What to do when your stumped trying to help someone?

[earobinson]

I try to help people and most times I do fine. Sometimes I come up with all the ideas I can and I still cant help the person. This leaves me fealing like a jack *** because now they have 10 or so posts in the thread so it is a lot less likley that some one will click on that thread who has an answer. Sometimes I will pm some one who I know has the answer but bothering people the whole time is not a good idea.

So what should I do when im out of ideas?

[Leif]

I think what would be useful is if threads could have a "resolved" property that can be set by anyone. that way we could search for unresolved threads. kind of like a bug report.

[xequence]

Unanswered threads really bug me too :/

[amohanty]

In my experience a lot has to do with:
1. a noob's inability to understand how-tos on the web or even on the forums
2. sometimes their unfamiliarity gets in the way of using the instructions in the said materials properly.
3. Bad problem statement, title etc.

Of course sometimes I am also wrong in my approach, or there are multiple ways to solve the problem and I only know of one or a few.

In that case (when I have the time) I hunt for the answers and help them out, in the process learning things myself. If that doesnt resolve the problem, I advise them to repost providing them some pointers as to how to title the post, what to include in it, etc.

[earobinson]

I think what would be useful is if threads could have a "resolved" property that can be set by anyone. that way we could search for unresolved threads. kind of like a bug report.
This would be a good thing and if people started to do that it would be great. But my question is what to do now. In some ways It would be nice if long time users had a section that they could post in for posts they have been stumed on. Users that could be trusted not to makes posts pointing to there own problems.

Or a list of users that dident mind getting pm's so I wouldent feal so bad bothering the same 3 people over and over.

So what do you do when you are unable to help someone?

[aysiu]

I think what would be useful is if threads could have a "resolved" property that can be set by anyone. that way we could search for unresolved threads. kind of like a bug report. I don't think it should be able to be set by anyone. It would have to be set by one of three groups:

1. The original post-er
2. A moderator
3. A team of users committed to labeling solved threads

[earobinson]

or whenever you post you can mark the thread as solved or unsolved.

That way posts would go like this
1. OP posts question
2. I respond making as solved
3. OP points out that that did not work
4. I respond asking for aditional info leaving marked as unsolved
5. OP posts more info
6. I dont know what to do So I respond saying so leaving marked as unsolve
7. Smarter users posts answer marking as solved
8. Op says thanks leave thread marked as solved
9. Cool user searches the forums for his problem finds this thread trys everything and still cant fix the problem so instead of makeing a new thread he posts to this thread makring it as unsolved *s/he gets extra points for searching*
10. Smarter users posts answer marking as solved
11. Cool user says thanks leave post marked as solved

However this would take more codeing and probaly wont happen any time soon. Im mostly intrested in a soultion for the time being

[aysiu]

When I was a moderator, I would never mark a thread as solved until the original post-er said something like, "Thanks. That worked."

[earobinson]

I dont see a problem in marking the thread as solved using the method i sugested since as soon as the OP comes back they can unmark it. I think if everyone can mark and unmark threads it would be best.

But As I said before all of these soultions would require exta programing to the forums, Im intrested if some one has a soultion that requires less / no programing

EDIT: not trying to be rude, but the admins do a lot of work as is, If you think you could add this feature to the forums contact them, (Im not sure how that would work but I doubt they would say no to an extra programer with an extra feature)

EDIT2: The best short term soultion I can think of would be the formation of a pro team that select users (users that help a lot) could pm when stuck

[earobinson]

Ill make this a repost cuz its coming up again. So anyone mind if once in a while i send them a post im stupmed on? like this one

Hi, have u found the thread about "blackscreen"?

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=102547

[Swab]

Can't we have some sort of tier 2 escalation? Would be good is regular users could move posts that have them stumped to a "stumped" board... we could even award points for solving unsolved issues.. get some competition going.

[earobinson]

would be nice to see a stumped board.

well unless that happens I am going to go on the record sayting I dont mind being contacted (http://earobinson.blogspot.com/2005/11/contact-information.html) please email only no forum PM about threads that have stumped you AS LONG AS IT IS NOT A THREAD YOU STARTED.

[teaker1s]

I think that a lot of howto's fail to be copied into the wilki and it would be better if they were as it stops the same questions having to be repeatedly answered

[earobinson]

lol only stops for users that search

[teaker1s]

true, but wilki is bare in some areas-take common problems that's recent to wilki

[amohanty]

Maybe a jump page, which is shown everytime somebody clicks on "New Thread" until they are like 100% Ubuntu, that goes something like:

Have you searched the forums and wiki?? If not please go:
1. ....
2. ....

[earobinson]

that would be a good feature, however it dose not solve the problem of when I respond to a user and fail to answer his problem

[mips]

I would not worry about it to much if I was you. the bottom line is you tried your best and in my book that is enough. Hopefully someone else comes along and adds something.

Not everyone uses the search facility and not everyone comes back to say whether it worked or not. Rating a post also seems to be a rare thing.

When you run out of all options the answers is "42" ;)

[earobinson]

lol. but what is the question?

The posts I am talking about the user has posted that the problem still exists and I am out of ideas to fix it, there are 10+ posts in the tread so it is unlikley that someone else will click it.

I guess what Im looking for is the formation of a pro team that people can contact. If they are not the OP and have ran out of ideas to help a user.

Trust me I dont lose any sleep over this, but there is nothing wrong with looking for a better soultion.

[amohanty]

Then the stumped board (as suggested by Swab) would be a good place to move the post to, maybe a feature/button that on being clicked notifies the mods that a request to move a post to the "Stumped" area has been made.

[Leif]

So what do you do when you are unable to help someone?

I'm afraid not much really. I post a reply saying it's out of my league, and hope that someone else picks it up. there have been several suggestions on how to address this problem in this thread, and they all seem workable. perhaps it's time to get in touch with someone who can actually implement them and let them choose the most feasible option ?

[mips]

lol. Told you someone else might come around and solve the problem...

Granted, does not always happen though.

[ubuntu_demon]

I don't think it should be able to be set by anyone. It would have to be set by one of three groups:

1. The original post-er
2. A moderator
3. A team of users committed to labeling solved threads

A team of users committed to labeling solved threads sound like a really good idea!

[earobinson]

Why Is a team better than anyone being able to do it (marked solved / unsolved)?

[ubuntu_demon]

Why Is a team better than anyone being able to do it (marked solved / unsolved)?
Because that way there's less chance that an unsolved thread will get marked solved.

[Swab]

Because that way there's less chance that an unsolved thread will get marked solved.

Yeah but it could also be setup so that anyone could set it back to unsolved... we can trust people enough not to mess about right?

[earobinson]

Because that way there's less chance that an unsolved thread will get marked solved.
I said this before (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=567805&postcount=7)but I will try to say It again.

If whenever a user posted s/he could mark the thread as solved or unsolved It would not be a problem. Since if the thread got marked incorectly the OP would come back post saying that the soultion didnt work, then remark as unsolved.

Also If a user searched and found a solved thread but all the soultions did not work s/he could post to that thread and mark it unsolved

EDIT: hope im not comming across as a pain in the ***, Im just failing to see the advantage of onle few users being able to mark threads.

[aysiu]

I fail to see the advantage of:

mark
unmark
mark
unmark
mark
unmark
mark
unmark

as opposed to just:
unmarked...
marked

[earobinson]

I fail to see the advantage of:

mark
unmark
mark
unmark
mark
unmark
mark
unmark

as opposed to just:
unmarked...
marked
The advantage is that no team is needed to maintain this. No extra man power is needed.

[Leif]

whether it's a team marking things, or anybody, for a lot of problems someone will have to make the decision about whether something really is fixed or not. obviously, it would be best if the user (original poster) did this, so we either remind people of this each time we answer a question, or it could be put as a reminder at the top of the "post new thread" page.

the team vs anyone thing is tricky. let's be honest, going thread-hunting just to mark them as fixed will be a thankless job, so a large-ish team would be nice for this. if anyone can mark it, this might save some effort, but might also annoy the users if people immediately mark things as fixed after answering. perhaps we also need to implement a 24 (or 48 or whatever) waiting period before anyone other than the user can mark a thread as fixed to avoid this.

[earobinson]

the team vs anyone thing is tricky. let's be honest, going thread-hunting just to mark them as fixed will be a thankless job, so a large-ish team would be nice for this. if anyone can mark it, this might save some effort, but might also annoy the users if people immediately mark things as fixed after answering. perhaps we also need to implement a 24 (or 48 or whatever) waiting period before anyone other than the user can mark a thread as fixed to avoid this.

You would be suprised the work that the admins do and they hardly get the props they need only threads like this saying that It could be better

However this is why I say that anyone mark It as you reply to a thread. 70% of the threads I reply to I know that my answer Will solve the problem, and It dose solve the problem. That way when I hit reply I would click the "Mark as solved thread" Simple as that no extra work required. If I did not solve the problem the OP or any other user that comes accross the thread can unsolve it. Then I will quickly find it and provide another answer"

I think Im just reapeating myself however I feal strongly that this is the way to do this. but I think its time for me to opt out of this convo and leave it in the hands of the admins.

[ubuntu_demon]

A small team wouldn't work because it's boring/thankless work. But IMHO a big marking team (at least 10 people but probably a lot more) could be very efficient.

[aysiu]

70% of the threads I reply to I know that my answer Will solve the problem, and It dose solve the problem. That way when I hit reply I would click the "Mark as solved thread" Simple as that no extra work required. If I did not solve the problem the OP or any other user that comes accross the thread can unsolve it. Yeah, but that creates extra work. Why not just wait until the original post-er says something like, "Yay! It finally worked. Thanks so much!" instead of just assuming that since your answer will solve the problem that did, in fact, solve the problem.

I know that when someone says, "How do I add extra repositories?" that my answer "see the first link in my sig" can or will solve the problem theoretically, but until I see a reply from the OP saying, "Great. It's up and running" or something like that, I don't assume it's solved.

Oftentimes, you give an answer you know will solve the problem, but the problem isn't really solved for any number of reasons:

1. The original post-er can't follow directions, so you have to keep clarifying exactly what should be done, even though the original instructions were clear.

2. There are weird circumstances the OP didn't explain in the first post preventing your solution from actually working.

3. For some strange reason, the "solution" works just fine for you, but it doesn't for the OP (different architectures, different version of Ubuntu, whatever).

You have to get some kind of confirmation from the original post-er that it is, in fact, solved before you start marking it as solved; otherwise, not only does it create more work, but it may cause potential help to be turned away during the time it's marked as solved when it's not really solved.

For example, if a thread is marked as follows:

Sunday 15:25 Unsolved
Sunday 15:26 Solved
Sunday 16:10 Unsolved
Sunday 16:30 Solved
Monday 07:15 Unsolved

you can see how any number of potential support people could have overlooked the thread between 16:30 on Sunday and 7:15 on Monday just because someone thought on Sunday afternoon "Well, my response clearly will solve the problem" before the original post-er can respond on Monday morning, "No, it didn't work."

[amohanty]

How about an auto-notification to OP after 48-72 hours of inactivity asking for closure (oh how I hate that word!)...

[earobinson]

How about an auto-notification to OP after 48-72 hours of inactivity asking for closure (oh how I hate that word!)...
Ok I know I said I was done with this thread but this is a very bad idea *no offence intended* but basicly if a user searches the theads finds some one with the same problem but the original soultion dont work that user has to start a new thread instead of just posting to the end of that post (keeping all the soultions in one answer) and IMO this is behavior we want to encourage.

[amohanty]

if a user searches the theads finds some one with the same problem

None taken, but don't you think you are relying on a behaviour pattern among newbies that in my experience does not occur very frequently inspite of numerous stickies (not only on this forum but others too).

AM

[earobinson]

None taken, but don't you think you are relying on a behaviour pattern among newbies that in my experience does not occur very frequently inspite of numerous stickies (not only on this forum but others too).

AM
Nothing wrong with doing everything we can to encourage that behaviour.