LGPL is screwing up the community

[lyuts]

Well, I do not completely agree with this. I understand that this becomes annoying. But...

1) Many people are doing their first steps in the world of Qt (and sometimes C++ too). They need some guidance and support.
2) Helping people is a good thing.
3 ) You don't have to help them.

P.S. This post is addressed to everybody who is here. Lykurg, don't take this as a personal offense or something like this. I understand you, your position and what you feel. I respect you and all other people on this forum who treat others as their partners/friend/colleagues/etc.

Maybe there is a way to set some rules on posts?

[Lykurg]

Hi,

1) Many people are doing their first steps in the world of Qt (and sometimes C++ too). They need some guidance and support.

That's fine. I am willingly help them... in a normal way. To be not misunderstood: I have nothing against newbie-questions. How could I? In the beginning I ask myself a many "stupid" questions. I help them really gladly to do their first steps in Qt/C++. But for example:

User: How to set every second char bold in a QLabel?
Me: Subclass QLabel::setText() and do there the conversion using QString::at()...
User: SHOW ME THE CODE!

User: How to set every second char bold in a QLabel?
Me: Subclass QLabel::setText() and do there the conversion using QString::at()...
User: SHOW ME THE CODE!

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Huh, what. Ok, if he does not know what subclassing means, then please he could ask (or google). And make his own attempts and then ask again if he struggles. Best would be he shows his code how far he gets. That would be a perfect pedagogical procedure...

2) Helping people is a good thing.

Yeah!

3 ) You don't have to help them.

Of course, but the thing is: If I read lots of the above mentioned posts I get "angry" and I stop to read the normal post, which I would likely help under normal circumstances. That is sad. And that is what I am talking about.

So you could say I am not patient enough. And yes, you are right. A personal weakness of mine. It was just too much the last day, so I wanted to know, if only me see the things that way. (And of course the description is in some way overdrawn...)

P.S. This post is addressed to everybody who is here. Lykurg, don't take this as a personal offense or something like this.

Don't worry, I am very uncomplicated in this affair

Maybe there is a way to set some rules on posts?

Don't know who has said this short time ago, but: If you don't get the people to use the [ CODE ] tags...

[lyuts]

Yep, you are right. The case you have described annoys me too. Now I start thinking that there is no way to solve this problem.

Don't worry, I am very uncomplicated in this affair

Thanks.

[spirit]

Of course, but the thing is: If I read lots of the above mentioned posts I get "angry" and I stop to read the normal post, which I would likely help under normal circumstances. That is sad. And that is what I am talking about.

So you could say I am not patient enough. And yes, you are right. A personal weakness of mine. It was just too much the last day, so I wanted to know, if only me see the things that way. (And of course the description is in some way overdrawn...)

I totally agree with you!

[ComaWhite]

Yeah I get what you guys mean. I know I'm still a fair n00bie myself. But I rarely ask for someone to show me code on here. How else do I learn if everyone else does the work for me? But have you noticed it's mostly the majority of Windows users are the one's asking them?

[wysota]

Oh great, a Let's-Complain-A-Bit-About-Our-Fate thread! I wanted to start one myself...

But - maybe I am wrong - it occurs the last time very often that you can read phrases like:

• "Why do you need soooo long to answer my questions" which means: come on, hurry up, do my job!
• "Please can you provide a sample code" (form the thread starter) which means: I am too lazy to look up the docs and make my brain work for me. You have to do this work for me...

I couldn't agree more

Things like these I realized quite often after Qt was released under the LGPL. Why? Because now Qt is "(cost) free" everyone is using Qt without knowing anything C++ etc? Well Nokia is surely glad, that more developer uses Qt, but can it be really glad if some sort of "bullshit" programs now using Qt? Isn't that bad for the reputation?

I'm not worried about "bullshit progams", that's fine - people will learn eventually or will leave to another playground. What I'm worried is that the average level of "knowledge per developer" has dropped significantly and so has the level of questions asked here and the amount of time one answer-giver can spend on a single question. I admit I'm not able to read every thread right now like I used to before.

If that's all wrong, go on tell me, I can handle it, but the motivation helping others here currently shrinks - till I make my peace with the world. Then it surely will increase.

Maybe for you the motivation is shrinking but on the other hand people who had been afraid to answer more complicated questions can now try their skills with simpler questions. On the other hand because of the first point you mentioned these simple questions need to be answered quickly so they can't wait too long. We're still needed

1) Many people are doing their first steps in the world of Qt (and sometimes C++ too). They need some guidance and support.

This is a good point. But there is also this nice sentence: "Save yourself pain, learn C++ before starting with Qt". Sometimes people do the opposite - they start with Qt and think they don't need any C++ skills. Most problems now are strictly C++ related.

3 ) You don't have to help them.

Someone has... and a number of people answering threads has decreased lately while the numbers of questions has increased.

Maybe there is a way to set some rules on posts?

Setting rules is not a problem. Enforcing them is. We're warning people if they post code without proper bbcode tags but it doesn't help. I don't think setting more strict rules will.

I've been thinking about creating a "C++/Qt skill test" that every new member of the forum could take. Without passing, he couldn't post in forums other than "Newbie". But I think this would make many people turn away from the board. If you have any ideas, feel free to express them.

@Lykurg: if you are tired of answering such posts, I can arrange for more challenging tasks for you if you are interested. You would still be helping people without having to deal with the issues you mentioned. If you are interested, drop me a private message. The same offer is open for everybody else.

[Lykurg]

I've been thinking about creating a "C++/Qt skill test" that every new member of the forum could take. Without passing, he couldn't post in forums other than "Newbie". But I think this would make many people turn away from the board. If you have any ideas, feel free to express them.

I've thought myself a lot about possibilities to "force" users using the tags or just to read the articles which were pointed to them. But always it ends in the conclusion: it wont work. Even some kind of yellow and red cords like in soccer with sanctions for an ignoring or disrespectful tread aren't a solution because you can just create a new account.

But in my geniality I guess of following, even if it is not trivial (= in short time) to realize:

Situation: User "BaDuSeR" has not used the CODE-tags.

You answer the question normally and set a new flag "BaDuSeR has not used CODE tags".

Then every expect BaDuSeR can read the thread normally. For BaDuSeR a sentence like "To see the answer < a > read this < /a >." If he click a layer is placed over the thread an a short description how to use the CODE tags is displayed with a check box "I have read it". Afterwards he can normally read the answer. (Note: I meant "I have read it" not "I have understand it". Why? Because we don't want constrain someone to lie)

Open questions:

• Should everyone be able to set these flags?
• It's a lot of work to generate the articles (CODE, QTCLASS, How to write a good question...) and of course to implement these functionality
• Is it effective?

[spirit]

sounds cool.

[wysota]

I've thought myself a lot about possibilities to "force" users using the tags or just to read the articles which were pointed to them. But always it ends in the conclusion: it wont work. Even some kind of yellow and red cords like in soccer with sanctions for an ignoring or disrespectful tread aren't a solution because you can just create a new account.

True but we're not the tax office but a community forum. We can't enforce too strict rules. We did that with the contests and I'm not sure it was a good idea. Internet is about freedom, not rules.

But in my geniality I guess of following, even if it is not trivial (= in short time) to realize:

Idea worth thinking of. But who is going to implement it?

We have a bunch of features we still didn't enable like the whole system of awarding points of reputation. But enabling them and having a negative reputation with all the penalties for it won't prevent people from creating new accounts.

I think that instead of enforcing rules we should educate users more. And we should moderate some of the posts but this requires man power and it's hard to get it recently.

[Lykurg]

We have a bunch of features we still didn't enable like the whole system of awarding points of reputation. But enabling them and having a negative reputation with all the penalties for it won't prevent people from creating new accounts.

I am not a true friend of awarding points of reputation. It's link the "thanks" button. Sometimes you help an user with 5 or more very helpfully and excellent answers regarding to one issue and you got no thanks, whereas you get thanks for imprecise and very easy answers. So this variety is problematic. The thanks counter is a nice and helpful (but also weak) indicator, with which you can score the skill of a user, but another counter like this - I think - we don't need.

I think that instead of enforcing rules we should educate users more. And we should moderate some of the posts but this requires man power and it's hard to get it recently.

I agree that it shouldn't be like domineer over the users by setting strict rules. And yes, the Internet is free, but as we all know: A community needs rules to work fine. Without rules there is chaos. And therefore it's the best way to educate the users to follow these (unwritten) rules instead of forcing them. But unfortunately the slogan sapere aude! (for our special case better: legere aude!) from the enlightenment is getting forgotten and you have to pressure the users to read the docs etc.

Your suggestion to moderate some of the posts will lead to the situation - very pessimistic - that we only get worse questions and beside of answering we also need to take care that they are questioned the right way...

So a kind of modification to my suggestion:

If one realize a bad formatted or badly asked question, we need a button to indicate this thread as "bad". Then in front of the thread a simple div is displayed saying: "this post is badly designed etc. please read this and correct it. thanks." With nothing else happened. If the user has corrected the post, he can click a "verify again" and if all looks o.k. the div is removed. If not the div will be still displayed...

But who is going to implement it?

What a superfluous question: YOU!
No seriously, since I have some skills in PHP & MySQL (<- suppose this is the uses DB) I would help with implement such a new function if we decide to do so.

[wysota]

So a kind of modification to my suggestion:

If one realize a bad formatted or badly asked question, we need a button to indicate this thread as "bad". Then in front of the thread a simple div is displayed saying: "this post is badly designed etc. please read this and correct it. thanks." With nothing else happened. If the user has corrected the post, he can click a "verify again" and if all looks o.k. the div is removed. If not the div will be still displayed...

What I was thinking about (and it should be easy to implement) is a quick live validator in javascript that would work before a post is submitted. It would popup a warning box if the post is in possible violation of the rules - like it contains a block of text that looks like a C++ code that is not inside [code] tags. I'm against placing such tags automatically but we could annoy people a bit so that in some of the cases they provide the tags. The same goes with trash-talk which used to be a problem some time ago.


I think we finally managed to get rid of spam, so that's at least a small victory.

As for getting rid of silly problems, we should extend the FAQ section and the wiki and make them stand out more so that people look there before asking. This needs man-power too, unfortunately.

What a superfluous question: YOU!

Well... not going to happen. At least not within the upcoming few months. Remember we're not getting paid to do this and we still have our jobs and other responsibilities. I can't devote as much free time to QtCentre as I used to. This goes the same for other admins.

No seriously, since I have some skills in PHP & MySQL (<- suppose this is the uses DB) I would help with implement such a new function if we decide to do so.

This would have to be implemented in vBulletin as a plugin for it. Unfortunately this is a bit more complicated than just using php and mysql (although their knowledge is a necessity).


I have created a task in our issue tracker related to the problem described here. It might be better to move the discussion there:
http://www.qtcentre.org/forum/project.php?issueid=10

[fullmetalcoder]

Whoa... You got me reassured.

I mean, I haven't been able to visit answer questions that often recently because 1) exam time has come and it is both intense and long 2) I got bored of the long list of questions to which the best answer that came to me was "go read the docs".

I thought it was just me getting old and grumpy but apparently it's not (at least not only ) that. So this is good news for me but unfortunately not for the board.

I wish I could help but I probably won't be able to do so before a while due to exams. Besides PHP-fu is not that great. However if some parsing theory is involved (like recognizing C++ code as mentioned above) I may be able to give a hand.

if you are tired of answering such posts, I can arrange for more challenging tasks for you if you are interested. You would still be helping people without having to deal with the issues you mentioned. If you are interested, drop me a private message. The same offer is open for everybody else.

Hmm. You got me interested. Too bad I don't have much spare time at the moment. If the offer is still valid in a couple of monthes you are likely to hear from me though.

[wysota]

However if some parsing theory is involved (like recognizing C++ code as mentioned above) I may be able to give a hand.

I think regular expressions or even a catch-phrase list will be enough.

Hmm. You got me interested. Too bad I don't have much spare time at the moment. If the offer is still valid in a couple of monthes you are likely to hear from me though.

I'm sure it will although it's not something that requires a fixed amount of time so you can start whenever you want and continue whenever you want.

[Lykurg]

Well... not going to happen. At least not within the upcoming few months. Remember we're not getting paid to do this and we still have our jobs and other responsibilities. I can't devote as much free time to QtCentre as I used to. This goes the same for other admins.

Have feared such a response... But my comment wasn't meant strictly seriously.
If there is any work to do you can delegate I will do my best.

[wysota]

Have feared such a response... But my comment wasn't meant strictly seriously.

I know but I'm taking every chance to share my misery with the world. Maybe someone will hear me and offer a helping hand

[Boron]

People don't change. That has been mentioned before. They cannot be "forced" to behave as we expect.
But they can "learn".

From my experiences as moderator in a German computer forum with about 85.000 active members (>= 1 post in the last six months I think) the only way is to teach the members.
What we have is well over 20 moderators and three administrators. No single "sub forum" is without moderation.
We have strict rules and are doing the best we can to enforce them. Well... not really to "enforce" them but to tell people what is wrong with the posts.
The forum software has a built in system to give warnings or simple advices if a moderator decides that a post is against our rules. If the number of warnings excesses a threshold the member is banned for some days to rethink his behaviour or the way he posts.
Many members are reporting posts who are not fitting our rules.

Over the last four years we have seen an increase of "quality" in the posts of members who initially were posting crap (many members are still not able to post in a acceptable way of course).

We are also getting a lot of negative criticism for our strict rules. But we can proudly say to have one of the best forums in Germany concerning the behaviour of members and concerning the quality of posts.

So if a forum (as QtCentre) reaches a certain size, there is no way around good moderation.
Addons for vBulletin software are available to warn members.
Members have to be told how they shall post. Improving some of the members is worth the effort.