Wasting Contributors Time

[Terri_Stevens]

I have only been helping here for a month, but as the other contributors are nice people far to polite to complain about  people who waste our time, I am going to say this none the less.

Please, If you don't actually have a need for an answer do not post here as a decent response to a technical or technique question takes time to prepare and wastes the time of the responders and that prevents us from helping those people with a genuine need to have their issues resolved.

Far too many posts are responded to only for the questioner appearingly not to ever go back to check what the answer is and heaven forbid, marking the question as resolved appears to be far too mentally taxing for many of you, but of course its not that its laziness.

Contrary to what you may think, responders here are unpaid volunteers unconnected to the Adobe company-we don't even receive free subscriptions to Creative Cloud. Now play fair only ask questions you need answers to and be civilized enough to comeback and read the answers given and if correct close the question by marking it correctly answered.

I cannot speak for other people, but I myself store the username of anyone I try to help who disappears without trace in a SQL Server database and don't consider helping them a second time on the grounds that abuse of a free service justifies exclusion from further help in the future.

Terri

[D Fosse]

Well, it's not all that bad IMO. Even if the OP doesn't respond, others might pick up something.

I used to say that we didn't primarily respond to help the OP, but to learn ourselves in preparing the responses. And the poster gets help as well, so we all win.

I'm actually more concerned with the rapid turnover. Posts drop off the horizon so fast nowadays, that unless you take time to check in very frequently, you miss half of them. That's the main reason I half-dropped out (I used to be a frequent contributor). Now I only have time to pick posts that seem within my particular areas of interest, on the basis of title alone, and I let the others pass. I just don't have time to read them all.

Can a forum be too busy for its own good? I tend to head over to Luminous Landscape now, where the pace is more leisurely, and discussions much more in-depth because of it.

[robg86919190]

Whooaa!! Some would say your post is a waste of time equal to those you mentioned in it. If you've only been here a month I am not sure you should speak on behalf of other users just yet. Thanks for your concern though, much appreciated.

[Terri_Stevens]

Hi Rob,

well I fully intended to be controversial with my discussion point, that's why I posted it,  but I stand by what I said. It does no harm to make people aware of things here. As for it wasting your time nobody asked you to read it. I also was careful to imply the thoughts were my own not those of others. True I've only been on this forum 30 days, but I spent two years on the old Adobe newsgroups yonks ago-so I'm qualified to comment.

I see you've gathered  45 points  in 3 months or answered 4.5 questions successfully. I have in 30 days using the same logic answered 38.5 questions successfully. Maybe if you attempted to answer more questions only to have your time wasted you wouldn't adopt such a complacent attitude.

Terri

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I myself store the username of anyone I try to help who disappears without trace in a SQL Server database

Seems a bit much work …

Unfortunately I guess you are preaching to the choir.

Considering how many posters seem to have no grasp of the relevant information (version, OS, exact error messages, …) they probably have not even bothered to read the guidelines (not that I claim I did way back when) and are not likely to read this …

[Terri_Stevens]

Amazing , more people have looked at this in a few hours than any of the actually useful things I have posted. Seriously if I succeeded in offending anyone it was just in the spirit of creating a talking point, but sorry

Terri

[D Fosse]

Terri, ask yourself this: why am I here?

Me, I'm here out of curiosity. I might pick up something, even learn something. If there's a question I know the answer to, I reply, if I don't have anything better to do. No big deal.

The instant I feel I'm wasting time, I just leave and do something else. It's my own time and I decide how to spend it, not some kid who just got Photoshop for his birthday and doesn't know pixels from popcorn. If I have time, I don't mind pointing the kid in the right direction. It doesn't have to be an essay, and I don't even expect to be thanked.

In short, it's just an internet forum and this is how they all work.

[Terri_Stevens]

I know how it works really. I'm only having some fun you know. I'm not really that paranoid, its just the world is against me lol As c.pfaffenbichler says I'm preaching to the choir-he  ought to know as his points score is higher than the Zimbabwean inflation rate.

[Bo_LeBeau]

There seems to be an ongoing issue with people burning out and not contributing as much.

I attribute this to the confusing nature of the help files and the forums. How many posts have the entire question in the topic header area? Far too many. What is the soluton?

Many new posters are under the impression that they are dealing with Adobe support and don't understand that we are just fellow users like themselves.

Too many rants without an actual question because of the belief that this is a direct line to Adobe, which it is not!

Lack of basic information like: version of the application they are using, version of the OS they have, basic machine specs, etc.

I wonder if a form could be devised for any original poster that would require filling in this info before being allowed to post a question? Probably not, just wishful thinking.

Unfortunately, it appears that many posters would be unable to post this info because they simply don't know what they are using.

Some long timers may remember a poster "Marian Driscoll". While "she" could be difficult at times, the knowledge was solid.

"Marian's" post "That leaves the Photoshop forums mostly for new users to come to holler "my Adobe is broken"

[Terri_Stevens]

Adobe themselves don't help when they tell people they must use this forum rather than deal with the query personally-that just serves to give the impression that the guys  (generically speaking) here are Adobe employed people. To be fair there does seem to be more Staff on the forum at the moment though. Having said that the answers generally come from people like Norman, Chuck, Gene and John Mac rather than Adobe. I wouldn't want to work at Adobe support for all the tea in China. People who are using Photoshop aren't stupid, its a hard app to learn and yet some of them seem to have trouble stringing a sentence together describing what they are complaining about. Maybe Adobe should have an English Literacy forum lol

Terri

[Chuck Uebele]

There do seem to be just a few of us answering most of the questions. You're right about more staff members on the forum. They've added 9 new staff members to help out on the forums, unfortunately, they can't do anything about the licensing issues either, and the people have to contact Adobe. There has been a lot of turnaround. Noel got fed up with how poorly the forums were run by Jive that he quit. He was such a great resource. I don't see Pierre anymore. Scripters like Paul Riggott have left, mainly due to bugs in the software. I'm trying to convince Philip Cord to hang around, as he has great responses to scripting questions.

[Terri_Stevens]

I have seen some of Noel's old posts and they were generally excellent and so I wondered why I wasn't seeing him here-and now I know. This is my most viewed thread ever Chuck and its not really about Photoshop. Who do you reckon I should mark as giving the correct answer?-I'm tempted to chose Rob as he was a little dismissive and has far less points than the rest of you guys-but he might not see the funny side of that lol

Terri

[Bo_LeBeau]

MissTake,

Noel Carboni is always very good. I remember when he was new, a bit combative, just ask Chris Cox.

He mellowed out and was an extremely prolific poster, I would like to see him come back.

[D Fosse]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

a bit combative, just ask Chris Cox.

...or ask me . Anyway,

He mellowed out

and so did I. We're on great terms now. I'm also testing one of his plugins, which is really excellent.

[Chuck Uebele]

I'm also testing one of his plugins, which is really excellent.

The star filter? It is very cool!

Noel Carboni‌ Hey, Noel, we're talking about you.

[D Fosse]

Chuck Uebele wrote:


The star filter? It is very cool!

Yup, that's it. I love it. At first I wrote it off as a cheap effect, but it turns out it can really give a shot that extra punch. Don't overdo it, that's the ticket

But I'm also impressed with Noel's implementation and the UI in general. Very intuitive and efficient.

[Chuck Uebele]

Yes, it's a great plugin. I was thinking the same thing, but the ability to put the effect on a different layer really helps, and the various controls over the sensitivity and the ability to add one if it doesn't produce one automatically.

[Herbert2001]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

MissTake,

Noel Carboni is always very good. I remember when he was new, a bit combative, just ask Chris Cox.

He mellowed out and was an extremely prolific poster, I would like to see him come back.

I hope he is doing okay. I have not "seen" him around a lot, lately. His last post stems from three months ago.

[Bo_LeBeau]

There seem to be more STAFF in all the forums,

Unfortunately, some of these staff appear to have some lack of knowledge about the very applications in which they are alleged expert.

A few days ago in one of the Acrobat sub-forums a staff member gave an incorrect answer.

I could not believe that he was unaware of the role that Adobe Sans MM & Adobe Serif MM have in Acrobat.

Calling him out on this would not have been productive, so I gave the original poster the information of how these fonts work and why he cannot use them to edit PDFs or install the fonts on his system.

And I am far from expert in Acrobat, I just try to remember esoteric bits of trivia about many things. You never know when they will come in handy.

[D Fosse]

Ah, Marian Driscoll...aka Jim Oblak. Never understood why everybody hated him so much. You could go through all his posts and there was not one single word of BS there. All to the point and factually correct to the letter. But he was a hard nail and just wouldn't let go...

Loved his various aliases too. The "Marian" twist was brilliant, threw everybody off. But my favorite is "deafeningechochamber". You had to be there...

If there are PS forum legends, he's up there with Phos±4dots, dave milbut, buko, John Joslin, Ho, Ramôn and the others. It was fun back then...

[Bo_LeBeau]

D. Fosse,

Yes, the "just wouldn't let go" part is very true. Always the last word, either in the forum or via PM.

"Marian" was a straight shooter and always gave the correct information.

I agree that the "Marian" twist was brilliant. The photo avatar is probably what cinched it. It seemed perfectly in synch with the personality.

It's amazing how many people showed up under another name after being banned.

Some personalities were so distinctive that it didn't take long to figure out that the "New" poster was just another "Old" poster under a new name.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

If there are PS forum legends, he's up there with Phos±4dots, dave milbut, buko, John Joslin, Ho, Ramôn and the others.

I guess my first few question-posts (on the platform specific Forum back then) were probably as uninformative as the average first time poster’s is nowadays.

But I think even the more "stern" of those "old-time" regulars generally were forgiving if one acknowledged one’s mistakes and extended them the proper courtesy.

And they did dispense a lot of useful information. Or, as necessary, the same bits of information a lot of times …

[D Fosse]

This thread is almost like the Lounge

I think it has a bit to do with the turnover rate I mentioned. When things move fast, the tone tends to get a little more tense. Back then, the number of new posts were perhaps a tenth of what it is now. So you had time to consider your replies for a while before posting, and most importantly, those who were working professionals on deadlines still had a chance to keep current without it eating up too much of their time.

Because of that, it was much more of a discussion forum among experienced users, rather than the strict product support forum it is now. From Adobe's standpoint, the latter is obviously much more useful than the former. Can't blame them.

Oh, I forgot the inimitable J Maloney. I could never understand anything he said until about two weeks later, then it hit me like a brick wall. It was usually something completely outrageous. I think his IQ just operated along different vectors than the rest of us...

Anyway, the point is that I learned so much from these people. I use Photoshop for a living, and I'm not sure I would be as confident today if it wasn't for that learning curve. Preparing a reply, I knew my post would be scrutinized by the pros, so I put some effort into getting it right, even if it was "just" some newbie question. And then it stuck.

So that's my reason for being here. If some poster doesn't come back to acknowledge the reply, so what.

[Chuck Uebele]

Actually, Adobe is trying to foster a community feel to the forums now and try and promote chatting. This is the reason for the new forum areas like the Community connection forum that i mentioned earlier. However, we're all debating if this will take off. It seems much easier just to hijack a thread when something strikes your fancy rather than going to another forum space to post something that few might see.

Community Connections

[D Fosse]

Community Connections

If this is the new Lounge, I'm all for it. Let's hope it picks up some speed.

Still I can't help but thinking that if they really want a sense of community, they'd strip the points and anything related to status - yes, MVP, ACP and whatnot. I've been dead against it from the start. It's always counterproductive, no matter the context. People are not motivated by that. It's just noise.

Post count is more than enough to tell if this is a person who's been around for a while.

You all know that this is nothing personal, you all deserve it. It's the idea I'm against. Me, I post far too infrequently to remotely qualify, so this has nothing to do with "who gets it and who doesn't". Just want to be clear about that.