How to help first-time posters

[MrKowz]

Very well put, Jon. I enjoy the fast-paced posting here as well... sometimes actively posting/watching up to 10-15 posts at a time. While my knowledge may not be up with the MVPs, I do try to at least take care of the "easier" posts so that the more skilled users can tackle the rough ones.

I've kept a rather colorful signature to try to attract attention to it since I started posting here, asking people to use CODE tags, back up their information, and recently asking that people provide examples. I like how your signature uses a smaller font with links to more lengthy explanations, which I'll likely hijack a few things from.

 

[sous2817]

Not sure if it's possible, but can you allow OP to edit their titles after the 10 minute window? That way, if someone posts something with a title of "NEED EXPERT HELP BEFORE MY 10:00AM EXCEL CLASS!!!!" anyone who clicks on the link and reads the post could then suggest a more appropriate title for the post, which would in turn help everyone.

I'm not suggesting they notify a moderator and have the moderator do it, but a friendly "you know if you changed your title to 'Help deleting rows with duplicate values', you probably get a better response".

It seems a lot of times people just don't know better, and while you can have links galore directing them to posting guidelines and tips, no one really reads them. They just register for the board, click "ok" or "I understand and agree" until they're able to post, post their question that's been asked 1,000,000 times but they can't search for it because people are using unhelpful titles.

Also, would it help increasing the stickies to include generic topics with comprehensive solutions like: "delete rows / columns based on criteria", "count based on colors", "adding based on multiple criteria", and maybe a few more of the questions that are asked time and time again?

As an example, I have referenced this post quite often when I needed to delete rows using VBA. There's a ton of information in it and it generally answers 99% of my questions around deleting rows / columns. Granted, it's not going to solve all of the bad posts, or stop the people who have no desire to learn but just want the answer to their specific problem, but I don't think it could hurt.

 

[Domski]

FWIW I don't think this forum has a problem at all. The relaxed nature suits me and if anything the volume of individuals willing to answer questions almost outweighs the questions asked. Okay, there's a few posts that slip through either because they are worded badly, asking too much or nobody knows the answer but they are relatively few of them.

I only post regularly on one other forum and the moderation is a lot more strict on there. Some would say it's better others that the strictness puts novices off.

I always think back to the first time I looked at a spreadsheet and hadn't got the first clue. If I'd known there'd been forums to ask questions on my first would have been along the line of:

Subject: "Please help!!!"

Question: "I've got a screen with lots of empty boxes in that I appear to be able to type words and numbers into. Can you tell me what it's for?"

Actually, I think my first post was along those lines

Dom

 

[Peter_SSs]

FWIW I don't think this forum has a problem at all. The relaxed nature suits me and if anything the volume of individuals willing to answer questions almost outweighs the questions asked.

I am pretty much in agreement with this.If there was so much wrong with the forum we wouldn't have the huge number of question posters or helpers.

Comments have bee made that there is too much traffic in the forum. My view is that we have so many good quality helpers who just like to answer questions, there needs to be a high volume of questions. Imagine the frustration here if the forum was so well documented/indexed with pefect titles and concise answers that virtually everybody could easily find their answer without posting a question. With only 10 new posts a day and a few hundred helpers looking for questions to answer ...

I also think topic titles are pretty much irrelevant (though I do have a thing about URGENT requests and often point those posters to the posting guidelines). How many threads do we see (with excellent titles) along these lines?

OP: "Array formula required".
Helper: Supplies a simple non-array formula to do the job.
OP: Oh, I didn't know you could do that.

OP: "vba needed to colour cells for given conditions"
Helper: Provides in-built Conditional Formatting solution.
OP: Oh, I didn't know about Conditional Formatting.

I have seen some great threads and got significant enjoyment from helping in some of them that have 'useless' titles. So I tend to look at questions rather than titles.

In terms of searching, I don't search titles, I search posts - and usually find what I am looking for without much problem. Threads/posts that I think I might want to locate in the future, I bookmark and have categorised those bookmarks in a way that suits me, but may not suit others.

I don't think we need more Stickys. People generally don't read them and it just means you have to scroll down further to find.

I do see some merit in JVDH's suggestion of putting a few hints in the signature block and I may take up on that since mine has no help there. However, there are some signature blocks that are just too big in my view.

To re-cap, I haven't seen much in this thread that would be likely to make this forum significantly better (or easier to moderate) than it already is.

If anybody could come up with a way to stop us being spammed so much, that would be a help.

 

[snowblizz]

I also think topic titles are pretty much irrelevant (though I do have a thing about URGENT requests and often point those posters to the posting guidelines). How many threads do we see (with excellent titles) along these lines?

I have seen some great threads and got significant enjoyment from helping in some of them that have 'useless' titles. So I tend to look at questions rather than titles.

I'm not sure I'd call them useless. Obviously you can't take them at face value, but I do feel they contain some value. Basically, there's quite a lot of traffic and an information provider (IP) can't really follow all threads. Also most of us have some areas where we are weaker and know "this is something I can't do". As such the topic title is the primary filter, even though it is not strictly accurate as in the examples you provided. However note that they contain an important piece of information. You may know when opening the thread what the person is looking for. So in the cases you posted you know the person is looking to colour the cells and you can make a decision that "hey I know about that". I e.g. don't look at anything talking about Pivottables because I'm totally useless there. Admittedly the flipside is that "vba for colouring cells" would "scare" away people who do not know vba and there'd still be topics which would continue to be "mislabelled" by people who don't know what they are asking for really. Though I think that risk is much lesser with regards to IPs.
"Plz help urgent" won't tells us anything about the problem, but even a semi-bad topic can give pointers for the IPs which thread their expertise is needed in.

Being able to give guidelines on how to present your problem is something I hope to do as part of my research. I think a large part of the problem is that people are only taught "Excel skills", it might be more useful if it also included "how to find help". I told a colleague as much when I was asked what needs to be included in a basic Excel course.

 

[diddi]

must agree with snowblizz. anything with pivottable in the title and i dont even consider looking, as for other areas i know i am no good at. title is the difference between me engaging in helping or not. i have to be bored beyond belief to start looking at 'help me now' posts.

 

[Peter_SSs]

I'm not sure I'd call them useless.

I'm not sure I did. I called them 'useless' - in the context of this thread often bringing up the idea of threads with titles that don't tell you enough about the problem therein.

title is the difference between me engaging in helping or not. i have to be bored beyond belief to start looking at 'help me now' posts.

One of the good things about a forum like this is that we are all free to pass over whatever we want. However, as I indicated before, I have found some of the questions that I have most enjoyed lurking behind such titles.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

If anybody could come up with a way to stop us being spammed so much, that would be a help.

I reckon we should have some sort of consortium that we publicly list the handle and IP address of every spammer we ban. Or some sort of international web-based DB that get's updated as and when we ban a user as a spammer. And then in turn our forum software can reference that DB when a new user registers, and block the user from registering if the likelihood is that (s)he is a spammer. Maybe rather than block just hold the registration in a moderation queue so that we can validate the user. I think a spammer wouldn't bother pursuing if they find they get placed in a registration mod queue.

 

[Taul]

Most of the spammers are listed here http://www.stopforumspam.com/

It's a site I use to check new registrations for another forum I help to run. I can only do it because our site has low traffic and only about 3 to 5 new registrations per week, so checking manually is easy and new people don't have to wait for long before I get around to authorising them.

I kinda assumed a site as large as Mr Excel would have another (maybe automated) system for that.

 

[snowblizz]

I'm not sure I did. I called them 'useless' - in the context of this thread often bringing up the idea of threads with titles that don't tell you enough about the problem therein.

Well you did use the word in there somewhere. I do think I am somewhat understanding what you are getting at. And I'm as such not really taking a stand on the issue of should people making unhelpful titles be summarily executed, I think it is a bit drastic myself. However to me it seems the topic is an important first impression you make on a forum which is likely to impact whether you get help or not. I wouldn't open such a thread only to tell them their title is unhelpful. I do also to some degree look at "plz help urgent" in case they are left unanswered, but it'd be nice to see in advance whether I can do something else than think "I hope someone more skilled will see this".
I would say it is not quite the attention grabber people think, and in fact can have the opposite effect and as such it is one thing I would probably suggest people think about before they post.

One of the good things about a forum like this is that we are all free to pass over whatever we want. However, as I indicated before, I have found some of the questions that I have most enjoyed lurking behind such titles.

And that's also something I'm trying to explore, how do you as a "helper" pick which threads to look at, assuming the traffic is too high to look at them all. I did not too long ago notice eg that it is possible to scroll over a topic and get some kind of "tooltip" of the thread, but in the main to me the topic seems to be the main thing people look at when making a sorting decision.

My hypothesis if you will, is that a more content specific title is more likely to attract the good kind of attention. As the burden of information seeking is placed rather largely on the "helper" and not the one seeking help I would think it was good idea to make it as easy as possible for the "helpers". As you note "urgent" is a red flag to you of sorts. And the "unhelpful" titles is something mentioned over and over as problematic.

I'm sort of getting ahead of myself here, but how do you look at the questions witout looking at the topic. I assume you mean you just read the thread regardless of the topic?