An Observation

[DirtBike]

Firstly let me give a bit of background as to what I do for a living. I am a trouble shooter for a national communications company my function is to support all our technicians out in the field. So basically when they are not able to fix it they contact me and I fix it. I get asked what I feel are very basic questions over and over every day. However what is so basic to me is not that basic to the technician out in the field. So yes I may get tried of being asked the same thing over and over but it is what I am good at and what I do to help those technicians that cannot grasp the technology.

So the same can be said for the coding you code gurus write and are so familiar with. What is so basic for you may not be so basic for those that are doing this as a small hobby maybe trying to get away from the stresses of there daily workload. After all this is a support site and some of the hobbies may want to learn but are not as bright with the coding side as what some of you may be.

So maybe it would be nice if next time one of the members here ask a stupid question in your opinion think before saying things like.

It is about time you started learning this stuff

The same as any other default setup

After all there are no stupid questions but only stupid answers and the effort it takes to reply with an unhelpful answer would most likely be the same as replying with a helpful one

Just a thought

[G6Cad]

You get paid to do that right ?

[DirtBike]

Yes that is true but I do not get paid to help out those on my community that may not have the skills at a task that I may do. My point is this community was created for those that are really into the coding of SMF.

My community is all about like minded people coming together that are into motorbikes and the restoration of them. The software is a means for us to be able to do so.

But as I said it is just a thought 

[Ken.]

DirtBike, while your basic premise is correct it dose not go far enough.

The staff here on TP can't possibly go to each members site to correct any and all problems so if a member has a post count of more than 15-20 here on TP it means they've been around enough so that they really do need to "start learning some of this stuff." SMF and TP both have built-in help files as well as all of the 'online' help and FAQ sources available on each of the two sites.

We are willing to help, but its not wrong to expect members to exert some effort to help themselves by doing a search and reading up a little, or just simply exploring their sites control panel to see whats in there.  

[DirtBike]

Yip well said and I agree however some members are not into this coding stuff like I said and maybe just being a bit more responsive to them may be as easy as giving them a negative answer. Like we on our community cannot go to each and every residence across the globe to help out a member that is struggling with a technical problem on a restoration of an old bike. We can try to understand that he has a passion but may not really be that technically inclined and may need spoon feeding to a point.  :up:

[G6Cad]

Just some more notes on your post.

1. When and IF we say to anyone that "it's about time you learn this", you will never see this in any of our sites support topics regarding support question.
You MIGHT see it here and there as a reply to a member we know we have told several times to read the posting guidlines, or stop hijacking some one elses threads.

2. As Ken say, we are not actually gurus at this, Bloc who is the dev for TP have learned this from scratch on his own, so have most of the staff on this site, we dont do this for a living, but to learn ourselfs and for the fun of it.

3. Also what Ken try to say, we expect a member of this community to atleast know the basics of what they want to use. Common sense about anything in the world you want to do. You need to read the manual. SMF is the base, they need to know and learn the basics before they install a mod ( in this case TP ) We will not sit here and teach them how to use the software they want to use, they have a well written manual and also a forum at their hands with tons of info. Learn that and you will have a lot less questions.

4. When we reply to a topic, we want to see that their first post ever made to this community atleast hold the info we seek. If you are going somewhere to anyone IRL, you dont batch in telling or demanding the people to follow YOUR guidelines in their home. Every household have their own rules and their own throught.
Most people know this and act after that to. Why would this be any diffrent in your home we call tinyportal ?

5. Members that come in and allready 2 min after registration hit the post button with something like. Help me, im stupid, i have searched for weeks or days" for what ever answer they might need.
We all know thats a big lye, and lyers are not acceptable any where. If they were telling us the truth, they would have posted the info we need, they would have known the posting guide after days of search as they are ontop of every page on this site.

6. We in this team, and also from other members have put in years of work to docs, answers in the forum and still day in and day out add more to the info. Commonly asked questions and so on, Still members like you come in and tell us what YOU do for a living, and that your way is far better then ours, still YOU get paid to do it, it's your work. Again, this is for the fun of it, and for the love for SMF and TP. And all this work we do and have done is for free, not a penny paid for several years of work.

7. The tone will never be a happy one if we get batched on, lyed to or stabbed in our backs.
Allthough the tone in here form the team and most of our members are a happy tone if we look at a lot of other communitys.
We do what we can for all members, but we need them to read what we say, theyneed to use the search, they need to read the posts, they need to read the docs on the things they want to use.
Simply put, they need to think and learn before they demanding US to build their sites for them.
If they want US to build their sites and going in and give them personal help, they better open the wallet and pay for it to. And as we dont have paied support, we end up with the allready added docs that really are made as a step by step insctruction for how to use this software. And that is all we ask, and with your post, you more or less tells us that we ask to much.

[Ken.]

Its OK if a site owner is not inclined to learn how to run their own site, but if that is the case then they will need to have someone to run it for them.
In this case they basically have two choices, find a member of their group who is willing to learn to do the work or hire someone to do it. (or use the paid software that are available)

We give free help here on TP, so...

We are willing to help, but its not wrong to expect members to exert some effort to help themselves by doing a search and reading up a little, or just simply exploring their sites control panel to see whats in there.

... think I said that already. 

[DirtBike]

 :up: :up: :up:

[IchBin]

First of all DirtBike, I just went over your total 33 posts. You have been nothing but treated with respect. And in fact, you saying that you was told "It is about time you started learning this stuff" was in fact false, you were told this "You will need to learn to do this kind of coding operation if you are to keep your site well maintained so take your time and work through the process.".

It looks to me like you are just a frustrated user that is taking it out on us. You've been helped here with pretty much everything that you've asked, and in a nice manner as well. Perhaps you should go back and review your own posts and replies that you've received.

[Xarcell]

First of all DirtBike, I just went over your total 33 posts. You have been nothing but treated with respect. And in fact, you saying that you was told "It is about time you started learning this stuff" was in fact false, you were told this "You will need to learn to do this kind of coding operation if you are to keep your site well maintained so take your time and work through the process.".

It looks to me like you are just a frustrated user that is taking it out on us. You've been helped here with pretty much everything that you've asked, and in a nice manner as well. Perhaps you should go back and review your own posts and replies that you've received.

He has a good point.