Better use of newsgroups

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

Overall, I find that the forum allows you to use the information that other
members provided as if it was a giant database. Heck...makes is pretty darn neat
& quick to search through a pile of info...and if I have a given
question/problem...there is a pretty good chance someone else might have faced
the same before.

The problem with the "giant database" idea is that there's usually no
way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Usenet, for example, is (still)
plagued by people who hide behind pseudonyms in order to deliberately
post rubbish. And when that doesn't happen, one can often find onesself
in the situation of receiving answers from people who often don't know
anything more than one does onesself.

Don't mistake this as singling out Usenet specifically. This is a
general problem for all kinds of Internet discussion and Q&A forums.
And it is even true for the Q&A sites that use voting mechanisms of some
sort for supposedly sorting the wheat from the chaff. Consider this
Yahoo! Answers Q&A, where *every single answer is wrong*, each in
different ways:

http://answers.yahoo.com./question/index?qid=20070330220834AAlcREA

Even the answer that looks, on first blush, to be free from the bizarre
misconceptions in the other answers, starts off, if one reads carefully,
by telling the questioner that the other answers are still right.

"Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public
debate." -- Mark Crispin

[Peter Flass]

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard

Overall, I find that the forum allows you to use the information that other
members provided as if it was a giant database. Heck...makes is pretty darn neat
& quick to search through a pile of info...and if I have a given
question/problem...there is a pretty good chance someone else might have faced
the same before.

The problem with the "giant database" idea is that there's usually no
way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Usenet, for example, is (still)
plagued by people who hide behind pseudonyms in order to deliberately
post rubbish. And when that doesn't happen, one can often find onesself
in the situation of receiving answers from people who often don't know
anything more than one does onesself.
Don't mistake this as singling out Usenet specifically. This is a
general problem for all kinds of Internet discussion and Q&A forums.

At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I suggested
that posters at least indicate what release of software their answer
applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong answers, but would
at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

[Dave Garland]

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I suggested
that posters at least indicate what release of software their answer
applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong answers, but
would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?

Dave

[Peter Flass]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I suggested
that posters at least indicate what release of software their answer
applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong answers, but
would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?
Dave

Nope.

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I
suggested that posters at least indicate what release of software
their answer applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong
answers, but would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?

Nope.

The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites. One
of the odder design choices that the people who set up the site made is
that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which most readers
will interpret ("But that's what a big green tick means!") as showing
the right answer, is controlled by the person who asked the question,
and so who (almost by definition) doesn't know what the right answer is.

[Rod Speed]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I
suggested that posters at least indicate what release of software
their answer applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong
answers, but would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?

Nope.

The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites. One of the odder design choices that the people who
set up the site made is that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which most readers will interpret ("But
that's what a big green tick means!") as showing the right answer, is controlled by the person who asked the question,
and so who (almost by definition) doesn't know what the right answer is.

Thats not right with a technical question where the person who asked
the question can say which of the answers made the system work
again or fixed the problem that the question was about etc.

Thats a significant improvement over usenet where you often never see
the OP actually saying what fixed the problem that was asked about.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I
suggested that posters at least indicate what release of software
their answer applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong
answers, but would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?

Nope.

The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites. One of
the odder design choices that the people who set up the site made is
that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which most readers
will interpret ("But that's what a big green tick means!") as showing
the right answer, is controlled by the person who asked the question,
and so who (almost by definition) doesn't know what the right answer is.

Presumable it means "that's the solution that fixed my problem." Not
too bad a choice.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Peter Flass
At one point on a forum a bit more technical than this one I
suggested that posters at least indicate what release of software
their answer applied to. This wouldn't eliminate the plain wrong
answers, but would at least help eliminate the ones long obsolete.

Did anyone do it?

Nope.

The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites. One of
the odder design choices that the people who set up the site made is
that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which most readers
will interpret ("But that's what a big green tick means!") as showing
the right answer, is controlled by the person who asked the question,
and so who (almost by definition) doesn't know what the right answer is.

Presumable it means "that's the solution that fixed my problem." Not too
bad a choice.

Gee, I sure wish I could type ten words without getting in a typo.
Spellcheck is good, but skips over a lot of bad spells.

[Jonathan de Boyne Pollard]

The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites. One of
the odder design choices that the people who set up the site made is
that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which most readers
will interpret ("But that's what a big green tick means!") as showing
the right answer, is controlled by the person who asked the question,
and so who (almost by definition) doesn't know what the right answer is.

Presumable it means "that's the solution that fixed my problem." Not too
bad a choice.

... if they were help desks. But they explicitly are not helpdesks.
It's in the site FAQs that questions must have general applicability;
and there's even a mechanism for closing questions that apply to just
one person's or a very few persons' situations.

[Rod Speed]

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
The various StackExchange WWW sites are another set of Q&A sites.
One of the odder design choices that the people who set up the site
made is that the placement of the big green tick on the page, which
most readers will interpret ("But that's what a big green tick
means!") as showing the right answer, is controlled by the person
who asked the question, and so who (almost by definition) doesn't
know what the right answer is.

Presumable it means "that's the solution that fixed my problem." Not too bad a choice.

... if they were help desks. But they explicitly are not helpdesks.

Plenty of the questions do in fact fit that scenario anyway.

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
It's in the site FAQs that questions must have general applicability;

Doesnt mean that that that isnt true of the ones that are.

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
and there's even a mechanism for closing questions that apply to just one person's or a very few persons' situations.

There are still going to be plenty where the original questioner
is going to be able to say which answer was the most useful
when the original question does apply to a lot more than just him.

[Fritz Wuehler]

when that doesn't happen, one can often find onesself in the situation of
receiving answers from people who often don't know anything more than one
does onesself.

You're living proof of that on both ends.

Do us all a favor and stop posting.

[Rod Speed]

Overall, I find that the forum allows you to use the information
that other members provided as if it was a giant database.
Heck...makes is pretty darn neat & quick to search through a pile
of info...and if I have a given question/problem...there is a pretty
good chance someone else might have faced the same before.

The problem with the "giant database" idea is that there's usually no way to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Thats not right, its usually prefty obvious if someone has a cause
for a particular error message etc and quite a bit of the time
someone does say that a particular 'solution' didnt work for them.

Usenet, for example, is (still) plagued by people who hide behind pseudonyms

Yes.

in order to deliberately post rubbish.

There isnt all that much of that, particularly in the technical groups.

And when that doesn't happen, one can often find onesself in the situation of receiving answers from people who often
don't know anything more than one does onesself.

Yes, but with well known problems that you havent been aware of
yourself till it bit you on the bum, you usually do get the well known
fix too, particularly with usenet as opposed to forums in general.

The main problem with usenet is that hardly anyone even knows
it exists, so it isnt much use when say deciding which particularly
monitor to buy etc.

Don't mistake this as singling out Usenet specifically. This is a
general problem for all kinds of Internet discussion and Q&A forums.

In fact its much worse with the non usenet forums. There are clearly many
more that dont have a clue and are clearly just doing the usual 'try this'
type stuff in response to the quesiton. Those are usually obvious tho.

And it is even true for the Q&A sites that use voting mechanisms of some sort for supposedly sorting the wheat from
http://answers.yahoo.com./question/index?qid=20070330220834AAlcREA

Sure, but that isnt that common.

And they arent all wrong if you just want to format something.

Even the answer that looks, on first blush, to be free from the bizarre misconceptions in the other answers, starts
off, if one reads carefully, by telling the questioner that the other answers are still right.

He does say that most of the answers about .com arent relevant to the
question and he is right, tho doesnt say that as clearly as he could have.

[Fritz Wuehler]

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
The problem with the "giant database" idea is that there's usually no
way to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Lying jerkoff. I can easily killfile you by newsgroup or posting host or
message ID or globally.

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
Usenet, for example, is (still) plagued by people who hide behind
pseudonyms in order to deliberately post rubbish.

What is the difference between them and you and how do we know your name
isn't also a pseudonym?

Post by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
And when that doesn't happen, one can often find onesself
in the situation of receiving answers from people who often don't know
anything more than one does onesself.

That's life, you dumb motherfucker.