Just an observation

[amykhar]

Often, somebody posts a new hack and several people jump right on the hack thread saying how wonderful it is - BEFORE they even install the hack.

Then, sometimes the bugs start showing up and we have a first page of "Wow, this hack is great!" and subsequent pages of "This sucks. It doesn't work."

Later, people go to the hack thread and see the first page of "Awesome!" and try to install it and end up with nothing but problems. Then, they post, without reading the thread for possible fixes, about their problems. This bumps up the thread and somebody else sees the hack at the top of the heap, sees the "Awesome, wonderful!" comments on the first page, and the whole cycle repeats for a while.

So, my comment is this. It might be best to WAIT and comment on the hack AFTER you have installed it. The concept of the hack may be cool, but if it doesn't work, your "Awesome" comment has just caused problems for some newbie. It is also better to WAIT and install the hack AFTER you have read the support thread, or at least skimmed it, all the way through.

The same thing happens when Jelsoft releases an update. Somebody pounces on the announcement conversation thread with "Great! Congrats! I got the first post! Yay me!" and then later we see, "Uh, the upgrade isn't working." Why comment just to see yourself post? Save the comments for when you know that the released code works.

Amy

[ericgtr]

Exellent points, I completely agree.

[Oblivion Knight]

This is pretty much common sense, I've done it since I first joined here..

Occasionally I'll post my thanks, and also note that I'll test it later - but more often than not I'll install it first.

[noppid]

But I love having my broken code praised! :\

Yep agreed, to an extent. Positive and negetive comments are both equally decieving though.

I suggest reading the hack threads backwards to get a good feel. I never ever start at the beginning to form an opinion.

(Did I mention I have an opinion?)

[Blam Forumz]

100% Agreed

[Rose]

Very good words. Hopefully more and more people will take it to heart and we'll see a reduction in such unwarranted replies.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Maybe split the thread after an update is made, splitting all replies to a new thread, that will eventually die, and start with a freash thread with the hack.

[Blam Forumz]

But then the feedback (Bugs / problems etc) would be in a different thread and everything would be mroe complicated and harder to organise, especially if its a big hack like VBA or uStore or the Arcade or something

[Erwin]

Oftentimes when I release a hack, it works on my forums, but it doesn't work on others because my forums have custom code. So it does take a couple of releases to fix these "bugs". So before people get too excited, give the hack author a chance to tidy up his hack.

[Andreas]

@Erwin
That's why I (at least I try to) test my hacks on vanilla installations before releasing them