How to reply to a thread on this forum

You seem to seek out opportunities to "point things out" to people. This appears to be your self-appointed role on this forum.

Folks come here for help, not hugs. I did not say you should take their side or coddle them. I simply said you should be helpful if possible. If not, try to restrain from posting unless your ego absolutely needs feeding.

I don't feel the need to hug. But I also don't feel the need to slap. No matter how ignorant of the TOS or the legality of landbots a person is, they still deserve respect.

3 and 1/2 hours spent debating one question about prefab houses and how best to answer it.

I gotta stand with Ray on this one. The forum is a designated place to ask questions and get answers. I'll admit to the occasional tersely-worded (even rude) answer, but I can't seriously claim my behavior is justified when I do that.

Rather than looking at this in sandwich metaphors, how about a similar case in real life. I am a librarian in RL, and the primary purpose of my job is to help people find information. I am constantly asked questions that people could have easily answered themselves using the tools they KNOW are available to them... for example, "Do we have this book?" Now I could just sneer and smugly ask if they've checked the library catalog, but instead I say "I don't know, let's take a look at the catalog." I have them come watch me as I do it, so that I am both giving them the answer AND helping them learn how to find things on their own in the future.

Relating this example back to this forum, I would suggest the best way to deal with repetitive questions would be:
(1) Be kind and helpful, not belittling.
(2) Provide the answer briefly.
(3) Link to other relevant threads for further information and discussion.
(4) If you located other information through searching, tell how you did that.

Returning to the library example, it is said the most commonly asked question in public libraries is "Where is the restroom?" The fact is that at some point, we ALL ask questions that could have been easily answered if we had just taken the time to look for ourselves.

So I for one am going to take Ray's suggestion to heart, and make an effort to be helpful or just stay out of it.

Don't forget to include the "bots buying lands from under ur feet" thread. That one takes us up to 12 hours or more.

Humans want to communicate with other humans and learn from them. It's only natural. No one likes to search old forum threads, FAQs or knowledge bases. That's why LL's customer service feels a bit "inhuman" too.

Besides, it takes as much time to answer a question as it takes to type "search the forum, that has already been answered before (I remember the answer but won't tell it)". As for LL's customer service, it wouldn't be any more work to personally answer a question than to search for the right link in the knowledge base and paste it into an answer (the link, not even a copy of the text).

Really? Great... here's an example:
/327/b3/192955/1.html#post1562483

The OP in that particular thread has other options to pay their account but declines to use them. By pointing out the existance of other options one becomes a "Linden apologist." [Intent of thread: Complain that the Lindens only accept grown-up money and won't accept payment using bits of string and twigs]

Here's another example:
/327/46/192881/1.html

Some posters in that thread feel the OP isn't getting enough hugs and understanding for their friend's rather silly mistake which botched a land transaction.
[Intent of thread: Single out another resident for retribution due to friend's poor mouse skills]

The kitchen thread? The OP failed to clarify they had already conducted a search in their original question.

Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

So people are defending and sending kindness to folks in other threads? Shame on them.

In my book, you are the world's foremost expert in adding nauseum. Keep up the good work.

I dont think you get it and are a lost cause.

Methinks it is time to stop feeding the troll.

*nods* This is what I'm thinking too. There are times when one must stop pounding one's head into walls.. the pain is bad enough without self-inflicted stupidity.

No matter how many hugs they get it doesn't pay their account fees or get their land back. There is no SympatheX in which people can take the warm fuzzies they get in forum threads and convert them into solutions for their problems nor push them back through fourth-dimensional space to prevent the problem from happening.

Note that your original post does not ask a question but is instead directs us to follow some code of niceness which isn't covered under the Terms of Service. Your thread was in response to something I said in a different thread. This is known as "trollcatching."

Having lured me to this thread one can't complain that I'm here.

and its stepchile..vchat

I only hope I never ever meet someone as bitter as that person.
Pity him/her
Something must be VERY wrong in his/her RL to react this way to a simple question.
Any psychologist around?

I am disqusted by the rudeness that goes on and have really thought about this many times and wanted to respond before. I have posted about people being disabled and in need of extra help sometimes and that comes in the form of asking questions that might seem dumb to ask.

Example is when someone is on a high level Oxygen for along time it does harm the brain and the functions. It dulls the receptors so that what might have been an easy thing to do before now is extremely hard as in the ability to comprehend things.

Also maybe the disablities are in other areas and since no one can actually see or know unless told, you have no idea why the person is asking the question. To jump to the assumtion that everyone asking a question that you find is stupid or that lacked sufficent searching lazy is wrong. You have no way of knowing what that person has or has not done.

Maybe the ones with the venomous answers are themselves severally disabled and lashing out at others and thier incapablities? I am not sure but I for one am apart of a the extremely huge group of disabled people in SL and even though we are disabled we do not expect a pity party just some reasonable help from fellow residents sometimes like anyone else. After all we are all human or so I thought.

I am not suggesting that everyone who asks a question is disabled or maybe not taking the easy way, not searching on thier own for answers. It takes as much energy to just give a simple answer (maybe even less) then to be snide and nasty to people for asking a question. Or since it is so stupid and lazy of the person for asking maybe just don't take any time to post to the question at all.

Let us not forget that sometimes, just sometimes, the answer they searched for is not easy for them to understand. The 'official' answer might be written in an overly technical manner, or very poorly worded. Not to mention, as the knowledge base constantly reminds us, out of date.

Sometimes, they don't even have the vocabulary 'knowledge' of the 'platform' to actually understand the question they want to ask! There are a lot of terms that simply aren't self-explanatory that inhabit these worlds. I mean, it would be like a doctor boring the crap out of a graphic artist by talking in all these Latin based terms, while the graphic artist might talk in terms that relate to layout and vectors. It's pretty esoteric stuff for those who haven't been exposed to them!

I prefer the words, "There are no such things as a stupid question." No, to you it might be stupid, easily researched, but to some others, they really want to learn the answer. That's what is important and those are the ones worth answering.

As we know from previous discussion there is that balance between the SL speak that the Technicrati use and that which is used by us commoners. There is a good chance that an nswer that is available does go over someones head. So, if you find a question annoying or redundant, ignore it. Also if you are one of those "I am sick of such and such threads"., don't read them. It's not that big a deal.

Yes, agree! It is an axiom in the world of journalism (ok, serious journalism) that "The only dumb question is the one you don't ask."

RL example: Remember the famous Enron scandal? Where a gigantic corporation with enormous economic clout that had sprung from nowhere turned out to be a house of cards that collapsed at the first touch and has inspired numerous financial and legal reforms? Want to know how it was first exposed? A lowly researcher on Fortune magazine (a researcher is someone who verifies the facts stated in a proposed article and it is a very junior position) asked a very stupid question: How, exactly, does Enron make its money? Turned out, it did so by putting most of its losing trade positions in "partnerships" that were inadequately reported on its financial staements under the accounting rules then in force. The answer to the question = Armageddon for Enron.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A STUPID QUESTION, EXCEPT FOR THE QUESTION THAT IS NOT ASKED!!!!!

Can we make a thread that states that a sticky, please?

This thread was actually started in reaction to someone else's rudeness on another thread, not yours, oh center of the SLUniverse. But if you spot it, you got it, eh?

I have to agree with the Op here. If you can't say anythign nice, then don't say anything at all.

For those that find answering posts already answered is too time consuming; Hint: Don't waste your time posting either.

Save those flaming posts for the truely deserving. ie, the hypocrits that come on and begin a rabid discourse on absolutely no subject. I'm sure all those whom have been here a while can think of a few of these *Grins*

I can readily sympathise with those that grate their teeth at seeing the same annoying question over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. *smirks*

But really, just take a deep breath, a swig of pepsi (or coke, or beer, or coffee, or tea) and move to the next thread and let someone who's patiants has not reached its threadbare end post a reply instead.

Or to put it in a simple, helpful sentence, if you're stressed, go play and come back to the drama-board....err...forum later.

Have a nice day, and I like pie.
~Jessy

Pie is fattening, and it might be better if certain posters moved on to other venues permanently, but in general, agree.

right on

I ask some pretty dumb questions sometimes, because I'm in a panic and can't figure something out, and I've been here two years!

When someone asks a question I might know the answer to but I'm not interested in, I skip it.

When someone asks a question I might know the answer to and I AM interested in it, I read the thread, and provide the answer, if I know it and if someone else hasn't already provided it.

You know, it is extremely anti-intellectual to ever, EVER make fun of questions. One doesn't value learning if one does that.

In addition, it runs people off from SL.

You can also learn things you didn't know you didn't know by reading answers to supposedly "dumb" questions.

So I don't think anyone should appoint themself as Question Guard to make sure all questions reach some sort of standard. Just let people ask questions, and let others answer them, if you don't want to.

coco

That's true, I am routinely astonished by people pointing out better ways of doing things I've known how to do for years.

Hey what about us olds, can you be an a**hat to us too please?

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people are to allow their anger to rise against a fellow player. Sure, things piss me off from time to time. Everyone gets pissed off. But I have seen levels of hostility that go way beyond simply being pissed off. So people ask dumb questions. So they ask the same question a billion times. If it angers you, then your life must truly be miserable. It's not worth the stress, or frustration. Just pass up replying to the thread at all, there are much more important things in this life, first and second, to be angry about.