Attention

TechWiz777

There are many questions that are not being answered on this website in general. Please, people who are better at programming help others that are not so that we can be one community of programmers. Thank you.

amnon

I do enjoy these kind of meta-questions once in a while, so let me respond... ;-)

What do you think all of the helpful people on these and previous forums have been doing for years and years? The previous forum had stats available on this and I believe over 85% of questions were answered, which is actually an extremely high percentage! I don't think the current forum has such a statistic available, but I believe the percentage is probably very similar. While perhaps well-intended, your message lacks any kind of analysis.

There is usually a reason why questions are not answered and the most common reason is that the question involves specific libraries and/or hardware thus severely narrowing down the number of people that can potentially help.

On a more general note, over the years I believe the general skill level has dropped (although my perception may be slightly skewed by my own increasing skill level). I have a feeling when you look especially at the earliest forum, people usually knew what they were doing and really asked for help about challenges, often asking for pointers to very concrete problems. Of course many of the questions of today are still like that. But in more recent years, there has also been an influx of people who ask the kind of basic questions that could also be learned through some autodidactic investment (read one of the processing books, look at the tutorials, look at the hundreds of examples that come with processing, search the thousands of questions already answered in all the processing forums, see openprocessing.org, etc.) instead of expecting the forum to guide you step-by-step. Also, whereas in earlier forums most people were givers and takers, currently you have an increasing group of takers (who never give) versus a relatively smaller group of givers. So of course these things affect the dynamic of the forum as well.

Actually on this forum even when the question asked is severely lacking, people are usually still helped! And by lacking I mean things like: question is vague/general, asking the forum to do the work for you, not posting a runnable code example, not separating the actual problem from the non-essentials, not providing relevant info like error messages, etc.

Also, what you must never forget is that this is not a helpdesk. This is a forum where people help as they please (in their own free time, despite having busy lives and work etc.). Nobody is entitled to get help and nobody is required to provide help.

Finally, of course a plea for more people to help each other, I can only support. Indeed, if people help each other out more, it builds a stronger community. In fact, I have always found the Processing community with all the resources it has (as mentioned above) to be one of the greatest assets of Processing! :)

koogs

techwiz has been registered 2 whole days and is already criticising.

he has asked 3 questions. one of which is answered. one of which has 21 comments (in 5 hours) and the other of which is a repeat of the one with 21 comments. and then there's this one.

sorry techwiz, but that makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.

KevinWorkman

There are many questions that are not being answered on this website in general. Please, people who are better at programming help others that are not so that we can be one community of programmers. Thank you.

This is extremely rude.

The people answering questions here are volunteers. They aren't being paid. They're here, answering questions, for free, in their spare time, because they want to help other people learn how to program.

We get dozens of questions here every day, and we try to answer as many of them as possible. But it's almost impossible to answer general "How do I do this" type questions other than by pointing you to google or the basic tutorials. Part of programming is trying stuff out and experimenting, and you aren't going to get very far if you come crying to a forum every time you don't know how to do something.

It's much easier to answer specific technical questions like "I tried X, expected Y, but got Z instead". This shows us that you've thought about the problem, did the research, and tried something out. If you post an MCVE showing what you've done, we can copy and paste it into our own PDE and play with it ourselves.

So we can either answer 5 questions from people who took the time to ask a specific question and post an MCVE, or we can spend all of that time trying to answer vague questions that don't supply any actual information. Since we're doing this for free in our spare time, we have to go the route that answers more questions, so sometimes vague questions are ignored.

If you don't want to expend the effort to do the bare minimum of researching, putting together a specific technical question and and MCVE, then don't complain that other people aren't putting in enough effort doing your work for you.- especially since all of your questions have been answered!

Edit: I actually just read your post here: http://forum.processing.org/two/discussion/6923/how-to-make-a-button-and-a-score-keeper-#Item_22

Are you kidding me? Your behavior is pretty unacceptable. You've spammed other people's posts, which is extremely rude: instead of answering questions, the moderators (who are not employees, but volunteers) here have to waste their time cleaning up your spam now. The original posters of the threads you spammed now have to sort through your posts instead of getting an answer to their questions. You then demand somebody do your work for you, but you refuse to post your code, let alone an MCVE. You then become extremely rude to the people who are trying to help you and don't respond to any of their suggestions other than to beg them to do your work for you.

This is not how programming works. This is not how technical forums work. This is not how basic human interaction works. Please read this link before you post again: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TechWiz777

I'm sorry about that. But are you all volunteers? It is kind of creepy that you guys know everything about me. Anyways, this is not criticism, this is a notice. There are about 956 unanswered questions. This website has helped me! I'm not speaking about me. I mean for some people, their questions have not been answered. I am not good at programming. Which is obviously why I'm here. I just commented on this website how I liked the rate of people answering and how they were not sarcastic. And now I'm being told off for criticizing a good website. This is horrible.

KevinWorkman

Everybody here is a volunteer. Processing itself is a free open-source language, so I don't think it has any "employees" per se. Even the people who develop the language are volunteers who don't get paid.

There are plenty of reasons why you see "956 unanswered questions":

• Not every question is valid. If somebody posts "how do I make Angry Birds", we can't really answer that other than to point them to some basic resources.

• Not every question that has an answer has been marked as answered. In fact, very few are.

• Not every post here is a question- some are discussions, etc.

Can you give us some examples of valid unanswered questions? Keep in mind that we're not being paid to answer anything, the developers of the language haven't been paid to create it, and everything you've been provided has been FREE.

You're being "told off" because your tone is extremely rude, and it's directed at volunteers who are doing this because they want to help people, not employees of some service that you've paid for. What help have you given people? Hint: the best way you can help us is by providing an MCVE with your question instead of complaining that people aren't doing your work for you.

TechWiz777

Now I'm rude. A single suggestion and I'm called rude? Well you can delete my account because my right to speak has been violated. You get to say how rude I am but you don't notice how ride you are being to me. If you have the right to speak, so do I!

KevinWorkman

Yes, you are being rude. I am being rude back, because most of the moderators here are too nice to tell you that you're being rude, even though you are.

Your "right to speak" has absolutely not been violated. You have a right to speak. I have a right to reply.

Please try to understand that everybody on this forum is an unpaid volunteer participating from their own homes in their spare time. You seem to think that we are somehow employees of Processing, which isn't the case. You have no reason to speak to us the way you have been.

I've given you several suggestions (ask specific technical questions, provide an MCVE) on how to improve our ability to help you, which you seem to be ignoring. I've explained to you why there are unanswered questions here, which you seem to be ignoring. You want everybody to drop what they're doing to help you, yet you won't acknowledge any of the replies you've received other than to complain about them. You have a very entitled attitude and seem unwilling to understand what you're being told. That's why I'm calling you rude. Prove me wrong by changing your attitude and asking questions in a more polite way.

TechWiz777

Okay okay I get it now. I'm selfish. I'm sorry. Happy, I know you are too busy but all I wanted to say was that others need their questions answered. The first question I asked got a great response and I wanted everyone to enjoy the feeling of getting their question answered. If you believe I'm selfish and I'm rude, and I only think of myself, I am sorry to hear that. I do not believe I'm am rude. I just want to help. The real TechWiz has not even used this account. I have been playing me and the "real" him. He asked me for help on this project, and I have now ruined his reputation using his name and email. Please do not let my mistakes direct negative emotions towards him. I am sorry about all this. If you could give him one chance. I won't use his account anymore. Once he figured what I was saying he got mad and told me to publicly apologize. Again I'm very sorry.

TechWiz777

Hello, this is the REAL TechWiz, from California. I'm sorry about my cousin causing such an uproar. I asked him to do some research for me about a project for school. I think he over exaggerated when he said it was due tomorrow. He is a pretty sensitive person and he takes everything the wrong way. He thinks you are insulting him. I explained that he was being a little rude, and that he shouldn't be selfish. I hope we can restart so you can get the actual impression if the real me. I've learned from this experience to never let your cousin who does not understand English that well to conduct your account. My computer does not have internet but his does. That is why I called him up in the first place. Again I'm so, so, sorry about the inconvenience.

Sincerely, TechWiz.

KevinWorkman

I don't really know what you're talking about, and it's not like I'm going to write your name down in a list of "bad people" somewhere. You complained in a rude way. I replied to that rudeness. You asked questions in a rude way. I gave you options on how to improve how you asked your questions.

If you're more polite in the future and ask specific technical questions and post an MCVE instead of expecting volunteers to do your work for you (and then rudely complaining when they don't), you'll be fine.

You keep acting like the majority of questions on this site are being ignored (and even if they were, what do you want us to do, volunteer harder?), when I've outlined why that is simply not true. If you're going to criticize the forum, at least respond to the explanations against that criticism.

TechWiz777

Oh, by the way, if you are wondering how am I communicating, that is because I'm at my cousins house. (Also that is how I figured out he was causing all this trouble).

KevinWorkman

I am so tempted ...

Glad I'm not the only one. I'd also bet 5 dollars that this "cousin" is a clever way to backpedal without taking any heat...

quark

Well you can delete my account because my right to speak has been violated

I am so tempted ...

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I deleted the original soon after I posted it. Since KevinWorkman refers to it I have reposted it here

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I won't take you up on the bet because I don't believe in the cousin either, as you say it is a simple ruse to avoid criticism.

TechWiz777

I could understand why you wouldn't understand. It does sound unlikely.

TechWiz777

I believe I have taken a lot of criticism, but if you believe it's not enough, I can't find any say to prove it, so I don't know what to do.

asimes

I believe I have taken a lot of criticism

You're cousin has taken a lot of criticism apparently, just change your password and don't give it to them if they exist

TechWiz777

Well it is my account. So you have criticized what you believed was me. Anyways I have already changed my password and told of my cousin.

TechWiz777

It is sad you do not believe me. I'm not a bad person, really! My cousin is alive and so am I. He exists, I exist, we all exist. I can tell I need a lot of work fixing my reputation on this website.

PhiLho

Back on topic (I have only glanced at most replies here).

As said, some questions are too vague, too poorly formulated, to be answered.
Some people ask a question and never go back to see the answer (or, sometime, months later).
The Processing field is vast, no one can answer, probably, every question: I answer lot of questions, but I am mostly incompetent about Arduino, Kinect, Android, for example. And know very little about the video capture (no camera), Minim (haven't played much with it), and a number of other libraries.
This applies to most members. Somebody asking a specialized question can only hope this question will be spotted by somebody competent in this field, with time to answer it.

Note there are around 6000 topics in this forum, most of them being questions. Having 16 % of them not answered isn't so bad. Look at these unanswered questions: most of them are related to a specific hardware or library.

TechWiz777

Thank you, but my cousin posted this. I already knew that, this website is doing such a good job. He posted this because he expected an answer earlier and thought it was refused to be given to him.

PhiLho

Well, the topic isn't a bad one, as we can explain ourselves (the regular contributers to this forum) about this issue.

The problem with the initial message is the assumption, indeed, that we deliberately omit to answer some questions. Which is false. Even if we see that the poster just ask to solve an assignment for him, we try to guide him, without giving a ready-made solution.

If a question remains unanswered for a few minutes / hours, it can be because of availability of people around the world (time zones, work, you know...).
If it remains unanswered for days or months, it can be because it is not answerable, or because nobody having read the question is able to give a good answer.

Ater

Just wanted to say, I'm not so long here on this forum, but I got lots of information simply by browsing topics. There are lots of almost identical questions that have been answered and people never say something like "Stop asking that again" and I appreciate this, on the other hand I believe it is vital to try your best to find the answer by yourself and only if you are really stuck ask something here (google helps). Also it is strange to expect the complete solution from the community, If goal is to learn programming, some guidance and a useful link may be much more valuable than code written by someone of the members and than just copy-pasted without full understanding what is behind it. Obvious things, but I think it is right topic to say "Thanks" to everybody, cause some members are very active and comment on tons of topics every single day.

TechWiz777

You should put that in the volunteer thank you day discussion.