Re: Would you like Help in Here? How to make sure you get it!
From: Bill Weylock (bill_at_nospam.net)
Date: 12/27/04
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Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 08:02:50 -0800
John -
Iıve received help here, for which I have always (or mostly) tried to be
properly appreciative and demonstratively so. Some of it has been from you.
Thanks. I also thoroughly understand and agree with all of the ³posting
principles² that relate to stating problems.
Hope you will remember that during the rest of this, which pretty strongly
disagrees with the plea for using real email addresses. Apologies in
advance.
Here we go ...
I do think I understand why you would feel the way you do of course, and I
have some sympathy.
I was very surprised and a little alarmed that you are telling people to
use their real email addresses in newsgroups and to get a new ISP or a
good/better spam filter if they have problems with that. Although you
certainly did NOT say this, it does sound a bit as if you are also saying
that not using real email addresses invites marginalization within the
newsgroup.
Iıve been around the internet for longer than Iım going to tell you; but if
I mention CompuServe and 1984, it might give you a clue.
I too have met many people over the years because of postings on forums and
bbs boards. In fact, there are a fair number of people in my life whom I
have never met in person or even spoken to on the telephone. (I am sure they
are quietly grateful for that.) Back when CS was the place for Mac help, I
was very active on the MAUG and went to several lunches for the Manhattan
contingent.
So I get the attraction, and in the old days a real email address was a
given.
That was pre-spam though; and it was back when being online made you part of
a club rather than a fish in a barrel.
I absolutely agree that spam software and ISP process is beginning to make a
dent in spam. I am still not interested in testing it, though; and I am
concerned that some people posting on this newsgroup may know little or
nothing about how to manage spam or protect themselves. That includes people
with inherited versions of Office who are struggling to tell the difference
between RAM and drive capacity. Asking them to expose themselves to spammers
(and Iım sure you were not remotely thinking of them) verges on cruelty.
I go out of my way to suggest to people that they NOT use real email
addresses. Also, by the way, I have never seen someone suggest that the best
way to get help on a forum or newsgroup is to provide an email address. The
agenda has always been to get people to do the opposite: post to the group
both problems and solutions so everyone can benefit. Iıve seen many people
chastised for asking that responses be sent to them directly. So that
actually confuses me a bit.
Itıs terrific that you want people to write you. Hello. I appreciate the
option and would be very happy to give you my email address personally (as
if youıll want it now).
Recently I changed my company name and started using a new domain. For
months it was clean. Then I absent mindedly posted on one of these forums
when I first started using Entourage instead of Eudora (largely, you will be
thrilled to hear, because I like the look of the html text a lot better).
Within three days I started getting a good volume of spam to the new domain.
Phooey. And yes, I use Spamsieve to good effect; and things have gotten much
better recently using GoDaddy to host my web and email. I recommend them,
actually.
Although I can be as big a PITA as any help requester, and although I plead
sorrowfully guilty to inappropriately testy posting sometimes when I think
Iım being especially clever or when I decide to get upset with the tone I
imagine in someoneıs text, I also try to help out when I run across a
question I think I can answer. In years past I did that a lot on the old
CompuServe MacWord forum and was an honorary tech support guy. On a biz trip
to Redmond, the Word support guys invited me in for their Halloween party
and let me listen in on some calls.
I did it, and still do it occasionally, for the same reason I am sure you do
it. I like helping people and because itıs fun to share things I know. In my
case it also feeds the illusion of competency I still try to maintain.
These days I think there is also an incentive to be listed as MVP, although
I donıt think I would ever make that level of commitment and have stopped
trying to understand all of Word (as I pretty well did back in 5.1 and
6.blah days).
Although I know it is frustrating to have time wasted and patience tested
when you are making a massively generous commitment to providing help, I
hope you MVPs will not start making rules and putting up bars to getting
help.
I also hope that this isnıt going to get me on your S list, because I need
this place as much as anybody. Itıs been an enormous help to me over the
past year or so (when I discovered it).
Thanks for listening. I hope I made my point without completely enraging
you.
This wasnıt your issues, but I also do like posting in html. If it gives
problems, I think you can get an email reader that handles it very well. One
of them is called... Decoupage? Camouflage? Persiflage? Whatever... It works
at least as well as those spam filters.
(ducking behind large pile of books feverishly scribbling a new will)
Best,
- Bill
On 12/7/04 5:40 PM, in article BDDCA6AD.E059%john@mcghie.name, "John McGhie"
<john@mcghie.name> wrote:
> Seriously -- Would you like us to give you all the help we can with your
> question?
>
> Then post a REAL email address :-)
>
> Seriously!
>
> People come in here because they enjoy conversing with folks all around the
> world. I'm in Sydney: I have some people coming to stay this afternoon whom
> I met on these groups about ten years ago: they're from San Francisco.
>
> Meeting you as a real person is why we do what we do in here. Nobody gets
> paid for this. None of us work for Microsoft. (That's not entirely true
> these days: there are three or four Microsoft staffers cruising this group
> as part of their official duties: you will see that they identify themselves
> quite prominently in their posts.)
>
> Because "meeting" you is the REASON most of us are here, we're not going to
> try very hard if you won't permit that. After all, how hard do you try to
> please those infernal people who ring up trying to sell you things while
> you're eating your dinner? Same principle. There's another good reason:
> The Microsoft people in here will address (some!!) issues directly with you,
> if you use a real email address.
>
> But when we're handling hundreds (or thousands...) of messages a day,
> fiddling around de-coding a Spamangled email address is just too hard :-)
>
> Most folks by now have their inboxes fairly effectively anti-spammed one way
> or another. I see maybe three to five spam messages a week, and I post my
> real email address in this group ten or 20 times a day.
>
> Most properly customer-responsive ISPs provide anti-spam and anti-virus
> facilities these days: the ones that don't, probably won't be with us much
> longer. Sometimes you need to turn that on: it wouldn't hurt to have a look
> at your ISP's help pages for details. Because I need Industrial-Strength
> anti-spamming, so I use a commercial anti-spamming anti-virusing email
> provider -- http://www.fastmail.fm -- or you may wish to investigate these
> guys http://www.spamcop.net/
>
> My point is simply this: Those of us who do not work for Microsoft who are
> in here nearly every day helping folks tend to look for four things before
> deciding to go the final mile for you:
>
> 1) The explicit versions of your application and operating system. E.g.
> "Word version 11.1 (Build 090910) on System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.6
> (7R28)". You get get the first from Word>About and the second from
> Finder>About This Mac. If we don't know which of the 29 versions of Word
> that we support you are using, we sometimes cannot help you at all, because
> the answer varies depending on what you're using and what you're doing.
>
> 2) A Subject line that tells us what your problem is. "Heeelllpppp!!" is
> not a "great" subject line. I know that's how you're feeling, but it makes
> us feel that way too. To help you, we need to know what's wrong, not how
> you're feeling :-) How about "Disk full error on save" -- that says it all.
> Each of us is specialised in one or more areas: for example, I know nothing
> about Mail merge and I won't touch questions that concern it. I scan each
> group looking for the stuff I do specialise in, and I tackle those questions
> first. I won't read the text of your message, only the Subject line. If I
> don't see from your Subject line that your question is within my area of
> expertise, I will leave your post and move on. If I still have some energy
> left after handling the specialist questions, I "might" come back to this
> group and read the stuff I left before. I "might"... Then again, I have a
> day job AND a life, and neither of them are working for Microsoft. So I
> probably "won't". Your call...
>
> 3) A description that tells us (in concise detail...) what you are trying
> to do, what happened, and what you have already tried to do to fix it.
> PLEASE remember that we can't see your screen from here! Put it in words!
> Oh -- and please don't send us ANY screen-shots or attachments. Not EVER!
> Not even "just this once". We WON'T "forgive the attachment this time."
> Truth to tell, most of us won't even know you've done it. Here's why: your
> message will go straight into our spam filter, and most of us will never be
> aware that you sent anything at all. If we need a sample, we will ask for
> it. If your email address works... Your call...
>
> 4) A live email address so we can get back to you. If I see your message
> and need a little more information to answer, I will simply hit "Reply". If
> the email address comes back as "nobody@anonymous.com" or some other
> anti-spam address -- nnnnnyeah!! Too hard! Move on to the next post. If
> you really want an answer, you will post back in a week or so saying "Why
> hasn't anyone answered my post?" :-)
>
> Of course, these things are simply suggestions. We would like to help you
> better. We would like you to help us do that. But if you prefer to do
> something else instead, no biggie... We can help the other folks instead.
>
> Cheers all
Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003
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