Please ask questions on the forum instead of PMs

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Tiberius

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Following discussion recently with a much respected member, I'd like to make a plea. This is mainly to newbies, but we could all take notice.

If you have a question to ask, it is almost always better to ask it on one of the forums than to PM a specific person.

1. You will get a better chance of an answer and you will get it sooner, because someone else can chip in.

2. The question and answer are then there for others to find in the future.

Nick
 
+9
EDIT:
I get my share of PMs from "never" posters....mostly looking for services that I rarely/never provide. (some I do & i respond to those.....a LOT go straight into the delete abyss) I suspect a good portion of Recumpence's clients fall into this group also. Guy's who feel they don't have anything to add, who just want to buy something.

I apears some figure to save the embarrasment of public questions, showing a little wrinkle in their knowledge base. Since I love to read, I was burried in the "search" results for weeks before my 1st post trying to learn how much I don't know :wink:
but there are a few that Obviously don't make the effort....I don't answer the super obvious questions on princial, posted or pmed.
 
Okay, I'm a bit of a PM abuser, so I'll stand up and take some blame here, but:

I have written a few posts asking questions that sat unanswered for a long time. Probably still unanswered. Every time I ask through PM I've got a clear concise answer.

Now this anecdote isn't helping your effort, so far:

I suggest a modified approach to asking questions based on my experience on this board.

Post a question on the board, wait a few days for an answer, if none given (or to your satisfaction) PM the post to a group of people you deem to be knowledgable. This gives those members the chance to each answer (or if answered adequately by the first response, it ends there.)
 
number1cruncher said:
Post a question on the board, wait a few days for an answer, if none given (or to your satisfaction) PM the post to a group of people you deem to be knowledgable. This gives those members the chance to each answer (or if answered adequately by the first response, it ends there.)
Not such a good idea...

Wastes time of multiple members who may each answer individually without the others' knowledge.

Unanswered posts to the boards should be "bumped".


PMs are better used for private info.
 
agreed.

Make a post, be clear and offer as much detail as you can, what you have tried and what you need to know, explain what you have searched for and what you canot figure out, include pictures if and when possible as they help immensly, and if you do not get a reply within a day or so, reply to your post and plead your case, offer a bribe ( yeah.. i'll take a bribe :p !! ) ..

PM's are fine for buy/sell or stuff that canot/should not be posted in public, but for general help stuff it is best to keep it in the public eye so replies can be scrutinized and the help given to you can also help others along the way !
 
TylerDurden said:
number1cruncher said:
Post a question on the board, wait a few days for an answer, if none given (or to your satisfaction) PM the post to a group of people you deem to be knowledgable. This gives those members the chance to each answer (or if answered adequately by the first response, it ends there.)
Not such a good idea...

Wastes time of multiple members who may each answer individually without the others' knowledge.

Unanswered posts to the boards should be "bumped".


PMs are better used for private info.

Yes, I agree, bump it, re-phrase the question, beg for help, but do it on the forum.

If all else fails and you have to PM someone about it, why not just PM them to say "can you please help me with this..." and link to the post on the forum? That way everyone sees the answers so far and you won't get duplicated responses.

Nick
 
Yes. PMs for troubleshooting just hide information that is much better suited to public display, as it will help more people when in public. (of course, that suggests that others are actually searching and/or reading first. ;) )

Bumping a question that hasn't got a reply yet after a few days (or however long you feel is too long) is much better, as it is more likely to get more people's attention that will have useful answers.

PMing more than one person with the same question is (to me) a rude waste of time of those people; I'm sure many people have managed to do it at some point in their forum-careers ;) but it's generally not the best use of time or resources for non-private questions.


Also, sometimes a question goes unanswered because it has an easily-findable answer. ;)


Also, while I'm thinking about it: Starting multiple threads for the same question and/or problem set is not a good way to get help. It just separates all the people trying to help just like PMs do, since one person might see one thread and reply there, and another in the second or third thread, with neither knowing they are duplicating effort and missing answers or info that is in the other thread, and so the thread poster not getting the real help they need *and* wasting multiple people's time that are trying to help. ;)

Wherever possible, threads like that are highly likely to get merged together, potentially making a complete jumble of the questions and answers. ;) So it's much better to start only one thread for a problem in the first place.
 
Wow I must be the world's worst writer( I am an auditor :wink: ), as no one seems to have understood my intention. I'll try to simplify....

1) Post a Thread
2) Wait
3) Bump Thread
4) Wait more
5) PM a few people you trust to answer the question correctly, INCLUDE LINK TO YOUR POST ADDRESS AND ASK THAT THEY REPLY IN PUBLIC
6) Wait some more and hopefully your question will be answered IN PUBLIC WITHOUT DUPLICITY


TylerDurden said:
PMs are better used for private info.

Otherwise, just get all your friends and family members to sign on to ES and blast PM whoever pisses you off and think owes you an answer, hehe :twisted:
 
I decided to make a new rule for my own PMs I get:

If I get questions via PM that should be replies to the thread in question, I add that user to my Foes list, so I don't see their posts anymore, and I also have the PM Inbox set to automatically delete posts from Foes. ;)

Sorry for having to do this, but there is too little space in the PM system to both get all the new messages like that and to keep my old ones that I need to save for various reasons.
 
PM's for comments, questions, and discussions that you have good reason to keep private.

That's why you have the private message capability. It's not meant to direct a question to a particular member, just to hide your own lack of knowledge base.
I get a few, but not enough to be really annoying yet.
 
Yes, inappropriate PMs are a recurring issue.

The request is not to anyone in particular, but to all nooBs and bashful or impatient members, who can be better be served by the group and benefit the group by open discourse.
 
chekola said:
You know Nick ( if that is your real name ) .......

Hi chekola,

That is my real name. There are many of us on here who log in with usernames, but are not trying to hide our identity.

My post was a general comment; it was for everybody and not about a particular individual. If it had been only one person sending pms when forum posts would be better, then it would be appropriate to send that person a pm rather than to post on the forum.

Nick
 
Hi Folks,

Sorry to have caused such a fracas by not posting for a few weeks. Nick has summed things up well; I lost access to ES (and a few other websites - photobucket are still blacklisting me, even now) for a few weeks and had many heated phone calls with my ISP over my IP address being blacklisted by several websites for some unknown reason. I then found a building plot for our new house (we've been looking for a couple of years for the ideal plot) and realised that the extra time I had each day from not feeling obliged to answer multiple daily PMs, often from people who rarely (or never) post on the forum, gave me the much needed time I needed to get on with designing and building the house. I met up with Nick between meetings with house frame companies, as he rightly says, we decided (in the face of adversity) to just go down the pub for lunch.

I am disappointed with the posts from Chekola/Grant/tepol, as I have spent a lot of time trying to help her/him via PM (when to be honest I'd have much rather the questions had been asked on the forum to share the load as Nick has suggested). For example, I spent around 6 or 8 hours re-assembling and wiring up my old Tongxin and Ping set-up, with the intention of letting her/him have it for an ebike to see if it would resolve his/her mobility difficulties. Unfortunately, on the second test before I shipped the whole kit up to Scotland the controller blew and I don't have access to another one (neither does anyone else, I think, as Tongxin seem to have stopped supplying the sensorless controllers now). When I PM'd Chekola/Grant/tepol with the bad news I got a sarcastic response, very bizarrely referring to my ego for some reason. Despite this, I then tried to offer him/her further advice in many PMs about adding a battery to the bike he/she had bought, including several links to rack suppliers, without getting a word of thanks in return. I can easily post all the PMs here so people can make up their own minds if anyone is in any doubt.

Nevertheless, this series of incidents with Chekola/Grant/tepol, or any other ES member for that matter, isn't the reason I've been so quiet lately at all, it's exactly as Nick has said, I just have too much on my plate and haven't had the time to log on here, knowing there would be a massive backlog of PMs that needed to be answered.

It seems that forums have three types of people; those that give freely of their time to try and help others, those who both give help and take it when needed and those who feel that other forum members are only there to help them even if they offer nothing in return. I'd rather we didn't have the latter type of member, but would still happily try and help them if they posted on the forum to share the burden of answering their questions rather than insisting on using time consuming PMs. As I said to Nick during our meet up a few weeks ago, I was spending around 1 1/2 to 2 hours each morning dealing with PMs from this forum, time that I realised I could put to better use when I found that I couldn't access ES for a few weeks.

Best regards to everyone here, I will try and pop in when I have some free time, but things are likely to be a little hectic for the next few months so please don't expect me to be a regular visitor for a while.

Jeremy

PS: Please don't use PMs, as I am not getting PM email notifications and my PM box is most probably full to overflowing with the backlog.
 
Well Jeremy, glad you are still with us...was worried that something had happened to you

All the Best with the house building

Neil
 
Nice to hear back from you Jeremy. We've survived but it's not the same ;)
 
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