Does anyone ever look past the first few days

H

Henry Jones

I have been reading the posts here and it seems like the same questions are
asked over and over and over. Doesn't anyone search the list. Currently
as I look at the total number of messages in the group (27,337) there should
be answers to about 70% + questions. In reality, there should only be about
3-4 thousand questions.


Lets say someone has a response to a question from two weeks ago, would
anyone see the response without scrolling down?
 
G

Guest

Henry,

Very interesting observation? apparently, since self-pronouns are important
for too many people, especially men, of which I am, much easier for just
making a New Post, rather than perform personal research. And then, sometimes
a New Post is made for identifying awareness within the Forum.
 
M

Michael Jennings

It is a characteristic of the non-esoteric microsoft newsgroups that the
same questions are asked and answered over and over and over again.
Which is easier - to search and find, or to just ask for the answer?
Polish up your crystal ball and paste some answers - try being an expert.
Due to its hostility towards idiocy this is not a good group for a beginner,
but there are lots of others - why not find one and give it a whirl?
 
C

Chad Harris

No they wouldn't. I posted a couple months ago that 90+% of the questions
here can be answered using the Help search box in Vista or the Help web site
search box at

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/default.mspx

The reason for the number is that the same people won't use search here. We
have a lazy planet and I live in a very lazy country. How else could a
delusional moron be spending billions of dollars while getting thousands of
people killed per month and continuing to help make sure little girls
waiting for a van are blown up like they were this morning?

http://www.juancole.com/
Breaking 60 Dead, 110 Wounded in University Bombing

Guerrillas used a car bomb and a suicide bomber to kill 60 persons, wounding
110 more, at the entrance to the Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, ,
according to Reuters. The article quotes a university official saying that
most of the casualties were female students returning home.

You're dealing with a population where nearly every kid was left behind. Now
they can turn on a computer and many of them occupy adult bodies.

CH
 
C

Colin Barnhorst

Related to that are the endless questions about where to get a driver for
such-and-such a device. The obvious answer (and usually the only possible
one) is to visit the manufacturer's website. And then there are the folks
who have just bought a new, high-end box and just have to show off about it
by asking "Will my new quad-core box with the dual SLI video cards with 1GB
of video ram run Vista OK?" I just hate that kind of bragging.
 
A

Alias

Henry said:
I have been reading the posts here and it seems like the same questions are
asked over and over and over. Doesn't anyone search the list. Currently
as I look at the total number of messages in the group (27,337) there should
be answers to about 70% + questions. In reality, there should only be about
3-4 thousand questions.


Lets say someone has a response to a question from two weeks ago, would
anyone see the response without scrolling down?

You haven't seen anything yet. Wait until Vista is released to the
general public ...

Alias
 
S

Scott

Henry Jones spake thusly on 1/16/2007 2:38 PM:
I have been reading the posts here and it seems like the same questions are
asked over and over and over. Doesn't anyone search the list. Currently
as I look at the total number of messages in the group (27,337) there should
be answers to about 70% + questions. In reality, there should only be about
3-4 thousand questions.


Lets say someone has a response to a question from two weeks ago, would
anyone see the response without scrolling down?

Compared to other newsgroups (and not necessarily techie ones) this
place is utterly backasswards.

Yours is but one example.
 
S

Steve Cochran

This is extremely typical of the MS newsgroups. Users don't think to look
first and ask later. Its not something that will get fixed unfortunately,
so many of us answer the questions over and over again.

steve
 
M

Mark-Allen [160825]

Henry,

I agree with your observation, and have noticed it for years.

However, since I use Windows Mail now and previously, Outlook Express, I can
place a lot of the blame on the application's Search function.

It hasn't changed for years and is still infantile in usability. Outside of
searching for only one word at a time, you'll spend more time searching than
finding relevance.

Just my lost 2 centimes.

--
Mark-Allen Perry
160825 / 1112165
Windows Vista X64 Ultimate
RTM Build 6000.16386
ALPHA Systems
Marly, Switzerland
mark-allen @ mvps . org
 
A

Alias

Mark-Allen said:
Henry,

I agree with your observation, and have noticed it for years.

However, since I use Windows Mail now and previously, Outlook Express, I
can place a lot of the blame on the application's Search function.

It hasn't changed for years and is still infantile in usability.
Outside of searching for only one word at a time, you'll spend more time
searching than finding relevance.

Just my lost 2 centimes.

Hence the need for Google to search newsgroups. Or, get a real
newsreader like Thunderbird at www.mozilla.com/thunderbird that has a
lot more search options.

Alias
 
S

Steve Cochran

You can have a 1000 search options and people will still not use them.
People even start messages with "I know this has been asked before . . . ."

There is a fundamental laziness to people that will not be overcome with any
number of search engines.

And they did add the "search wheel" to WinMail in Vista, which is something
although not near as nice as it could be.

steve
 
M

Michael Cecil

There is a fundamental laziness to people that will not be overcome with any
number of search engines.

It's not laziness - many people want to ask their questions and
communicate with other people, not just research some archived data. They
want direct responses to *their* questions and need personal reassurance.
If you don't want to answer the same-old, same-old questions, don't.
Big woop.
 
A

AJR

The number of daily posts aggravates the problem of "tracing" back. - in
addition many (most) of the post subject titles are not adequate in
assisting search functions.
 
M

MICHAEL

Michael Cecil said:
It's not laziness - many people want to ask their questions and
communicate with other people, not just research some archived data. They
want direct responses to *their* questions and need personal reassurance.
If you don't want to answer the same-old, same-old questions, don't.
Big woop.

Steve has spent years answering many questions over and over and over
again. He does so in way that is helpful and without being condescending.

I also believe Steve is more than likely correct, more than you, that
many folks are just plain lazy. They'd rather have someone else do
the work for them, instead of doing it themselves. It is quite indicative
of the general mentality many folks have today.


-Michael
 
O

Opinicus

Henry Jones said:
I have been reading the posts here and it seems like the same questions are
asked over and over and over. Doesn't anyone search the list. Currently

Seems like someone asks *that* question about once a week or so...
 

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