Topic awaiting preservation: Coming out of the closet...

A Confession
by Andrew Bradford

No, this post has nothing to do with sexual orientation. I assure you I am naturally oriented. :P

This post is somewhat of a de-lurking inspired by this thread.

When I first signed up here, I was - looking back - young and immature. I remember having fun posting here with whatever topic came to mind, much like those people. I remember a post of mine where I posted about the product demo in 64kB. I remember replies to my threads that were much like some recent replies.

I stopped posting and started lurking because I felt that I had no place here and that I was unwanted. I am not an artist; some of my best drawings include stick figures. Most of my accomplishments are technical, like programming or scripting and even then, are nothing special compared to professional coders' work. I felt unwanted because I was. I was just like many of the other unwanted people; young, immature, etc.

I hope that now that I can look back and see what I did wrong, I can learn from my mistakes. I like to thing that I have matured since then, but that decision is not up to me. I hope that you will not judge me by my experiences here and that I can be correct in my assumption that I have a clean slate.

I have but one request, which is that the Asylum be a little less cliquey. Admittedly, most of the wrath of the Asylum is well deserved but some is not.

I hope that this will make an impact on the regulars here, but most importantly; the newcomers.

Now I need a lot of posts and replies. :P

__________
Bradford

The number one thing here, and the number one reason you will get a bad reply is because we don't want to help you. Read that again, we don't want to help you.

What we want is the ability to learn with you.

Many people come here for the quick and dirty answer, they don't want to put the time in. We do not want to put our time in for you, unless you also offer us something worthwhile.

It seems rather harsh, but if you are looking for an answer to a question, you need to pay the person for that answer. Most of us who have a good deal of skill use that skill to make ends meet, and are very busying using these skills all the time. The last thing we want to do is to apply that knowledge to something that offers us no return value.

Let me dumb this down a little bit.

If you have a question, start by trying to figure out the answer. Spend an hour or two searching for an answer spend another hour or two fiddling, trying to come up with your own methods to solve the problem. If you are still stuck come here and then post.

Don't simply post "I have this problem, googled for hours, fiddled for hours, how do I do X?" Instead post examples of what you have tried, explain your steps, state what you think might be the solution but why you can't make it work and ask for further input.

You don't have to put hours into the process of writing your post. A paragraph and an image or two is best in most cases. Too much detail can be too much, too little is also bad. Asking questions in a community forum is a skill, but it can be practiced, and improved.

If you follow just a couple of steps when you post you can be sure to get a lot more response.

1) Will this post help other people to learn
2) Did I put effort into solving my problem on my own
3) Did I illustrate what I have tried well
4) Will other people be able to understand my post

If you can't meet those 4 criterian don't expect any results.

And yes, there are cliche's here. It tends to be those who provide value to the forum and those who don't. You will not get any respect if you do not provide some value, you will not get your questions answered well if you don't make your posts worthwhile. This forum carries a lot of history, both positive and negative for many members, everyone is different and people get along better with some more than others, which is to be expected. But if you pull your weight here you will fit in easily.

Dan
CodeTown.org

Someone needs to carve ^ that into the walls. Well said.

~golf clap~

Welcome back abb. :-)
The light ouside the closet can be a bit harsh at times, but once you adjust to it, it helps you see better.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way


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