Senseless dribble - make it stop!

[Guest]

Maybe it's just me, but lately it seems that a lot of people are finding
their way onto the MS Office forums with questions that have nothing to do
with MS Office. Every day I see a question posted like "How do I break the
protection on this program?" or "How do I get the latest Star Wars videogame
patch?" or "My webcam isn't working!" or "This post changed my life!" or "My
wife wants me to go to marriage counseling." Honestly, it's getting annoying.

So hey, why not do something about it?

I think there are a few things could be done to prevent users from posting
in the incorrect forum.

1) Warnings etc. When you open up the window to type up a post, you could
have a message up top in big red text: WARNING - This is a Microsoft Access
forum. If your question/comment is unreleated to Microsoft Access, please
find a more appropriate forum to post in... lest we smite you and flame you
into oblivion... dunno. That might keep a few people out, but as Einstein
said, only two things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity.

2) Content checking. It would be relatively easy to add some sort of
content check before a post is actually posted. For instance, if a post
doesn't contain at least one word from a list of words (eg., Access,
database, table, form, visual basic, etc.), then the post won't go through.
Drop posts that don't meet a minimum word count. Also, if a post does
contain at least one word from a list of words (eg., key generator, keygen,
any degree of unnecessary shouting like "HELP" or "PLEASE HELP ME" or
"OMGWTFBBQ" etc.) If any post doesn't meet post standards, it could be...
"error handled".

3) Flame wars. Well, maybe one-sided flame wars. But we posters could
always take matters into our own hands and very unprofessionally belittle and
harrass people who post in the wrong forum.

4) Manual filtering. Why not give certain MVPs the ability to delete
threads, or at least send requests to have threads deleted? Or hell, why not
add an option for anyone to flag a thread as un-related? Then let Microsoft
determine whether or not a thread should be removed.

5) Whack. You could always ban a user from the forums if they continuously
mis-post or what not. I mean, if someone asks 20 questions about dinner
recipies in the Word Mail Merge forum, someone should definitely put a stop
to that.

Well, I could go on venting for a while, but hell, I think we could all
agree on how to deal with them in the mean time:

DO NOT PROVIDE AN ANSWER OR SOLUTION FOR A MIS-POSTED QUESTION/REQUEST.

Sorry for the shouting. That about sums it up. Feel free to tell them that
they're in the wrong forum or whatever, but if you give them an answer,
they'll just come back.

Happy Chrismukkahkawanza!

Nick

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[Phillip Windell]

1) Warnings etc. When you open up the window to type up a post, you could
have a message up top in big red text: WARNING - This is a Microsoft Access
forum. If your question/comment is unreleated to Microsoft Access, please
find a more appropriate forum to post in... lest we smite you and flame you
into oblivion... dunno. That might keep a few people out, but as Einstein
said, only two things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity.

Well, the universe might not be,..so that leaves,....

4) Manual filtering. Why not give certain MVPs the ability to delete
threads, or at least send requests to have threads deleted? Or hell, why not
add an option for anyone to flag a thread as un-related? Then let Microsoft
determine whether or not a thread should be removed.

MVPs aren't employed by MS and don't "run" the groups nor have access to the
management of the News Servers,...even if they did,...not everyone is using
MS's Newservers.

5) Whack. You could always ban a user from the forums if they continuously
mis-post or what not. I mean, if someone asks 20 questions about dinner
recipies in the Word Mail Merge forum, someone should definitely put a stop
to that.

Only MS themselves could do that (#5) or #4. Then there is still the issue
of people posting via other news servers (like the ones provided by their
ISP).

DO NOT PROVIDE AN ANSWER OR SOLUTION FOR A MIS-POSTED QUESTION/REQUEST.

I like that one. It is probably to most "doable" of all of those.

--
Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com
-----------------------------------------------------
Understanding the ISA 2004 Access Rule Processing
http://www.isaserver.org/articles/ISA2004_AccessRules.html

Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server: Guidance
http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/techinfo/Guidance/2004.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/techinfo/Guidance/2000.asp

Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server: Partners
http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/partners/default.asp

Deployment Guidelines for ISA Server 2004 Enterprise Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/isa/2004/deploy/dgisaserver.mspx
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[Guest]

Oh come now, its not THAT bad - yet. There is a certain amount of manual
filtering already associated with this site. If you don't want to read a post
- don't read it. Most of the time we can all tell when a post is NOT where it
is supposed to be just by looking at the subject line. If it looks too inane
I just pass it by and get to something meatier.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, but I do not agree. If I know the answer to the question then I'm
likely to provide it, along with a note that they posted to the wrong
newsgroup. I cannot say that I have seen too many repeat offenders, who
continue to post to MPA with non-Access related questions, once they've been
told.


Tom

http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/expert_contributors.html
http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/search.html
__________________________________________

:

DO NOT PROVIDE AN ANSWER OR SOLUTION FOR A MIS-POSTED QUESTION/REQUEST.

I like that one. It is probably to most "doable" of all of those.

 

[Kyle]

I've only been reading this forum for about a month since I was hired
on a contract to revise an Access database, and I read it using Google,
but I've found it pretty easy to scan past the threads that have no
bearing on Access, particularly the ones that are the newsgroup
equivalent of spam ("come see my website!" and "this is a cool deal!"
sort of stuff).

And, not to promote the next Big Empire, but I've subscribed to daily
digests from Google via my Gmail account, and I'll tell you it
simplifies life IMMENSELY to scan through the threads in one clean shot
each morning before I dive into the database.

For those who are posting in the wrong forum, chances are they don't
know what "Microsoft Access" means, so having someone direct them to a
better place to post seems the most cordial/civil. I know when I was a
n00b I would have appreciated that.