i frequent quite a few forums, and try to help people about things i know. i know many of you do too, and thanks for all the help! what kills me is someone titling a post "help!"..... and thats it. or similarly "how can i fix this?".... i've stopped even opening these posts. they usually contain some stupid question thats been answered 3 trillion times before in the same forum, like "how do i install my brand new 5 1/4" floppy drive that i found in the dumpster behind the thrift shop?", or "i cant play the gamecube game i burned to dvd on my ps2!" or something equally ignorant. in a perfect world, people would be able to describe their problem in 4 or 5 words, so as to inform readers what the prob is, therefore increasing the chance that someone who actually know wtf they're talking about might answer. such as "winmedia player 10 will not play MPEG4 files?" or "win98 defrag countinous restarts. any help?" or "if i sit too long, my butt itches! need help please!" at least then i know if i can help, or if i'm having the same problem, or if i'm just interested enough to read to find out what caused it (for above questions, 1: get a different player or find the codec; 2: turn off all programs you not using even zonealarm, as it writes to disc every 30 seconds: and 3: go change your panties, you disgusting oaf.) just my opinion
@chromesn I try to put myself in the person asking the question's shoes. It is frustrating to see those subject headings as you said, but they are probably the people who need our help the most. Yes, most of the times a simple search or reading of the forum rules would stop this "in a perfect world". I try to coax them in to giving specifics so i can figure out what they are really having a problem with. It takes more time, and it can be very frustrating when someone wants you to come up with the answer by supplying no facts. I am learning to get the poster to supply the facts quickly, before it becomes a big guessing game. But these people really could use our help most of the time. Some of them may be lazy, we don't know for sure. The best way is to help the ones you can. If their tone or attitude gets to you, you can always leave the thread, or post a quick, im outta here statement. Answering ppls questions is strictly voluntary. We get no pay, and sometimes an occasional "thank you" from the help needed poster. I like to help people fix their problem if i can. I hope i learn things along the way in the process. Just my 2 cents also.
