How to get people to use FAQ!

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FYI:

If you don't like a forum search engine, you can use Google by searching on this.
"site:tivocommunity.com FAQ cablecard" note do not use the " around the search values.

site:domain.com says search domain.com for the following terms.
Note, the native forum search for tivocommunity.com works great for me, but a different forum I use is hit and miss.

Returns this a top search
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=363797

Tim S

 

this is much like "Do not feed the trolls"
the Only way to make the FAQ better known is if the community as a whole did not answer simple questions. If one or two helpful souls will answer the simple questions then it will continue. The Mods have come down on the side of letting new users ask whatever as they want new users It would be helpful if the mods posted the sticky in more places if they wish that to be the policy. I got wrist slapped without knowing the shift since I never go in the DirectTiVo forum.

Now I just ignore questions unless it specifically interests me.

 

Ignoring them won't stop other newbies from asking questions, it will only make them get frustrated and go away after the feel this place is worthless!

"I went there and couldn't find out a single answer."

New ones will keep coming along, especially with Google searches and such, whether you answer questions or not.

You can keep this as a nice small club, or you can be a friendly place where someone coming in doesn't get your full wrath just because they asked the same question 5 other people did today. They didn't know that was a common question either....

Lots of stores go out of business trying to avoid the mild extra hassle of being friendly....

Brad

Brad

 

I don't think I agree with attacking people for not using the FAQ's. I get that the main information is in the first post of an FAQ, but if you need clarificaion because you're not super-advanced in the (complex) inner world of TivoS3's and all the problems that come with them, it's kind of hard to go through 300+ posts to clear yourself up, especially since a lot of the people on here are very advanced so a lot of the responses in the FAQ's don't work for people who don't understand them.

I'm not an idiot, but a lot of this stuff is just beyond me, and seeing as how I'm going from a (much less complicated) S2 to an S3 (cablecards, binding, HDTV, chipsets, QAM, SVD, Dropout's, etc), I'm learning as I go. So if I have a question that I need clarified, I don't see why I should feel bad for posting it on a forum specifically designed for people to get help on that specific unit. That's why it exists.

I understand that a lot of you guys are hyper-advanced in all things Tivo and Cable TV, but then maybe you should create an advanced forum to discuss all those things regular users probably wouldn't get. I don't know if it's fair to say that those people with legitamite questions (myself included) should be relagated to the five or six FAQ's when they might not understand fully.

Where's the love people!?

 

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-Why does TiVo record shows I did not schedule? How can I stop that? is in the manual if you read through it.

-can I use my TiVo without a subscription? is not a hyper advanced or even moderately complex question.

-Will the TiVo HD work without cable cards? is moderately complex

-Why do I have 5 channels on my S3 that have funny channel numbers and no guide data? is an advanced question

-Does the TiVo have 2 way communication yet to send the request for SDV channels? is hyper advanced.

So there is a strata of questions and I think the discussion is centered around the simple questions that pop up over and over. Thing is it is typically new members who sign up specifically to ask the simple questions because they do not have the answer in hand. They feel like they did a fair amount of work to find this forum and signup so they could post and get a definitive answer.

There is also the layer of users who post multiple threads asking the same question to us but they think it is all so different that they need to make new threads for each one. Or rush to post the news without looking to see if a thread was already started.

the mods seem to be focused on users asking the simple questions in their quest to keep them from being scared away

 

Here's a perfect case in point:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=367235

While I can understand that you maybe wouldn't think to look in the esata thread for recommendations on an internal drive, asking the "Is the sata port enabled" should, in theory, have caused one to look in the esata FAQ, which is a great repository for info on drives. Additionally, maybe looking in the "Tivo Upgrade Center", a whole separate forum devoted completely to the kind of upgrade that jauburn wanted to do.

Instead, we have yet another "what drive should I use" thread to scroll past on the way to more meaningful discussions (like this one ).

BTW, this isn't just a newb issue - jauburn isn't exacly a newbie to the site (over 100 posts, registered for over a year). Some people don't think before they post, that's all.

BTW (and I said this over there too) this isn't intended as an insult to jauburn - it was just too perfect an example to illustrate my point.

Edit: Here's another one that requires a different approach:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5538459#post5538459

Brand spanking new user. Topic that comes up at least 2-3 times a month. Now, I'm not sure that discussion is in a FAQ, but 10 seconds turns up this thread in the suggestions forum that covers the same topic. Now, I'm not advocating attacking the poster (I'm not advocating attacking or flaming any users for the record), but following the "Check and make sure that a thread already doesn't exist" guideline would sure have been nice.

On a wider note, I just realized that both of my examples (and many of the other "nuisance" threads are a nuisance because they go in the wrong place. Many of the simple "This isn't working" threads should (IMO) be in the "newb friendly" "Help Center". If a lot of those threads went elsewhere, this S3 forum could be the place for the "hyper advanced" technical discussion that Mrdazzo7 was talking about. But, that's just in my utopia land (and (at least I think) in alignment with what the powers that be had in mind when they created the sub forums) that would take lots of "re-training" and hard work by the mods that I don't see happening.

Disclaimer 2: Not questioning the moderation either - moderating internet forums is a pain in the neck, thankless job Mike and Dan do an awesome job and have been nothing but responsive when I contact them with questions.

 

Thank goodness we have the forum vigilantes to protect us from the evil question askers.

 

Who is being a "forum vigilnalte"??? What's wrong with discussing ways that we can make the forum more efficient and interesting for ALL classes of users? Who said that people that ask questions are "evil"?

It's folks with your bad attitude that bring in the bad blood and ruin the whole deal.