What qualifies as ''good support'' and ''helpful''?
 

I have seen a lot of threads, here and at vb.com, where users complain and moan that the vb supports sucks, people are not helpful anymore like they used to be etc etc. Personally, I am very surprised at the selfishness of such persons. The staff here and at vb.com are very helpful, patient and try their best to help everyone to the best of their abilities under the circumstances. Seeing the great amount of the support threads being asked.

But most users don''t make things easier. I mean, have a look around, a lot of the questions asked are about basic things that don''t need coding knowledge. Things that can be found very easily at the Acp or through the search system.

For ex, questions like, does this mod exist? Or where can I find this in the acp etc etc of this kind. And when they receive no answer they bump their posts against the rules with something like, What no one can help, sounding very shocked. And when someone points them politely towards the search thing they react irritated like oh how unhelful people are now and how the support sucks and nonsense like this. If they did the homework and searched they would have saved themselves and all those that provide support a lot of time, rather that waiting around for others to the work for them and when that doesn''t happen, moan and complain.

Some other people don''t even bother to give out details as to what they need help with. For ex, I have seen some threads with questions like How can I do this, or I have a problem with that, how to fix it? But what this and that are, god knows. We are not mind readers or mediums here to read minds :D

Other folks after they get what they need, they don''t bother with a follow up post to let us know that they got their problems fixed, god forbid to say a thank you :D But if the solution doesn''t work they are quick to bump their threads like there is no tomorrow.

So in short, it is not the support here that sucks, but the way the support is asked. Is anyone else bothered by this fact or it is just me? I would really appreciate if all of you guys and gals expressed your thoughts on this subject.


In my humble opinion, the best way to go about asking for support would be like the following:

1) Do a search before you ask for support. i.e. Search the forum to see if your question has been asked and replied already. I have seen a lot of threads here with questions about basic things that can be found in the acp and/or their answers can be found easily with a search. Doing that you will save yourselves and those that provide support a lot of valuable time.

2) If you didn''t find the answer to your problems in the forums, then try to ask your questions the smart way. Starting by giving a describing meaningful subject title. Try to avoid using dramatic words like help me, urgent, how to do this or that, and so on.

Try to describe your problem in as much details as possible. Provide the url to your forum with a test account or a screenshot.

Don''t bump your threads until 24 hours have passed as per the rules. You should also note that the number of support threads here is big and the staff can''t be everywhere at the same time. So wait patiently until you are helped. Be polite, thank the person who helped you.

I agree with this. I have a sticky on vB.com regarding the 3.8.5 hash stuff, yet people couldn't be bothered to go and even read it and end up making dud threads.

Indeed. There is no point in making stickie threads anymore as no one bothers to read them.

It's like the purpose of stickies on any forum are redundant. I have a few stickies on my forum myself, yet they are never read.

Remeber, bots are still there to read them :D

Well am done with helping or even trying to help anymore on here

The people asking for help dont appreciate anything anymore

ahh i miss the good old-days

Can''t say I blame you after reading the exchange you had with that user this afternoon. Some people are like that, very selfish and un appreciative of the persons who tryt o help them. What can you do?

Yeah, I miss those times too (even though I wasn't here, I looked through the history of posts made).

We post the solution 5 times and they ignore the posts.

To the original poster...

I do try and search before posting but there are limits to the search that make it unpractical to use at times- such as searching for a common term that is used all over, or searching for a 2 letter word or phrase which isn't allowed... need help on an "if' statement? Can't search for it...

As to the threads here that go unanswered, you know it does bother me and I don't know why it should but it does... when I do search for something I inevitably find many threads where the question (or some other question) was asked and no one ever replied... and I'm sure someone knew the answer, hell half the time I know the answer but the thread is a year old... anyway this happens all the time. A question is posted, I know for sure someone here would know the answer to but for whatever reason it never get answered... reading the BTT's brings a tear to my eye- a question lost to the ether... what did these people do to deserve to be ignored? I guess I'll never know... but I do know even if someone doesn't know the answer it's better to reply and say that then nothing at all... even if all you say is "I read your question but really can't help you" is better than nothing and really anyone halfway knowledgeable in vB can probably at least point someone in the right direction.

And of course complaining that people BTT against the rules is ridiculous because people can't BTT because of the merge post mod.

I see a thread like this at least once a year longing for the good old days.

and in a few years time, these will be the "good old days". ;)

I dont agree with you here
if i posted the "I read your question but really can't help you" you would be surprised how many people would bash into you for the lame reply's


God help us all than :erm:

If people would do that would be extremly annoying. If you don''t know the answer to something, it is much better not say anything at all, than posting rubbish. Like at this thread for example, the second post.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245449

P.s. Just out of curiousity, how it was in the good old days? I have read several old posts/threads here and I didn''t see any difference with now.

I'll grant you I wouldn't rush to post "I don't Know!" in every post I don't know the answer but if it's been 3 days and someone has bumped it each day then a quick note saying I've taken the time to read your request but honestly can't help you from 1 person is nicer IMO then just letting the poor guy talk to himself.

LOL

Well ive been here 2-3 years only
it was awesome back than everyone helped everyone
support was great
people where nice "nicer"

it was a community imo now its

how do i do this thanks cya till next time etc...

hi how do i do this
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ANY EXPERTS HERE!!!!!!!!!
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people posting in the wrong section "because they cant be ar**d to read the forum names"

sure there was this back than, But i dont think it was so many

Also i did tons and tons of reading when i started people dont even do that now...

lol but....:( The sad thing is Paul is speaking the truth.

No reply should not stop progress of finding an answer. Expand your search using google, bing, yahoo, and others across the web. You may find other people across other websites with the same Q&A. You may have to translate other languages to your native language to get the answer you need.

On a volunteer based support site (like this one), I prefer no answer to an "I don't know" comment. If paying for support (per incident or on retainer) a timely answer is the best practice.

I have also seen self answered questions by the person making the request assist other people with their problems as well. They find the answer and return to post an answer to their own question.

Zachariah looool I once needed something which nobody could fix for me, searching for days everywhere I found the answer in a Jap site (I used Japanese search words lool) anyway, no translator could translate the solution for me cause apparently it wasn't really Jap Language, it was something like a slang or a street lang (unofficial language).

I had to fake a myspace account (Hot Chick with Hot Photo :P) and added like 13 Jap guys, made one of them my best friend & made him translate that page for me :D

That, I can't forget :P

There is so much win in that I am in awe.:up:

Hahaha thats ace you made my day with that comment ;)

It was exactly the same in 2004, and back then people were whining, "Where is Chen? I miss Firefly. Blah blah blah."

The only thing that was different is that there was no plugin system so people had a tiny bit more incentive to learn more PHP/MySQL/vBulletin, but still not much more.

My experience was a lot different than yours. Back in the day everybody was extremely supportive when I needed it. Still are, to a certain degree.

Both here and when vBulletinTemplates was still around (I miss that site :().

All I can say is there are some here who are "Above" their intelligence and what I mean by that is... they are just flat our rude people who know vBulletin and much more and who do not deserve the brain they have. So it goes both ways we have other intelligent human beings who see and ignore issues OR simply give vague and condescending remarks assuming or simply not caring that regular, non-coders or non-designers should be required to know the basics... that's not the case with anything and a major lesson to learn in life i.e. patience and actually working with someone. Now on the other hand you have those like AnimeMike said up above, all they do is ask ask ask and take take take. I do support my mods although may not check them daily so if someone needs support all they need to do is quite being timid and PM me - some coders do not like that so it's hard to define exactly what good support or simply being helpful is as that applies to the person doing just that, either being helpful or offering full support.

What I can say is rude is rude, no way around that and if more of the ones who actually know something around here would man (or woman) UP we could have a better community and I'm not directing that towards the admins in the least, I think many of you have in mind how this site should be ran not taking into account how it is actually ran which is pretty straight forward and to the point... the only community that actually allows the members to reply to issues where trust is a major factor but we waste it away day after day with some of these silly posts and arguing amongst ourselves.

I do think one thing should change... this one simple thing would go a long way... when you find an answer to something you have posted about, an issue let you were having etc.. if you find the solution.. don't come back and edit out the entire post OR simply post.. I found the fix/answer/solution... WHAT WAS IT???!!!! Someone in the future will Google or hunt down that thread/post based on search results or keywords and the answer they need is simply not there only a vague.. "I found my fix xxxx, good luck hehehe" because that's what I see and take those type of post as all the time and it's a waste of space imo and time on the posters end.

Just my 2 cents, as I always say "as always, this was all imo".

You are right about that but the thing is that most users don''t bother at all to do their homework but expect the others to do it for them. They post their question and come back several days later and say something like "what, 2 days and no answers"? Or not to mention some that bump their threads after several hours. As if they expect everyone to drop everything and be at their beck and call 24/7. It just doesn''t work like that. Because the questions that they are asking have been asked and answered before like a zillion times. All they have to do is stop complaining and use a little the search button instead. And if you point this out to them, then suddenly you are the bad guy. Go and figure :D

When I first came to vbulletin, I had like a zillion questions myself as well, but I didn''t ask a single one. Instead I spent hours and hours searching until I found the things I needed.
All I am saying is that one should start to help himself/herself first and then ask others for help.

Completly agree with this as well.

I agree with searching but the search in this site leaves a lot to be desired, I've searched for words and phrases and gotten zero results when I know there are at least a dozen threads with those words in the title- and I eventually find them anyway.

Maybe they h=should add a "search with google" option it would probably work a lot better.