Forum Etiquette or Forum Suggestions

[Spiff59]

There seems to be a higher proportion of useless thread titles lately.

The "I need help!" or "My program doesn't work" threads that give you zero info up front as to what the thread pertains to.

I went looking to see if there was something a new member could easily find containing basic posting guidelines. I didn't see anything related in the Forum Rules, or FAQ, or stickies.

I was thinking it might be useful to add a "Forum Etiquette" or "Forum Suggestions" section to the bottom of the Rules post?

I can think of 5 items for noobies I'd put on it:

1. Search the forums before starting a new thread.

2. Make your thread titles informative.

3. Post code examples inside editor CODE or AUTOIT tags.

4. Don't "bump" your thread unless it has been dormant for 24 (?) hours.

5. Don't edit a "solved" post and remove the original question as it renders the thread useless as a future reference for those searching the forums.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Spiff59

[JohnOne]

There is a little something in the FAQ

http://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/FAQ#Why_isn.27t_my_thread_getting_any_replies.3F

I think a proportion of those kind of posts are maybe those with no, or poor English, a lot will simply not read anything anyway, which leaves a few

who might, and those would probably figure it out for themselves after a short while.

EDIT:

I'm not certain this topic belongs here either.

pffft, where is your etiquette

Edited November 10, 2011 by JohnOne

[czardas]

I think most people here have done this at some time or other. I know I have received recent criticism for useless posts, or words to that effect. One thing I have noticed is that some people ask a question in the Help Forum, and after several people have spent a substantial amount of time resolving their problem, the OP disappears without even bothering to say thank you. If it only happened to me then I would get paranoid, but it happens to more experienced members quite a lot too.

Edited November 10, 2011 by czardas

[jvanegmond]

Don't be a dick and be humble about the free volunteered support you are getting. Simple as that.

Edit: Removed link.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Manadar

[Zedna]

I think that ignoring such topics with dumb titles will be very good solution.

There will be no answer if title is bad, so people have to fill proper topic title to get help.

[GEOSoft]

JohnOne is probably correct that this thread doesn't belong in this forum but I can also see justification for it being here.

@Zedna; I already pretty much follow that method. Depending on the amount of time available to me I usually just skim the titles to see if there are any questions of interest and "Help Me!!" certainly doesn't qualify so I would just skip it. I read the ones where I can see that I may have a usefull solution then back out and mark the forum as read.

Now to the original post:

Valik will have to verify this but as I recall the reason for certain things not being in the rules was quite simple. The more there is to read, the more chance there is that people won't bother reading any of it even though there are offences in there that can get them banned. The rest is left up to people with forum experience to point out as this thread is already doing. Making the forum rules more complex would also lead to more complex decisions when determining if someone has crossed the line or not.

Just my side of the story.

[Spiff59]

One thing I have noticed is that some people ask a question in the Help Forum, and after several people have spent a substantial amount of time resolving their problem, the OP disappears without even bothering to say thank you. If it only happened to me then I would get paranoid, but it happens to more experienced members quite a lot too.

I've had a few of those experiences... post a possible solution, get no reply, then 6 posts down in the thread you see the OP is using your code. Others times I feel bad that I'm some sort of thread killer. I'll post in an active thread, and silence! A month later it's still the last post. Am glad to hear others sometimes suffer similar events.

I wanted to direct this post to Mods and Devs, and this seemed the best forum to do that, even though there is nothing technical or related to development about the topic. I suppose I could have accomplished a little more of what I am advocating by putting this in a more generic forum, where more of those who could actually use the advice would have read it.

Edit: Gawd! I fear I've killed yet ANOTHER thread!

Edited November 10, 2011 by Spiff59

[czardas]

Thanks Spiff59

I wouldn't personally consider this thread to be the wrong place, since the rules apply to all forums at autoscript.com. Most discussions like this take place in the chat forum which is only accessible to forum members. When such topics do occur, it is often a new member that starts off a discussion about the banning of game bots, and they generally are of the opinion that the blanket ban is overkill. Perhaps if new members had the opportunity to read about some of the problems that have been encountered and the history of the forum (in a thread such as this), they might think twice before they jump in with both eyes closed.

There really only need to be one rule: You are always a guest, so behave accordingly or you'll be out on your ear.

Edit: (parentheses added).

Edited November 10, 2011 by czardas

[BrewManNH]

Maybe in the dialog to create a new user account there can be (in big bold letters) a link to the forum rules that has to be clicked on, before you can proceed further. At least this way they can't say they never saw the rules before posting, because they at least had to have clicked on the link once. Probably wouldn't make much of a difference to most of the people that post for game bot help, because once they've had their first post locked, you usually don't see them post again.

[Valik]

The existence of this thread is proof that there is no solution to the problem. You clearly did not search or you would have found one of the other threads where this subject has been discussed. If you as somebody who has a pretense of intelligence cannot obey basic forum etiquette then what chance do people with no intelligence hold?

Anyway, this is all pointless. The rules are pretty clear about game automation yet several threads per week are closed on that topic. People do not read rules/guidelines - especially those who need said guidelines.

Lastly, this thread does not belong in this forum at all. This is a place to talk about programming, specifically C++ but other languages as well. This is not a programming discussion, this is an etiquette discussion. It is completely off topic in every capacity. It's also a pointless topic as my preceding paragraphs should convey.

[KaFu]

Lastly, this thread does not belong in this forum at all.

Oh damn, you're right, and I was convinced to be in the Chat forum (no joke!) ...

[DoDUser]

I created this account to solely suggest one item.

I work for the largest Department of Defense contractor in the world as a technical lead. We've been using AutoIT for quite awhile in different programs with many a different focus.

I know for a fact that many a comp sci engineer, tech lead and even the IT folks working in the professional world (in Govt specifically) have shied away from this forum mainly due to the "overly rude" responses of not the users themselves but the literal angst of some of the moderators themselves.

We as a multi-billion dollar industry (I'm specifically in the 3D immersion military simulation industry) can not risk tossing up on a projector in a board room (in front of the government) a forum thread that although may have useful information may also have a moderator who goes on-and-on using faux wit to belittle a post-er.

If they break your rules on posting about WoW/Eve/game bots etc; just use one of your 3 designations for misuse and leave it or best case delete the thread. Posting on and on about how stupid someone is etc is seriously pointless.

I say this as you are hurting your own cause. You have no idea how much usage (and possible advancements) you are missing out on because of such behavior. I decided to post this because our program management are starting to seriously look for alternatives to AutoIT simply because of an embarrassing situation that occurred regarding a post by Valik that ended up being seen by an international customer.

Don't hurt your cause. Help it along. Those of us that "do" (and not just manage) really love the AutoIT technology and want to continue using it. The internet has been mainstream since the mid-90s and the time for "hating-online because you can hide behind anonymity" should be shelved - especially when you are trying to be "supportive" of a technology in a "support" role.

[Melba23]

DoDUser,

I worked in my nation's DoD equivalent for many years.

an embarrassing situation that occurred regarding a post by Valik that ended up being seen by an international customer

That sounds more like a problem at your end than ours. When I gave presentations to important people like that the content was very carefully selected before being screened and I would never have linked to a live forum - which is what you intimate you did.

Besides, why would you want to link to our forum if you are selling you software made using AutoIt? Surely you want to demonstrate the capability you are developing with it, not the trivial stuff that most of the threads here deal with?

Not interested in entering into a long argument, but I feel you are trying to blame a private community (or more specifically one member of it) for errors and embarrassment on your part.

M23

[Valik]

Heh. So so many problems with your post.

First of all, you say "further our cause" but what is our cause? You do not know. You're making assumptions on our cause based upon how you think.

Second, you should never show content outside your control. You whine that it was my post (Yet don't provide a link) but it could just as easily have been porn spam. That has happened here before. What would your suggestion for that be, then?

Third, you try to blame the entire moderation team but you really mean me. If you want to beat around the bush then go masturbate. Get to the point directly - which you eventually did.

Fourth, if your company is willing to give up on a useful tool because of one person then they are managed by idiots. Feel free to show them this post where I state that. It's the kind of backwards 20th century thinking why most companies are not nearly as successful as they could be if they didn't waste time and resources exploring other options when they have useful options.

Five, if your thread was really all that useful and intelligent to be displayed before a room of government officials then I wouldn't have been in that thread at all. I only view threads when there is an issue raised with them, I do not seek them out on my own. So this makes me curious about what sort of asinine thread you were showing to the government where I intervened in some capacity.

Six, anyone who shies away from this forum lacks confidence in their skills or abilities.

Seven, what "3 designations for misuse"? You're not one of those absurd people who think we have a "3 strikes and you're out" policy are you? As the rules very clearly state we are free to punish whomever we want as severely as we want for any infraction. We tend to only lock threads in many cases but egregiously obnoxious posts come with bans of varying length. In other words, there is no "3 designations of misuse", it's up to the individuals judgement.

Eight. I do not think you are an adequate judge of what is or is not pointless as my ninth comment will address.

Nine, as far as pointless things go, registering on this forum to state something that's been spouted many time is boring and trite.

Ten (Seriously, I'm up to 10), you fall into the yawn-inducing trap of sliding personal insults in there. "Literal-angst", really? Do I look like a Twilight fan to you? I harbor no angst. You know nothing about me beyond your incredibly limited (and obviously negative - in your opinion at any rate - experience).

Eleven, I'm not anonymous. My real name and email address is posted. There are people who address me by my real name in private and sometimes in public.

Twelve, this support is provided for free. We are not paid (it costs us time which can be translatable into money) to be here. You are not entitled to anything just because the forum is here.

Thiirteen, Faux-wit? You've just insulted a fairly large portion of this community that have been rather amused and at times enamored by my "faux wit". Some people lament that I do not engage in it nearly as much now-a-days as I have in the past. I think many of you - numerous MVPs included - should feel insulted that all this time you've been amused by false wit instead of real wit.

Damn. I couldn't come up with fourteen. Oh well, thirteen will suffice. So yeah, I just found thirteen instances in your post (addressed out of order and not with my usual point-by-point style) where your post has issues. In short, the TL;DR version is your post is contradictory and full of self-imagined assumptions based on your own limited perspective. As evidenced by Melba's post that came through while I was composing this, I don't think you are going to find I am alone in my assessment that pretty much everything you complain of is self-inflicted.

Oh! Fourteen! i don't really belittle all that much anymore. Unless you asked for game automation I haven't touched your thread in at least a couple years. My moderation of late has been to either close game bot threads (which the others also handle plenty of) or to handle threads where the user ends up permanently blocked. So you must be talking about something that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Until you provide a link we'll never know. I suspect you may be referring to something that is ancient history (in internet terms) and no longer relevant.

Fifteen: I personally don't want any more outside "advancements" to the language. People who provide things have had a tendency to disappear leaving us stuck with things we didn't write but need maintenance or more. For our project a very small core group of active (and competent) developers works better so we can understand our product. If we didn't have to spend so much time fixing the outside "advancements" in addition to our own poor design choices back when we didn't know any better we could get on with advancing the language ourselves.

So yeah, fifteen. And I haven't even had dinner yet. /slow-clap

[JohnOne]

piss, whinge, moan, lie, fart.

What you are, is just a person unable to make a game bot yourself.

That, and a cockend of extrordinary magnitude.

Come back post puberty you flump.

[Zedna]

I decided to post this because our program management are starting to seriously look for alternatives to AutoIT simply because of an embarrassing situation that occurred regarding a post by Valik that ended up being seen by an international customer.

If your important decisions about development are based on events on this forum then it's not clever/sad.

You can safely use Autoit no matter what happens on this forum.

Valik is moderator here. If you had problems with him then you had to violate rules.

Stick to rules and you will be fine here ...

Edited November 19, 2011 by Zedna