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Claudio González
Legend
July 2, 2012
Question

Community Help messages

  • July 2, 2012
  • 2 replies
  • 15225 views

I was disconcerted by the following message from Community Help:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1031662?tstart=0

First, there is for me a lack of logic in the message itself. Thinking that this could be due to a faulty translation, I looked for a recent similar message in English, and the fault is also there:

You see, there is no question in the message, but is says "this question was posted in response to the following article" (my emphasis), then it gives a link to an article, period. No response to anything.

The situation is even more disconcerting in the forum in Spanish (one single forum for all Adobe products), as there is no indication whatsoever to the product the message refers to. True, in the case of the forum in Spanish, the message from Community Help is followed by a question from a participant which may or may not be related with the article in the link (which is fairly long so I didn't feel like checking if it did). In the case of the message in the screenshot above there is no second message, so it's difficult for me to imagine in answer to what was the message posted.

Am I being much more dumb than usual, or there is some lack of logic in this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Legend
    July 3, 2012

    What should have happened is the user's actual question (as they entered into the CH application) is appended as reply one to that thread - it's a bit of a fiddle but the only way to get the CH system to post into the forums. Unfortunately there are some edge case scenarios where the question doesn't make it through - the engineers are aware of this and working on it.

    Claudio González
    Legend
    July 3, 2012

    Thanks, Dave, but I am still unable to follow the logic of this:

    This question was posted in response to the following article

    (my emphasis again), because:


    1. there is no question in the message, either original or in response to something;
    2. if "this question" refers to the following message by a participant (which you say should appear always but sometimes doesn't), that message is not responding anything but formulating a question, and
    3. hopefully the answer to the question in that message would be contained in the article on the link.

    Not being a native English speaker, I feel it's almost presumptuous of me to suggest an alternative but, wouldn't something along these lines be at least a little more logical?

    This is a link to an article that responds (to) the question in the following/the next message:

    (link here).

    (no doubt native English speakers should be able to produce better sounding alternatives).

    And perhaps the situation would be even more clear if the message with the original question could be appended/quoted in the message from Community Help.


    Jacob Bugge
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    July 8, 2012

    Hello, Pierre, I had been missing you in this thread, as I think that similar problems must ocurr in the Forum in French. But first, an observation about this thread.

    I found your message very helpful, as it explains clearly and briefly how we got to the point where we are, and also because you say you will do your best to have this situation corrected, which I believe without any doubt that you will do. But when I went to mark your message as helpful, I saw this:

    Now, I couldn't possibly have marked your post as helpful before seeing it, so obviously I didn't do it. So, my question is: who has the authority to mark a post as helpful before the original poster has had a chance to read it? I always understood it was a privilege of the OP to mark a post as helpful or as the "correct" answer (and I don't agree with the latter). And I strongly object to any bulldozer crushing on my right to decide what I found useful or useless in any given thread.

    As for the rest: thanks for your lucid explanation and for your promisse to try to help. Pity that Adobe seems to have formed almost impregnable barriers to the opinions of users of their products and of these forums...


    Claudio,

    I believe the How do I earn points section in this document has something to do with it:

    http://forums.adobe.com/docs/DOC-2327

    As far as I know, for a while moderators have been able to tick answers as Correct/Helpful instead/on behalf of, and even overruling, the OP, thus also distributing points.

    Edit: And what I am going to say a few minutes ago.

    pwillener
    Legend
    July 3, 2012

    A possibility: someone posted spam or other moronic content, and a moderator deleted the message, but left the stem standing.

    Claudio González
    Legend
    July 3, 2012

    Pat Willener wrote:

    A possibility: someone posted spam or other moronic content, and a moderator deleted the message, but left the stem standing.

    Thanks, Pat, but one can respond to a previous message, not to a later one.