Are forums less helpful then they used to be or are people less appreciative?
#16
Do not forget the ridiculous ammount of time people just post broad questions to non-related threads...video addons being one of them. Of course the messages will most likely be ignored as they can't even reach its target. Not to mention also the non-clear "code questions", full of secrets and with zero details about what the author wants to do. Even if you want to help, you just feel frustrated and you will ignore those after a few "helping attempts".
Also, note that if you help someone and the post count of that user is somehow low, your answer is normally just ignored. Nor even a "thank you"...so why spending your time and knowledge in the first place? XBMC is pretty well documented, users should do their homework before placing questions.

IMHO, people just live surrounded by comercial products and services that "just work". If they don't (as they are consumer goods/services) there is always someone on the other end of the line getting payed to help you or to sort out your own problems. xbmc is not a commercial product, it has no warranty, no one receives anything to make it or to help out on foruns/boards. Just a few understand this (and open-source in general).

Xbmc has also grown a lot, it "moved" from a piece of software that used to run on the original xbox (so a very narrow community of enthusiasts) to a piece of software than runs on about every single major platform. And with those platforms...come their users.
This leads to the generalization nickr (very well) made. I would however divide the rpi users in two groups. The first one being the techy group (they bought a pi because it is a geeky toy and are normally willing to learn the hard way) and the other being those who bought the pi because it was the cheapest pc they could get. People on this last group normally don't have any idea of the rpi specs and think they have a 35 pounds ferrari.
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#17
I think it is a combination of all the above. The helpe/helper ratio had increased greatly , people not knowing that addons are supported by the creator of the addon, not posting in the right place, not giving enough info whether it is what they are trying to accomplish or what the symptoms are, and lack of logs (I am guilty of this but in my defense I am typically not near my HTPC when I post)
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#18
Searching the forums is just great when you find that 3 different people had the same problem since 2011 but no one ever solved it. Tongue
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#19
(2014-09-27, 15:53)Prof Yaffle Wrote: @nickr - I note you didn't put Apple users on that spectrum anywhere... Smile
Yeah they are hard to place, you have the dedicated geek who wants to run a pretty unix, and the apple fanboys who expect everything to 'just work' because that's what apple is all about. Most are pretty technically literate though i'd say. Frankly I don't spend much time in the OSX or iOS subforums as I don't have any of those machines.
Quote:

Anyway, at least on this forum you don't get the knee-jerk "uve probabbly gotta virus an kneed two refommat everyfing" responses you get elsewhere. Respondents try to be helpful even if the OP hasn't necessarily presented the best case they could ...

This is a very good and civil forum compared to some others I have seen on my searches for (mainly windows) problems with other software.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
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#20
(2014-09-28, 03:59)DJ_Izumi Wrote: Searching the forums is just great when you find that 3 different people had the same problem since 2011 but no one ever solved it. Tongue

I so loathe when I search and see so many with the same issue. Lucky this usually means there is an answer out there somewhere and it just needs to be searched for again. I sometimes continue a search weeks or months later when I find something like this. Big Grin

Everyone's comments are exactly what I have seen in the forums over the last 5+ years. I really try hard to respond to posts if I can help someone. Since I'm new to Linux I can not usually offer any help, but I do offer suggestions. I really like to try to learn more about linux and wish more "how to" were out there for linux. I used to learn so much from a properly written how to. Usually this learning seemed to allow me to make more jumps in knowledge and learn something else that's related. I've applied a lot of what I have learned from hackintoshing to linux but only a small bit of it applies completely. This applied knowledge I think a lot of people are looking for and instead of offering a solution to 1 persons question I wish we could see a good how to's written for more problems.

I really appreciate everyone's comments to this thread and It does seem that years ago when there were less people online and most were really into tech and it seems a lot of people wanted to help. I think those people are just now fewer and further apart or absolutely burt out from providing so much help and not getting appreciated. I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all those who have helped me. The first help I ever got was on a forum back in 1999/2000 and it was after partition magic killed my drive. I will never forget how he helped me restore the damage and recover my data using a command line tool in dos.
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#21
This topic is one that engages me and for the wrong reasons. Smile sadly.

Its not a simple subject, no matter the intention of genuinely trying to help or even seeking help with something, - no matter at what level or reason for either, the only thing in common is that neither participants seem hardly ever come to appreciate the other party fully.

For the best part both experiences for me, leave a somewhat bitter after taste in my mouth and this lingering thought of why bother at all starts to creep in. For me no matter how much one may to try to brush some situation(s) to mi-understandings and that are natural to multicultural interactions or even disagreements are only a tip of a very large iceberg.

Sometimes no matter what answer you get, if its not the one you looking for, its already a source for frustration. In contrast you give some answer in which you trying your best in that particular occasion seems to rub people off who have different opinions. that later one makes me avoid 95% of the time other people who may even also provide help in their ways (not that dissimilar as both trying to help or coax people to a solution) yet its the main reason I now start typing a reply to a post and then instead of pressing reply I don and get away from that as fast as possible. (Reason being most of those interactions are truly unhelpful and non fulfilling and just promotes the wrong emotions we all seem to carry far too close to surface).

The rare, and this is the sad part for me, is that the really great experiences are really really rare and akin to some endangered "species" in risk of being extinct.

I love the software and the OSS fundamentalisms, but the more time I spend here the more I hate the whole lot and its a horrible feeling that truly makes me sad.

Good thing is when I hit play, soon all these things start to fade away. Smile
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#22
(2014-10-10, 01:02)madhits Wrote:
(2014-09-28, 03:59)DJ_Izumi Wrote: Searching the forums is just great when you find that 3 different people had the same problem since 2011 but no one ever solved it. Tongue

I so loathe when I search and see so many with the same issue. Lucky this usually means there is an answer out there somewhere and it just needs to be searched for again. I sometimes continue a search weeks or months later when I find something like this. Big Grin

What it usually means is that "so many" didn't read the wiki LOL.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
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Are forums less helpful then they used to be or are people less appreciative?0