and multiple dedicated solutions and some bots still get through. What I'd call hybrid manual/automated spam is also on the rise.

Originally Posted by rtmistler You know what I think might be a great idea? Flagging threads to someone. I know that's like projecting, but ... honestly I'd miss this thread unless it was cross referenced. I thus far have missed it, if you call 5 days "missing", but there you go. I guess it was flagged, just by way of being referenced in another thread. And maybe I'm being stupid. Maybe I can subscribe to all messages from a particular forum if I want, or see a digest. I haven't played much beyond the defaults, answer a thread - you're now subscribed to it. And general viewing of threads.

You can already subscribe to a forum in real-time or in digest form.

--jeremy

Originally Posted by goumba I don't know if this is feasible, but a thought: Just as we have a feedback system, how about something similar for new posters/threads. A link in the corner of the first post of a thread "Does this require follow-up?". Anyone who feels the OP didn't describe their situation well enough can click it, and say if the OP does not follow up in a reasonable amount of time (determined by admin of course, but let's use 72 hours as an example), the thread is closed. Of course the OP may post again, the same thing. Repeated offenses leading to closed threads could lead to moderation or account suspension, whatever. If the OP posts threads that constantly need follow-up due to lack of information, maybe some other action.

This is a pretty terrible idea, all this will accomplish is making LQ like the arch forums where most potentially helpful threads play out like this:

"Hi, I have a question..."
"Read the damn documentation!" *dead link*
*lock thread*

Sure, maybe the op's question was lacking, but this doesn't help anyone that might come later hoping to learn the answer without asking the same old question again. The solution is that if someone is not willing or able of spending the time to help less experienced users either understand their issues or to ask in a way that helps others provide helpful advice is to not post in such threads.

In addition to any canned response, I think it would be beneficial to OP if we could offer some incentive if he writes a proper question or after receiving canned response edits his post to contain required information.

Incentive I am talking about can be in the form of a thumbs up button (for others to click) which says "Well formed question".

Let it be shown on his statistics next to his post as:

"Well formed questions asked: 6"

I think this way the newbie will get encouraged to write proper questions.

Originally Posted by TheIndependentAquarius In addition to any canned response, I think it would be beneficial to OP if we could offer some incentive if he writes a proper question or after receiving canned response edits his post to contain required information. Incentive I am talking about can be in the form of a thumbs up button (for others to click) which says "Well formed question". Let it be shown on his statistics next to his post as: "Well formed questions asked: 6" I think this way the newbie will get encouraged to write proper questions.

I like this idea.

Could also add, for every 5 questions asked well, one rep point is given?

Originally Posted by orbea This is a pretty terrible idea, all this will accomplish is making LQ like the arch forums where most potentially helpful threads play out like this: "Hi, I have a question..." "Read the damn documentation!" *dead link* *lock thread* Sure, maybe the op's question was lacking, but this doesn't help anyone that might come later hoping to learn the answer without asking the same old question again. The solution is that if someone is not willing or able of spending the time to help less experienced users either understand their issues or to ask in a way that helps others provide helpful advice is to not post in such threads.

I think you misunderstood the intent. As I stated, that was to address the posts where someone posts a question with with no additional information provided. Something like "Why does my mail server not work??? I want answer soon!" with no additional information. Not only that, but responders ask for additional information and none is ever given. That kind of post helps no one, and no one can help that poster.

I still feel that to reduce frustration caused from drive-by questioners who will never follow-up on their threads, that manual moderation of any newbie class "thread question start" is the best solution.

I do realize this sounds like an increase in the workload for those who are moderators. The way I see it, this is technically part of their job, now. They do have the responsibility to monitor what is posted and then intervene. Therefore they could instead monitor threads started by newbies and then approve for posting, or request follow-up prior to involving the entire forum.

Not all forums, given that some are non-technical.

What I wonder is whether or not moderators have a high load. I don't know if any given moderator has two or more forums under their responsibility, forums which are all high traffic. For instance someone may moderate forums which are rarely active and then have just one high volume forum. Either case, if one or more moderators are already overloaded, then some other solution to increase that expertise would also need to be considered. Further, they should have a backup person for times when they are not available.

Originally Posted by goumba I think you misunderstood the intent. As I stated, that was to address the posts where someone posts a question with with no additional information provided. Something like "Why does my mail server not work??? I want answer soon!" with no additional information. Not only that, but responders ask for additional information and none is ever given. That kind of post helps no one, and no one can help that poster.

Yes they can... Help them understand that the only way someone can help them is if they provide more details. Maybe even point them into the right direction of what commands could provide more details. Of course you can just ignore such threads and leave them for someone else to deal with, if no one is willing to help then the thread will quickly vanish into the 2nd page. If you want to improve the quality of the questions, then the only way is to educate those asking the questions enough so that they can ask better questions. Locking threads will teach no one and will only intimidate new users into not asking questions.

On another note, I would request that you not assume someone simply misunderstands your terrible ideas and that otherwise they are good ideas.

maybe as a practical example we can take this recent example and try to apply some of the methods mentioned above and see how successful they are at closing the gap ?:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...df-4175548558/

Originally Posted by schneidz maybe as a practical example we can take this recent example and try to apply some of the methods mentioned above and see how successful they are at closing the gap ?: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...df-4175548558/

IMHO, this thread should be locked and closed with a canned warning response to explain that this is not the way to post on a forum. No one in their right mind would bother trying to answer such a vague, general, information-lacking question. It will take 20 questions from responders just to find out what this person is talking about. Then comes the task of actually trying to help this person with a response that will actually address their issue.

This came in today. It struck me as an excellent example of the kind of post we're talking about.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...me-4175548494/

I wonder if such threads deserve any response. There is a difference between questions that do not have enough information and ... well, that. To be honest, I think trying to help such a person would probably be an exercise in futility. If the person believes "Help me! Download" contains sufficient information to get an answer to whatever he/she wants, it will probably require at least half-a-dozen questions directed to the OP before knowing what it is the person wants to download. Then how many more to answer whatever the question is?

I also think that the chance of that account being a (misconfigured) bot is at least 50 percent (which is not high enough to recommend treating it like one).

Originally Posted by Randicus Draco Albus I wonder if such threads deserve any response.

I believe all threads deserve a response. What the quality canned response gets us is a consistent and well worded response that requires nearly no effort on an incremental basis. If the member is not willing to help the community help them, the FAQ entry spells out the consequence fairly clearly.

--jeremy

What do members think is missing from the current FAQ entry that would help in the situations being discussed in this thread. Once the entry is improved, we can test with a single initial canned response. From there we can see what works and what doesn't, tweak the entry and response and possibly come up with additional responses tailored to specific issues. Initially I'm thinking something along the lines of the following, but I'm very open to feedback.

Welcome to LQ! We'd very much like to help, but your current thread makes that difficult. Please visit http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...#faq_lqwelcome for some additional information on how you can help us help you. If you have any questions or need additional clarification, just let us know.

--jeremy