Community Help messages

Report · Jul 02, 2012

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?

Report · Jul 10, 2012

From behind the scenes we can't tell who sets the post status on a message, nor who's read which reply. Unless the host comes back and admits to it, who tagged the helpful post will remain a mystery - sorry.

Generally we'll force marks on threads for two reasons - to allocate points to those who deserve the credit, and to clear the open question status so other users know it's been answered. Either way, we (are supposed to) wait until the OP has or hasn't taken action; though with some of the CH questions it's important to confirm the right answer quickly, so those reading via the application help system understand what's going on.

Back to the general point of the thread - all posts by CH are supposed to have a question as their first reply, it's clear that a small number are going wrong at the moment, but it's not obvious why.

If anyone sees a CH post without a question please click the Report button, file it as 'general abuse', and we can then pass it to the engineers as quickly as possible.

Report · Jul 10, 2012

It seems that I am absolutely unable to present my case in a way that it is understood by others. Therefore, it's not worth wasting more time on this.

In case anyone is interested, my case is well summed up in my message #11 above:

why can't the message from CH be worded in such a way that people can understand what is happening?

Report · Jul 10, 2012

Well, to be fair you kind of took it off topic with your discussion about others marking posts as helpful.

By the way, that sentence sums it up nicely - I finally got it. However, I think you wish for too much that it should all work right AND make sense at the same time. This is Adobe we're talking about, remember?

-Noel

Report · Jul 11, 2012

And that's the part (rewording the CH threads) that has been forwarded to the relevant persons, don't worry!

Report · Jul 08, 2012

Pierre,

I also wish to thank you for taking care of the issue.

Report · Jul 08, 2012

Incidentally, if mods were one tenth as zelous in the Reader forum, I'd have quite a lot of points. From all those messages telling poor lost souls how to install Reader who never come back to say thanks, it worked.

Report · Jul 08, 2012

Well, for a period of time, there were NO questions listed in Community Help, in any language.

Then, they DID begin to appear, though as I only monitor English forums, I have to take your example as gospel, that though the question was written in Spanish, they ONLy appeared in English. Not the correct way to do it, as far as I am concerned.

Now, it appears that many are again lacking ANY question showing, in ANY language.

I am commenting on what I see as a broader problem, a global problem, with the Community Help posts, and not just one of languages. While I completely agree with you, concerning the language of the question, if there are NO questions being posted along with the Community Help post, I see a bigger issue.

Good luck,

Hunt