Hazards of Helping random people

a long long while back (sometime in late 2005) I had helped a random person in the scripter's group with a simple follower pet script. The script I gave them as an example to work off of was very rough and not intended to be used verbatim as it was missing some things like a llResetScript() when owners changed and the sensor repeat I used was very fast and overkill for a simple pet follower. This person apparently just used my script as is, and on a somewhat frequent basis I get IMs from someone whom bought a product using my example script (still tagged with me as the author) and it is not working for them.

It's gotten quite annoying lately as my creative group is starting to get itself established with marketable products and I have people IMing me about things I supposedly created which are buggy and unreliable. At the back of my mind I wonder: if my group's products ever take off, will these buggy educational codes I gave out come back to haunt our products giving them a "bad" reputation for not working? Only time will tell since the damage has been done, but It's really put a dampener on code that I've wanted to release to the public but worry that some bug that may crop up down the line will come back to haunt me.


Lesson Learned: don't help someone out by giving them a fully working script. Well, maybe not always, but it seems like the attitudes I'm seeing more and more with new-comers to the scripting group is "I can't figure this out, do it for me" which results in most of the people posting sarcastic and hostile answers even if there is a correct anwser contained in their response. Sadly more and more I'm seeing these attitudes being justified when even people being helpful and responding with code snippets that solve the problem are being told "I don't know how to use that. lol. Just do it for me."

I've never gotten around to joining any in-game scripting groups.. are they useful, or mostly a bunch of spam?

Copy and paste your code into a Notecard to give to other people, that way they have to put it into another script hat they are the creator for.

I quit a scripting group because of all the chatter and spam. I realized that whatever questions I had could be found either here or the wiki.

Rule #1 of Script Club: Don't talk about Script Club.

Seriously, though, I have a real set of rules I adhere to when helping people:

1. Never EVER "do it for them". No one ever learns how to do something well just by looking at examples. More often than not, people are being lazy and use any ruse they think they can get away with for you to do their work for them. Of course, if they pay you well (watch out for scams!), feel free (and give out only no-mod stuff unless you are paid REALLY well).
2. Point them to good reference sites early. Most questions can be answered by the various Wikis, forums, etc. Anyone saying "oh, I don't understand all that mumbo-jumbo" is being lazy. My usual reply is: "What, you're hoping to do something as technical as writing a script and English documentation is too technical for you to understand?". If they have trouble with the Wiki, they will have MUCH MUCH MORE trouble with the actual code.
3. Always try to be nice, unless they are being impertinent twits, then teach them the secret "press Alt-F4 for free Linden dollars" mode. Seriously, no one is expected to take time to help someone being a jerk who asks for help, especially when the help is volunteered or free.

Now, I sometimes break one or more of those rules, depending on circumstances, but that's on my head if it comes back to bite me later.

I disagree about not learning from examples. I've learned a lot from looking at examples on the wiki, on this forum, and (partial) scripts that ppl gave me. However, I take the time to understand and recreate it, and ofcourse test before selling.

I suggest you forward the ppl contacting you to the creator of the object. Your situation sucks, and so does the situation for ppl buying his/her products. But if you keep helping ppl to fix it, they will assume you're responsible for it.

My $0.02

Lyn

Learning from working examples can be an invaluable way to get started, and I frequently give fully-working "proof of concept" scripts to others in response to questions, but I almost always do so as no-transfer. They can feel free to copy and paste the script, in which case it will show them as the creator.

Best of luck to you, I would hate to see that a desire to help others ends up reflecting negatively on your product line.

.

Just to get on with life, I wonder if it would help to set up a tiny vendor somewhere holding working copies of that give-away script (and if necessary, any others that generate such IMs), and point to it in your Profile Picks. "No good deed goes unpunished," but maybe an explanatory notecard with the vendor would turn what could be bad PR into good.

Best of luck with the group and products.

Just out of curiosity, did you ever IM the guy and explain he needs the llResetScript in an on_rez() ?? I wouldnt worry too much about it affecting your rep, you can always explain the situation to them as you did us. Personally, I would have probably contacted the object creator, thinking he was the one who scripted it. Although, maybe people did to that, then noticed the script creator wasnt the same as the object creator..

I am on the mentor list and frequently assist learning scripters. I try to avoid coding for them in general, just guide their existing work, but occasionally I do send examples. The key thing is to deliver in parts and to work with them to ensure they understand each step you take with the script. Frequently, a single line in IM helps a new scripter a great deal. It takes more effort to work with them incrementally like this, but then you are *teaching* not just giving the working example away to be abused. If you have really taught them something then they will want their name on the script creator not yours. Examples are great, but don't just code the application for them or they will not learn anything and you'll get the result that you found.

Oh I forgot to mention, I do sometimes blow people off who are looking to make me do their work for them entirely. They are not hard to spot and will never learn to script - they don't want to - they are just looking for a freebie ride.

*edit* Then of course there are pretty adept scripters who will actually teach you something during the quest to "make something work" with your assistance. So you do get payback for your time overall *end edit*

My 2cents
/esc

You know what? Aside from the issues, it's really nice to see that you helped someone like that..

It's rare lately to see. May be just me, but I've noticed that a lot of people are rude, rather than helpful.

the creator of the object hasn't responded to any IMs from me or the people having trouble, so I'm just brushing things of as an occasional inconvience, but it's really made me bitter towards helping out people in general.

Please don't let it. Things can be stressing and frustrating... it's nice to have people who will give a gentle guiding hand. Just let it minorly alter HOW you help people, not that you actually do.

I have run into the same issue sometime in the past two yeara. After giving out a full permission vehicle to a friend, it ended up being realeased as open to the public by them. At this point, someone took the vehicle apart and used the chair as the parent prim of a vehicle they stole. Over the past year and a half, I've had questinos from people about where they can buy the vehicle that I didn't actually create. Eventually the owner of the stolen vehicle found it and left me with a nasty IM to which I responded with the happenings of the situation and I was able to work everything out with him. Still today, I receive at least 5-6 IMs a week about the vehicle, mostly from new players who have joined a certain community or another.

What I do now when helping friends or new users out is I send them a no-transfer version of the script or prim set. If they would then like to transfer it to a friend, they're more than welcome to recreate it, or in the case of a script, they can copy/paste.

I'm grateful for the example scripts I've gotten from Yadni's Junkyard boxes and other places. As a non-programmer (well maybe one course taken in the 20th century), this is the best way for me to get an idea of what is possible. Then I can go to the wiki for syntax, etc.

Perhaps I'm overlooking the obvious, but why not just give the script on a notecard? That avoids the issues of ownership coming back to bite you. Maybe that won't work for a long script, but you probably aren't going to give those away for free anyway.

I agree with the others about example scripts being very useful for seeing how things run. But the best example scripts are examples first, and scripts second. I learnt how to use llDialog effectively with a script which did nothing more than llSay the inputs.

If you say "Well, I can show you an example of how to use that operation" as opposed to "Here, have a vehicle/pet/what-have-you script", I think you will a) be less likely to have such helpfullness abused and b) teach the asker more.

Supply example scripts as no transfer so they have to cut and paste the contents into a new script.

I did my degree in C++ and Java and I still fight with scripts now and again as I am so out of practice.... but I find example scripts to be pretty helpfull but they only do half the job... after which I find that as I am going along I am learning more and more and getting used to what i am doing again .... and I got to say to anybody .. the Wiki is invaluable

Oh, I never said people don't learn from examples, I said no one ever learns *just by* examples. IE, no Wiki, references, questions, experimentation, etc. Examples HELP the learning process, but they are NOT *THE* learning process by themselves.

The reason I say that is I have had several people tell me that they learn ONLY by examples, and that every question they ask of me has to be exemplified in a fully working piece of code for them to learn anything at all. Yep. Uh huh. Sure thing, buddy.

No good turn goes unpunished

I'm just starting out with scripting, but I've found that the wiki often timeouts, probably because it's overloaded with people. Is there some offsite reference I can look at?
...I just realized this is really off topic.
*yanks steering wheel*
I agree with almost everyone else; though I am not an experienced LSL scripter(script writer? coder?), I've taught programming before, and examples alone definitely do not suffice.

For what it's worth, when I'm helping someone with a computer language (not so much LSL yet), I pretty much never give out a working example. I will give out broken partial examples, where the variable names are descriptive but not defined; and the body of loops often contains only a comment like '// do important stuff here'.

When people say they just need a tiny bit of help, but then can't be bothered to put the code they -already- have into the body of the loop I wrote; or supply a default value to a variable... then, they quickly lose my help, and I will become extremely short with them; and they are unlikely to ever get another line of code from me.

On the other hand, come back with questions that show that you're actually -trying- to put things together and learn what's going on, and I'll continue being helpful. Even if it's a really mangled attempt at merging the code together, as long as there's a sincere effort, that's what matters.

I do like the no transfer idea. Notecards occured to me right away, but no transfer seems like a nicer way to deal with it.

Still it is suprising. What is it that makes people expect to gets (little) scripts for free ? Do clothes designers ever get the question to get some shirts for nothing ?

This thread poses the perfect reply to the "SL sould Eliminate no transfer" thread, eh?

This forum has been a great help for me. I think however you don't need to be giving out complete scripts unless you simply put a disclaimer in it, such as "this is free, use it as is, and it may need some work or for educational purposes only"..

I've learned a great deal here, but I have a fairly diverse programming background so mainly some of the fucntions that are undefined on the WIKI's is what I ask about...

BB

heyas;

i wouldn't worry about it. there are many things in sl that are made by groups, or that are patched together from free scripts. it is not strange at all to tell someone that, although (part of) the item has your name on it, YOU did not create it, and YOU cannot support it.

if you're worried about your reputation as a shoddy programmer..... wellll..... you can always say you released some public code and aren't responsible for what other people did with it, or how they edited it to break it. ;)


people are always asking me for scripting help. and i ALWAYS drive them nuts by making them do it. of course, the problem with that is, it takes 20 times longer than just whipping out some code yourself. ah well.


oh, as for the question about groups.... i used to belong to a builders support and a scripters support group, but i gave both of them up. it seemed that when i went to help anyone with a 'quick question,' it turned into a half an hour or more help lesson. and then whenever i had a qusetion on how to do something, mostly all i got was.... no replies. i do like to help people, but frankly, the cost/benefit balance was just too unbalanced.
your mileage may vary, of course.