ATTN: people asking for help getting things working

[grafixmonkey]

(gets out soapbox)

If you're trying to get something working and need help,

           POST SOME RELEVANT DETAILS!  
At very least tell us what you did that didn't work.

Bad Examples:
"I can't get Mame to start.  It won't work.  I've tried fifty times.  My system is a P4 with 8 gigs of memory, a digital camera and scanner, HP printer, and 150 gig hard drive.  Oh yeah, and I'm wearing orange."

"My keyboard hack won't work.  What's wrong?!?!!11!1!!  Here are some scrolling and flashing lines in highlighted red glow-text, marking my frustration."


Reason:
none of the details matter, and you didn't tell us anything about what you're doing that doesn't work, and/or your scrolling glowing flashing text gave us all seisures.


Good Examples:
"My keyboard hack won't work.  Here's a picture of how I soldered it.  The trace with the blue dot next to it is ground, the one with the red dot is 5v.  Anything look wrong?"

"I cant run Mame.  I've tried 50 times.  I'm running it on pure DOS boot  (not the windows dos box) and this is what I'm typing:
c:\
cd\games\mame
mame dkongjr
I have the following roms:  [Mrs. Pac Man, Galaga, Snoop-Dogg's Great Adventure in KirbyLand.]  And they're in the 'snaps' directory in the mame folder.
What's going on?"


Thank you.

(puts soapbox in recycling)

[grafixmonkey]

(incidentally, most people on this group don't need to read this...  just a few.)

[DaveMMR]

Good advice Graffix, but just to add to that, it's also good practice to be as detailed as possible to the problem outside the forum too.

I do tech support at my job and it's astonishing how many people get all flustered when I can't help them over the phone when they can't describe what they were doing when they cause the problem or even the symptoms.   They're not all that bad but there's a select few.

Like this one girl who was getting upset because she couldn't sign onto MSN and after asking her tons of questions I finally got to the one I should have started with: "Do you know what your password is?"

She said, "No, of course not"!

Hehe hehe hehe, if only I could just horsewhip some people.

Sorry, here's your soapbox back Graf.

[grafixmonkey]

Like this one girl who was getting upset because she couldn't sign onto MSN and after asking her tons of questions I finally got to the one I should have started with: "Do you know what your password is?"

She said, "No, of course not"!

Hehe hehe hehe, if only I could just horsewhip some people.

Yeah I help my family with tech support, and sometimes it's nearly impossible to get them to tell me exactly what they're doing.  They'll say "Well I tried to get my email and it won't work!", I'll ask them again exactly what they did, and they'll get frusturated and say "I just tried to get my email!  And it wouldn't work!"  I have to ask two or three times before they even tell me what part of it didn't work, and I find out it's the part where they try and dial to the internet, and they got a busy signal, and they didn't even try dialing five minutes later before they called me.

Sorry, here's your soapbox back Graf.

I don't want it, you can keep it.   (eew, it's been in the recycling!)

But seriously people, lots of folks on the forum really enjoy helping other people with their projects.  But, if you give us nothing to go on, we can't help you.  The worst are the people who get mad that nobody's helping them, and go off on the forum, and that's where Howard Casto comes and flames your ass.    

(good work HC)  

[u_rebelscum]

Like this one girl who was getting upset because she couldn't sign onto MSN and after asking her tons of questions I finally got to the one I should have started with: "Do you know what your password is?"

She said, "No, of course not"!

Hehe hehe hehe, if only I could just horsewhip some people.

Yeah I help my family with tech support, and sometimes it's nearly impossible to get them to tell me exactly what they're doing.  They'll say "Well I tried to get my email and it won't work!", I'll ask them again exactly what they did, and they'll get frusturated and say "I just tried to get my email!  And it wouldn't work!"  I have to ask two or three times before they even tell me what part of it didn't work, and I find out it's the part where they try and dial to the internet, and they got a busy signal, and they didn't even try dialing five minutes later before they called me.

Are you sure at wasn't my parents who called you?  The EXACT thing happened with my parents last week. [sigh]

[Lilwolf]

But I LIKE it when people ask for help that way...

why?

Even on topics that I know nothing about... I usually know what questions to ask to help people who DO know...

hence.

I is look'n smart'r  

[CCM]

I know exactly what you mean.  I'm a programmer and know a fair amount about hardware as well, so naturally all my friends and family call me when they have a computer problem.  

I have one friend in particular that knows absolutely nothing about computers and his standard phone call usually starts with 'this f*#@!% computer doesn't work'. And I respond 'what are you talking about?  Is it on? are you at the desktop?  what specifically is the problem?' And he usually answers 'i don't know it's just screwed up'.  

Well this goes on for a while, and the whole time he's clicking on things and typing things and not telling me what he's doing.  Usually at this point I have to tell him to stop everything and tell me EXACTLY what you see and what you are doing.  I have to keep reminding him that I don't have a crystal ball and I can't see what is on his screen or what he is doing!!

The call usually ends by me telling him to turn off the computer and don't touch it again until I can come over and take a look at it.

[SirPeale]

My Dad usually calls up and says that he's having problems with one of his computers (he's now up to three (why?))

If he were to call, say, 100 times, 95 of those times he wouldn't even be in front of the computer, and it wouldn't even be on.

[Malachai]

Are you sure at wasn't my parents who called you?  The EXACT thing happened with my parents last week. [sigh]

Is that who keeps calling me?  

It's good to see that I'm not the only one these people call.  I think being a computer tech makes you a magnet for overemotional, irrational people with computers.

I have to keep reminding him that I don't have a crystal ball and I can't see what is on his screen or what he is doing!!

I got a crystal ball!  It

[hulkster]

well i agree with you on some issues, but not all.  for one, your "good example" included stuff about soldering, and grounding, and the voltage of wires....keep in mind that not everyone knows about that stuff.  well if they are doing a keyboard hack then they probably know about all that, but in other issues, when they are giving you the computer specs along with errors they have recieved, they are trying in some way not to feel stupid and at the same time give all the information that they think will help at all.  if they are having a problem with their computer or something, maybe they are new to this, and dont know all the internals of a computer and how to set jumpers and all that.

my point is, you cant just expect people to post your current standard for relevant questions.  you have to understand that many are new to this, and are wanting to get into this hobby.  the way i figure is, the more people that ask questions (newbies) the more resources EVERYBODY has down the road.  just my thoughts, take it for what you will.

[grafixmonkey]

Well I was going to link to one of the threads that initiated my posting that message...   but the thread was apparently so embarrassing that someone deleted the whole durn thing out of the archive.    

It boiled down to an "anonymous someone" repeatedly posting that Win ME was incapable of playing Mame and how frusturated they were.  Wouldn't even say which version of Mame he was running, even after people asked repeatedly, saying they had win ME and Mame running fine.  Much profanity and ridiculousness ensued.  When he eventually was persuaded to say he had dos box mame, he wouldn't post what he was typing to run it, only more profanity against win ME and the people who were now chewing him out.  When directions were posted on exactly what he should do, he just posted more saying it didn't work and said 'screw it I'm getting XP'.  Still nothing about what happened when he typed the commands.  At this point his first post had been repeatedly modified with scrolling glowing lines saying "help me help me help me" and "f*** WinME and all y'all"

...  and apparently someone has removed the whole thing because my replies to it don't even show up in my own post history.

So, there are degrees of this and I'm talking to that specific lower range of people who refuse to help anybody help them.

[grafixmonkey]

oh yeah, and yes I'm deliberately keeping this post near the top of the list so people will see it.  I admit it.

and I'm really trying to help these new people who don't know how to get help, because there seem to be lots of newcomers and lots of people posting questions amounting to "dang thing don't work" without at least telling what they tried, and sometimes get frustrated when they get no replies after a week.

[hulkster]

okay, much better  your original message was kinda angry so to speak. i see what you are saying, but that seems like its a unique case.  

[grafixmonkey]

well, you can see how this would be a point of some frustration for  a techie.  Especially after dealing with said "special" case.

[hulkster]

yes i know where you are coming from.  my dad called me the other day asking what was wrong with his monitor....turns out his monitor was just turned off!!  geez.

[grafixmonkey]

sigh...  I wish my mom had never called me across the house because of that problem...

It's a gorgeous, expensive, 19" Sony flat screen.  Parents leave it on 24-7, along with the computer.  I used to occasionally shut it off before bed, but don't anymore because that confuses them too much and I have to fix it in the morning.

[u_rebelscum]

Sadly, now when my parents' (or grandparents') friends call me for help, I usually say "I don't know, sorry can't help," even though I know I could, but only after hours on the phone consuming my free time.  

Not nice, but they're not my friends and they have their own children to ask.  


Here's the gist of one request:

Someone had ~200 page printed excel table, and wanted me to "quickly scan the table back into the computer" so they could change a couple lines.  They said they erased the excel file, and knew I had a scanner.

Me: "Sorry, I don't know how. Buh-bye."

It turned out they couldn't find the original excel file because it wasn't were they thought it was, and didn't even do a search for it.   Their (live-in) son found the file in the windows Desktop instead of in the "My Documents" folder after he was told about it after they called me.

[soslo]

I have the following roms:  [Mrs. Pac Man, Galaga, Snoop-Dogg's Great Adventure in KirbyLand.]  

Can you send me the Snoop Dog Rom?

[grafixmonkey]

I have the following roms:  [Mrs. Pac Man, Galaga, Snoop-Dogg's Great Adventure in KirbyLand.]  

Can you send me the Snoop Dog Rom?

No rom requests!!!!111!!!11!!!

Snoop Dogg worked very hard on that game!!!11!1!!
 

[Howard_Casto]

btw grapfix you basically stole the words straight from my mouth. The main reason I have nearly abandonded trying to help people on the main board is becuase they are too dumb to properly ask the question, as you pointed out.  I love tough questions, but I'm not made of time and when someone doesn't have the common sense to give us the info we need to help then they are usually helpless to begin with.  

[soslo]

No rom requests!!!!111!!!11!!!

Snoop Dogg worked very hard on that game!!!11!1!!
 

This is the game were Snoop sports the pink tutu right? Would you sell it to me at least?  

[grafixmonkey]

well, I can't sell it either...  but here's a screenshot!

It's quite an oldie.  Published in 1863, released only in Iceland.

[soslo]

Iceland is the country that is green and Greenland is the icy wasteland right? I want to make sure I go to the right place to look for a surviving cab...and then I'll copy the CP layout and make 1up look like n00b!

[grafixmonkey]

Yup, that's the place.  I think if you start in New York and walk exactly 1/2-degree north of east, you'll eventually hit it.

[soslo]

sweet, thanks grafixmonkey!