TinyPortal

First, let me say I prefer SMF / TP ...

Second, I have paid for and received many quality themes here.

Third, I am seeing something that is bringing me to a point that upsets me.

I came here a very long time ago looking for a quality system to create and modify a home page and forum for our group of gamers. I am not a super code person but in the few times I have asked for help I mostly have been helped. It seems of late that the sarcasm level has grown to amazing proportions. I always look for answers using search before ever asking for help. What I have been seeing as of late is when a new user comes in asking for help they are met with responses like "use the search button" , "That question has been answered many times" ; and that gives me a bad feeling. I am sure those questions have been answered many times. If responses need to be made then they should be handled by providing links, words of encouragement, or a genuine answer. I know everyone is busy but what has kept me here is the help and support of fellow TP users. When you come here you don't expect some sarcastic answer to your question and by all accounts, I suspect many users have already used the search feature. We are not all coders and have issues understanding certain things. What has happened to the friendly TP community that I have come to know and love? Those that are providing help ... Thank You!

Same thing we have told those that are new to our game servers... "We were all noobs once" ... Sometimes we beginners, no matter how hard we try, cannot solve our issues. Sometimes a link to a relevant topic is all thats needed. Not insults or sarcasm.

I for one appreciate everything that everyone has helped me with here as I am sure many others are also. Lets remember the TP "roots" and try to show users why they should be here and not why they should just remove themselves....  ??? 

Noob or no noobs, we have built on both the script and the site here for a long time now.
When you first come to a site with no knowlage or a hunger to know, the first place to start would be to help your self by using the search or just read the docs.
All the info we have on how to work things are posted more then 20 times (even more ) on some things, i simply dont know how much you want us to give you.
If you decide to use a free software, it's your call, if you want to change some thingm it's your call, we are here to help yea, we are here to give you the best answers we can, but if the answers are posted in the forum, our docsection several times, do you really thing us asking you to use the search is rude ?
We dont run your forums, we are not webmasters of them eather, we provide info, and that is just what we do, and have done for as long as this site have been online.
Im sorry to inform you that we will not serve everything to you on silverplates, you as webmasters have to help your self with the info we have given you, I cant se any reason to keep posting answers to the same questions all over the forum every day. The time we have on this site is limited, so is it rude that we go through the posts and give the support we can with this time to the questions not asked before ? We can only do as much we can with the time we have, and if some one comes in with a question on any issue we havent seen or heard of before, i can assure you that ALL mods do what they can to solve the issue for that member. If the questions have the answers in the forum time and time again, theres no reson what so ever for us to take the time writing the answers again and again when a simple search and common sense from the member will solve their issues.
An other thing, SMF and TP is growing really fast, this site have twice as many members and users online then last year at the same time. Every thing grows, and with that the support grows, and like any other big forum support, the answers will be short and the selfhelp will be more of a way to solve your issues.

When you can write a post like this telling us we are bad at our support now, maybe you can give us some good examples on how we can be better in our support ? How can we get our new members to use the search and read the documentation that holds the answers to 95% of the questions asked every single day ?   How can we get our new members to follow our posting guides ? How can we get our new members to read the info and most of all, how can we teach our new members what we support and whatnot ?
If you have a solution for that, we are more then glad to read all about it.

I see both sides as being very true and agree with both.

Some of the answers are a little bit too sarcastic and seem a little rude, on the other hand I also see the same questions asked over and over again and it is only natural for a human being to answer like that when it seems like a never-ending saga.

I personally think the support board would be much better off if the only way a person can start a topic in it is to use a form via an article, once a support form has posted then anyone can reply to help.

By making it mandatory to start the topic via an article, you can lay out the article so it takes them through the various steps to help themselves, then if that does not answer it for them they have the option to start a topic via the article.

Then all the lazy people who try to just post in the help section get denied because they need to use the article to start a topic.

From memory you should be able to set permissions to do that. And a form that bypasses the initial post permission to start a topic.

Now there's a great idea if I ever saw one  :D *Pat's own back*

Edit: made my awesome idea more visable by making it bold and underlined

that might be possible.. maybe in the long run Hairy, good thinking  ;)

If we used up our time to repeatedly answer topics like 'Need Help' etc where the poster hasn't bothered to follow simple posting guidelines, doesn't include the basic information about versions etc and/or very clearly hasn't used the search, it would be unfair to the members who have searched, have included the information needed and really do need assistance from the support team.

nokonium,
What you say is succinct and true, but that still does not give the support people an excuse to be rude and sarcastic. "You cannot wash your dirty hands in someone else's dirty water and expect them to come out clean", or in other words, 2 wrongs do not a right make.
Like Drifter, I too have noticed this trend and have only been a visitor for a little over a year.
My suggestion to the support people is that instead of reacting inappropriately when

Quoteposter hasn't bothered to follow simple posting guidelines

, bow out, retire. You will be missed, remembered but unfortunately, probably replaced with barely a ripple.

i can understand both sides of the situation. 

bloc and any other free software authors have devoted their time in making a really nice piece of work, and he could have not shared it with everybody and use it himself but he shared it with everyone.  that alone, is much to thank for!    now comes support..  to ask for support without even bothering to do a search is way too much.  support here is free and this support people devotes their time and effort in answering questions, i guess all they ask back is for people to do a simple search first before asking a question.  having said that, this problem is not only present here in TP.  this is a common problem in almost ALL free software like SMF and especially linux flavors like ubuntu.  the support on those forums are also community driven and every support person's signature carries a "do a search first blah blah.." sentence.  i think this is more of a users problem not support..

and actually eventhough im new in TP and SMF and don't know a thing about php, i personally don't feel offended with those posts..  and i know where they are coming from.. 

We do actively discuss from time to time in the Team Boards, our methods and attitudes when offering support. You may have also noticed a large increase in the number of people using TinyPortal and with that comes an increase in Support Queries. Answering the same questions time and time and time and time again when there are Stickies, Documentation and Search, it does become a little tiresome. I personally try to be polite, and for the most part, I am. I am human, and I do at times become a little Snappy.

If I know an answer is there amongst all the information here, then I will be telling you to Search, or Read the Docs. The other option is to not answer some of these questions, then with that comes the bumping of posts, then the poster gets told off for bumping their post.

It is not our intention to upset or be rude to people, at the same time, it’s not our job to Search for you, or offer Support outside of TinyPortal.
Also you may have noticed that some of our Code Team Members are a little thin on the ground lately, without delving into personal issues, one has not been very well, another is tied up with work commitments and so on.
Some of the others are very busy debugging TP 1.0

All of which is free and time given.

G6, I address you first because you posted first. I understand that things don't need to be given on a silver platter or directly answered to every post. My statement was and is that is seems over time there has become some frustration.

If a user asks a question, 2 forum posts or 1500, sometimes a user just can't see that one thing that is going to fix the issue.I read some responses these days and get taken aback by the sheer sarcasm of the response.

I am not questioning the efforts of anyone here. I am only addressing what I see regarding the tone of responses. I am not complaining either. I remember when I first came here and as I said, I have had help here and appreciate it. I looked at a few responses here and had I been a new person I would have been very dismayed by the "attitude" that I perceive lately.

I know the TP team puts in hard work, tries their best to help, and over all does a fantastic job. G6 you know me and I have always been open in my rants and discussions. I am not making this a personal attack toward anyone; just the number of what I feel are harsh responses. I understand the issue with the same questions being asked over and over. Not sure there is a quick fix. Typically for my own issues I search and try to find a resolution to my issue. If I can't find an answer here I will look over on SMF if it appears to be a forum issue. Most times I get it but every now an again I get hung up on some minute detail that I just can't fix. Then I come here and ask. 

QuoteWhen you can write a post like this telling us we are bad at our support now, maybe you can give us some good examples on how we can be better in our support ?

I am not saying the support is bad. Just saying that some responses seem harsh these days... What is a good balance? I don't have the answer. All I pointed out is a trend that I seem to be noticing. It could be frustration, language translation, bad day, or any other reason.

Is the possibility of a board or some other option say like a bug tracker so to speak where certain questions might be placed or moved to be addressed at a later time? So instead of the *bump, *bump idea it could be viewed later and addressed when support has time? Maybe in progress, under review, solved, insufficient information provided, etc... ?

I am part of this community and as I see it I felt obligated to speak my mind on an issue I see. It is not directed toward anyone directly. I think most regular users here want to see this community grow and we all appreciate all the hard work put in by those in all facets of creation, support, and modification of TP.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone as that is not my intent. It was to voice an opinion over something I feel was out of sorts for the way things were when I came here in the beginning.

Glad to see the dialog contributed. TP is still the best, just seems to be a bit of tension here these days. Hope some use can be made of this post in the future.

@ [cbl]Drifter

Thanks you for your feedback. I do not think you are attacking anyone, or saying we offer bad support.

What I read is that you are saying we starting to lean towards a more negative attitude in our support.

Nough said about that.

I would like to say, as ZTN did, that we "often" discuss our methods among other team members. Sometimes and team member may ask other team members: "did I handle this correctly".

We are always striving to improve, but we are not perfect.

The area I feel that could use alot of support, is the documentation. I have a theory that, if it is setup right, and written well, it will help more than a search. As I find myself frustrated with the search often.

Currently, I believe there is about 20-35 Doc's for TP .98. However for TP 1.0 there are already over 100. From simple questions, to more complex ones. I have tackled the documention head on to try and direction our members towards support in a more positive way.

Instead of "please search for THIS", how about "read this doc about THIS". If the doc doesn't help the user solve the problem, then the topic should continue. I believe this will save time for everyone, easing support and frustration that comes along with it.

Although, it is only a theory...

What do you think?

I have used search, read documentation, searched MANY other websites and tried to fix my problem ON MY OWN. It took me 4 days of trying to find a solution elsewhere before I posted here... for exactly the reason that the first poster of this topic mentioned. Most of the more recent answers are rude and assume that we are illiterate idiots because we dared ask for help.

EDIT:: It should be noted that not all of the nasty responses were from staff - and not all staff answers were rude. I also haven't read every single answer on every single board... this is just from what I have read over the last few days.

I know what it is like to post the same answers over and over again. I know what it is like to have people request help using so much chat speak that the normal English speaking person feels the need to hire an interpreter. I know how frustrating it can be day after day after day.

But I have to agree with what was said in this thread before... if you can't at least answer a message politely - even if it is to tell the person that if they use the Search form that they will find the answer themselves - then you need to step down. Support is no good when people are scared to ask for it because they don't want the sarcasm that comes with the answer.

However, (speaking from experience here) I would rather have a sarcastic answer than none at all.

FYI: I personally don't mind some constructive criticism, as long as if doesn't attack a specific person, or cause anyone to get all defensive.

All I ask is to always try and offer solution along with the problem. If people just start talking and complaining about problems, without offering a solution, then it can result in disciplinary action or locking of a topic.

I am not saying anyone here is doing this. I am just stating where I draw the line, and hope it isn't crossed. I would rather continue working on a solution...

@ Michelle

Ok, more professional approach at answering questions then? Even if it is the same answer over an over and over?

Your suggestion to move topics and stuff is way over the top. We have limited staff, with limited time, and limited resources. But I'll tell you what I've proposed we do. Instead of telling people to use the search for questions we know have been answered, or having to ask the same questions that would have been answered if people followed the guidelines, we simply will not reply... at all. People will start to wonder why they don't get support. This will save us from taking our frustration out on the user, and will probably make the user think about why they aren't getting any response. I'll be making a post about this over the next week or so and make a sticky in the support boards where everyone can read. Then when people start to bump their posts or ask why they aren't getting a response, then perhaps they will know what is expected of them when we post a link to the said sticky I'm talking about. This way, we don't waste our time answering the answered, and we stop with the "sarcasm" as you put it. And the people that actually do follow the guidelines get priority support.

To answer your original question in the topic title "what has happend to TP?"... Its grown, and exponentially at that. This is a well known fact in communities, that when you start out its all nice and friendly, and feels like a very personal experience. But when you go from 300 users to 30,000 users it most certainly will not have the same feel as everyone struggles to keep up. Especially when people don't follow the guidelines, and never use the search. Hence, the recent changes we'll be making in the way support is done here. But of course, after making these changes instead of hearing about how sarcastic you think we are, you'll be saying "what happened to the support at TP that used to be so fast?".... We will never win with everyone. While there are a few that are complaining about the things you have stated, there are far more praising than not.

And of course, X's idea will help when those Docs are released. :)

QuoteBut I have to agree with what was said in this thread before... if you can't at least answer a message politely - even if it is to tell the person that if they use the Search form that they will find the answer themselves - then you need to step down. Support is no good when people are scared to ask for it because they don't want the sarcasm that comes with the answer.

And of course, I will throw this back at you on the flip side. If you come to get help on a product, you should follow the rules and guidelines of a site or not post at all.

Quote from: Xarcell on December 12, 2007, 04:47:53 AM
@ Michelle

Ok, more professional approach at answering questions then? Even if it is the same answer over an over and over?

All it takes is a simple ' Please use the Search form and if you can't find what you need let us know and we will do what we can to help you. ' I write that several times a day in my own forum. It's not painful for me and tends to get a better response than something along the lines of ' Well why are you posting here if you haven't looked for the answer yourself? ' You know... more flies with honey and all that.

Quote from: IchBinâ,,¢ on December 12, 2007, 04:48:11 AM
But I'll tell you what I've proposed we do. Instead of telling people to use the search for questions we know have been answered, or having to ask the same questions that would have been answered if people followed the guidelines, we simply will not reply... at all.

I'm assuming that this is why my topic has been ignored... But I'll tell ya, I have used Search with all the key words I can think of and am not finding the answer, so I really must be stupid and illiterate and deserving of being ignored. Ahh well... Free is free and in most cases you get what you pay for, so I am not out anything except the many hours I have already put into trying to solve the problem myself and the (more than likely) many more I will spend trying to find help somewhere else.

I didn't want to be the first to say it, but we will be following Ichbin's guideline to see how it works out. If a poster can't follow the posting guidelines, then no support will be given.

If we see a topic that says "Need Help!", and inside it says "Tinyportal will not install!".

Then from there we will not say "what version, what were your errors, etc etc"(as we did in the beginning) - to - "please use the search" (what we do now) - to - not answering at all.

As G6 says, our time and staff is limited.

AS IchBin says, giving people that actually do follow the guidelines get priority support.

Ich hit the nail on the head when he talked about the growth of this site. It's hard to keep that "personal" feeling with each other. That's just the way it is.

I can only hope to only leave enough signposts to lead those without help in the right direction.

Quote from: Michelle on December 12, 2007, 05:01:52 AM
I'm assuming that this is why my topic has been ignored... But I'll tell ya, I have used Search with all the key words I can think of and am not finding the answer, so I really must be stupid and illiterate and deserving of being ignored. Ahh well... Free is free and in most cases you get what you pay for, so I am not out anything except the many hours I have already put into trying to solve the problem myself and the (more than likely) many more I will spend trying to find help somewhere else.

You won't find a place that gives better support than here. You just posted your question today. For code questions you often have to wait for the coders. I personally don't know anything about the time function in PHP. The fact that your thinking that your topic is being ignored in such a short amount of time is kind of disturbing though.

As for the "use the search" comment, I can show you more instances where we have asked nicely, than not.

Quote from: IchBinâ,,¢ on December 12, 2007, 05:15:43 AM

As for the "use the search" comment, I can show you more instances where we have asked nicely, than not.

Good point...

very true, ICH and the other thing is, looking back on some of the posts, it makes one wonder if the rules and the tos of the site are even being read..like everyone keeps saying, they want their stuff fixed/working.. these things didnt happen over night, Bloc didnt sprinkle miracle grow on the forum so many people would have issues, it is word of mouth, and apparently if it is being talked about, and people want it, and want it working, there must be something to this.. if anyone thinks im wrong, go to xoops and try getting support to answer a post within a few minuets, or sometimes, days and weeks. i know.  ;)

to everyone here, that is part of staff: thank you. for trying to help and lend time out of your day to make sure that the sites we are building are working or building.

Completely agreed, Smoky! I've never gotten this sort of support, guidance, assistance, etc. from any other technical support forum. NEVER. Not even for money! LOL

While I can see the impatience sometimes displayed, I can also understand it. It's not easy to answer the same questions (or variations of the same questions) over & over again with any measure of patience. And compared to how much effort they put out, I think the staff here -- AND the users too for that matter -- overall are just phenomenal and incredibly patient. Yeah. They have rough days or moments (who doesn't) where they may be less patient than other days or moments. But it's allowed -- they're human. They have a tough job here.

People (that's US! you & me!) are hard to deal with! We don't think before we act or "speak"; we make lots of stupid/silly or "whatever-other-word-you-prefer" mistakes. We get frustrated and impatient when things don't just fall into place or we've spent too much time on something and our brains are no longer really functioning! It's a hard job for them to deal with us! That we EVER come up with answers to our problems is the real miracle here! LOL

IMHO, you can't ask for better. And it's a free product -- what more could you possibly WANT or reasonably expect?

I repeat Smoky's mantra to the staff: thank you!

Lori

I've only been here but a fraction of the time most have.
And have never come across a terrible reply yet...

Im learning about this stuff aswell..  But have always received, and read, valuable  information and patience from staff, and the users within this community..

I think this place is great, and come in every chance I get  :)

Just my buck 40 worth ;)

Very interesting reading, both good and bad thoughts about how things should work in our community.

We as staff could probably give better answers in topics but some times we simply dont see any reason to, especially if the member registerd to the site 3 min ago, have the first post made in the wrong board with a topicdescription that say HELP! ( Yes, infact I DO check when they registerd, case 50% of new members that havent been online for 10 min even can write in their topic that they have searched for hours and days even, when they infact havent been online for 10 min hahahaha. )

When a member register to our site and home here, we expect them to start reading the posting guide we have made up to help US help you, if our new (and old to for that matter) took the 3 min it take to read it, we would have a lot more to go on, and with that we can go through a lot of topics with an exact answer to solve their issues. But members tend to just skip that part and we have to read through a thread with 3 pages of posts just to get to the fact that IE a file is wrongly changed or similar. With the posting guide members can simply give us the information in the first post and we can probably give the asnwer to the issue in the second post, With that comes the search part to, if an answer is places for any issue with in the 3 or 5 post top, we would have half the support done allready from the search function. As it is now when members dont read, and the DO use the search, they have to read through 20 posts before they actually get an answer cause we as staff have to ask question to get answers we should have had in the first post made. That is tiresome for both members and staff, so where should we start ?
To get our members to read the posting guidelines we have to do as IchBin said, simply iggnore the posts that really show the topicstarter didnt read ANYTHING at all, and hope that they get tired of waiting and start reading the content themselfs instead of us asking them questions to get to their issue before we can even start giving the answer to the same.

We simply cant help anyone, and the human mind often works the same, if a member provide enough information in the first post, we both see and feel that they have put some effort in them selfs by reading the posting guides, if they have read them, we can assume they read the other content aswell. With that the feeling from the staff become diffrent, it's fun to help that member out cause we can provide the answer a lot faster with out to much time taken to do so. Offcourse we want to help everyone with issues, but the ones that provide more info from start is a lot more fun to support.

This is the staff of tinyportals home, we are here every day, we have visitors comming in asking questions about how to get a home like ours, we want to help out offcourse cause we want them to have what we have here, but if a visitor comes in to our home (your home) and start telling you how you should use your furniture, how you should act, what chanel you should see on the TV, and then demand you going over to their own home and fix a plumming they cant give you the info on where you have to fix it, i dont think you would be all that happy eather, especially if your time was limited and your children are waiting outside the school and the shops are closing in 6 minutes.   If the visitor to your home told you that it was a pipe in the bathroom on the second floor and a broken seal, you could just take a new seal, and change it in time to still be able to fetch the children, go to the shop and then relax at home.

I have a hard time with members trying to tell us how to run our home, how to act when we have visitors asking for help with something they dont even tell you, and ontop of that they lye through the teeth some times saying that they have read all about your home when they didnt.

We simply do our best, and we do it for the fun of it, not cause we HAVE to do it, offcourse we will reply to the funny and well written issues before we start asking questions to other topics that should allready have  the info wee needed from the start. ;)

It is interesting reading, and one of the reasons I became attached to this community is because I've not often seen such community spirit. I have with another very large site, but not many.
TinyPortal, as already mentioned, has grown even in the time I've been here.

Quote from: Michelle
All it takes is a simple ' Please use the Search form and if you can't find what you need let us know and we will do what we can to help you. '

Where do you get the idea that we don't already do this?

Quote from: Michelle
I'm assuming that this is why my topic has been ignored... But I'll tell ya, I have used Search with all the key words I can think of and am not finding the answer, so I really must be stupid and illiterate and deserving of being ignored.

You are making assumptions about how we view people, when has anybody ever suggested that anyone else, Team or Member, thinks or views anybody else as "really stupid and illiterate"?
Also, find me 1 single topic that has been totally ignored without very good reason, for pure "Stupidity" after 24 hours.. I can find very few.

You may have used the search, but I find it very strange that when a member states "I have used the search, but...", Yet if I search, I can find several topics at least. Therefore, I've just searched for you.

Michelle, with all of 3 posts at the time of writing, jumps on the "Moan About TinyPortal Support, band waggon"..



Moving on... I find it also incredible that you can even get a free piece of excellent software, and have what I consider, excellent free support, and then ask for support on how to change it.
Can I make it do this, can I make it do that.. can you give it wings, please can I have.. can I.. can I..
Most free software and even paid, it is what it is, if you don't like it.. TOUGH!

I think some of you are quite insulting. We put up with rude members too you know, daily.

Somehow IchBinâ,,¢

Quote from: Xarcell on December 12, 2007, 04:45:49 AM
FYI: I personally don't mind some constructive criticism, as long as if doesn't attack a specific person, or cause anyone to get all defensive.

All I ask is to always try and offer solution along with the problem.

I am not saying anyone here is doing this. I am just stating where I draw the line, and hope it isn't crossed. I would rather continue working on a solution...

Solution, there is the key word. This post of mine was not to insult as I have said over and over since my original post.

My statement regarded sarcasm in some responses that I felt portrayed a somewhat different attitude than what I saw the TP community being about. I know that staff is limited and I know that the group of TP users has grown immensely. I am not blind to that fact. Having already said Thank You over and over here for the various issues I have had resolved by the team I will always continue to thank those that put in so much time helping.

There have been some good ideas set forth here too. That is progress. The problems with posting in forums and such is that it is easy to misjudge someones tone in their posts. It seems that it has always been that way no matter where you are.

I support a little of Blocs work by subscribing to the theme shop. It isn't a big amount compared to the effort put in but it's a start. I try to help where I can as do many others here. I am not a code person but I can usually get through with a little help either by search, asking, or browsing the web. I try to give where I can because the community has given me so much. It is good to see such a response. 

And yes TP Staff. Thank You again for all the help you have provided.  Sorry to have brought up such a topic but I thought that if I noticed an issue that maybe I should at least speak about it.