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Something that seems to be happening more often recently, I blame it on the success Spiceworks is having.

I will often see a vague question, where you can guess what the person wants, but can’t be sure.

Today I saw one that was even more vague than I normally find, I decided to have a bit of fun with my “We need more info” comment and thought “What is the single silliest thing this could mean, I’ll post that as an answer and say if it doesn’t work that they we need more info”

This is what happened:

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/534999-font-size?page=1#entry-3520815

I would just like to say sorry, I did not expect that, and I shall adjust my opinions of the abilities of regular users as soon as I find a suitable lobotomist.

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Roll on the best answer!!

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I think its even funnier when you see people who complain that the average user never gives enough info and then they turn around and post here with their questions and do the same thing.

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Well… one of you just got severely burned, but I’m not sure which one…

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/faceplam

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I… wow… That’s like the type of tickets i get where they go “internet stopped working. Fix it”

What’s hilarious is that i think he actually took your advice and called it a day.

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While your complaint is valid and the example you gave is a great one, I would remove the link because it is kind of shaming the new user. That is just me though.

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You’ve only just noticed this? The mods have been discussing this for EONS.

There are a number of things to consider.

  1. You can sign up for Spiceworks with a Facebook or LinkedIn account - this opens the community up to a world of pain

  2. As Spiceworks becomes more popular, it’s hitting the top of Google searches, inviting anyone to sign up.

  3. A lot of the people posting vague questions seem to have English as a second language, so there are issues there.

If someone is an obvious home user, please report their profile/post or let a mod/community manager know and it’ll be looked in to.

I’ll also put £5 on you not getting a best answer as they won’t mark one.

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Good, GOOOOOOD…

Let the snarkie flow through you…

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Pahaha brilliant.

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I just laughed out loud. Thanks!

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  • bwahhhhahah - that is a hoot~
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Are they talking about trying to be more upfront about the “we are for IT pros” message?

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Worst part is that I am about positive you will never see any reward of helpful post/best answer because I am sure that the user just popped on here, asked their question, got an answer, and will never come back again.

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That is awesome.

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Best part is R F will owe me £5 next time I see him :smiley:

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Normally, for something like that, we’d seen them some rendition of this while deleting the topic:

Getting help is tough. You’ve made the right first step in being here in the Spiceworks Community, but unfortunately your question didn’t have enough information in it to get a useful response from our SpiceHeads. Go ahead and repost your question, but provide additional details about what you are trying to accomplish and/or what is occurring. The more information you can give, the more likely other IT pros can help you with their experiences and expertise.

Need help asking a better question? Check out this post from one of our Community members: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/254525-asking-better-questions

Actually, in reading it, I might send more of a “Home User” type response:

Hey there! Looks like you’re trying to ask a question that we in the business refer to as a “home user question.” While the Spiceworks Community is definitely full of the best IT experts the world’s ever seen, we’re here to provide a place for IT pros to ask more advanced questions to each other and get advice and recommendations from their peers in the field.

For assistance with a home computer issue, there are tons of great communities out there that can help you with this, like Quora: http://www.quora.com or Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/ .

If you are an IT professional, no problem! Go ahead and repost your question with additional details about what you are trying to accomplish and the SpiceHeads will be more than happy to help you out.

But to the overall point of the topic, yes, some people do not ask for help with the appropriate level of detail. And as the community is growing, that number of “bad” questions are growing as well. When you see someone who doesn’t have enough information, prod them for more details (but in a nice way). Let them know it’s hard to tell them without a better explanation of what’s going on.

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deserve vague answers.

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Any chance you can do something at the Pimento (or first 5 posts or something) level that, before they post, will provide a link to the ‘how to ask questions’ thread? And also a reminder that this is an IT Pro forum and that if they are a home user they should … ( what you said above)

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I’m just going to start responding to those posts with “Bah-weep-Graaaaagnah wheep ni ni bong”

and then state I need more input.

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