Author Topic: Better communication on the forum  (Read 3527 times)

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Offline eagleeye

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Would it be possible to have next to names on the forum level of  IT knowledge.
Something like beginner, intermediate and advance. So when somebody asks questions it should be easier to answer if you have an idea what is their knowledge level.
I think this would help newcomers and everybody to be more helpful.
Ratings which we have  on the forum based on the number of post does not tell you very much of someones IT knowledge.
Please let me know what you think.
Thanks  :)

Good idea aloha, im just not sure how we would implement it.  But if you want to think more about it, that would be good.

We cant really have an authorization of it but maybe in your tag you can put some information down, a quote, idea, about you, and we grow together. not just BTSX donation wanting.  (Your not doing this though).

Offline xeroc

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Offline gamey

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I think it's better for the one asking the question to say something like:
"I'm a beginner at linux, how do I use github?"

Rather than requiring people to go through an extra step to declare their level of experience before asking a question, what if the forum had a "beginners" sub-forum under "technical support"? This way someone could feel comfortable asking a more basic question there.

Yes.  Extra steps are rarely a good thing.  Another thing is if someone asks a question that can't be answered on the wiki, then someone should pm me or some such and make sure I read the thread.  I try to keep answers on there, but I don't get all of them and there must be areas the wiki is lacking.  However, if we utilize the wiki more, it improves and that helps other newbies.  (Threads do the same, they're just not as organized)
I speak for myself and only myself.

Offline vegolino

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I think it's better for the one asking the question to say something like:
"I'm a beginner at linux, how do I use github?"

Rather than requiring people to go through an extra step to declare their level of experience before asking a question, what if the forum had a "beginners" sub-forum under "technical support"? This way someone could feel comfortable asking a more basic question there.

aloha :) maqifrnswa,

Your question is fine, but how many people know what github is, how many people know  what seeds are. All I am saying if beginner has a question and we can see it is beginner than we can adjust our answer and our language to suit the person who is asking.
Answering beginner in the way so he/she does not have to spend another hour on google trying to understand an answer.
I think beginners sub-forum is fine as well. We need a lot of new people to join Bitshares Revolution, but we need to be prepared to help them in a way that is understandable to them. Simple explanation without a lot of technical words which are hard to understand. Sometimes beginner  can explain something that he knows better to other beginner than expert. But if somebody have a question and I see next to their name that they are experts than there is no point for me as a beginner to try to help them. I am not asking anybody to declare anything they do not feel comfortable, but please try to see this from the point of complete beginner.

aloha  :)

Offline maqifrnswa

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I think it's better for the one asking the question to say something like:
"I'm a beginner at linux, how do I use github?"

Rather than requiring people to go through an extra step to declare their level of experience before asking a question, what if the forum had a "beginners" sub-forum under "technical support"? This way someone could feel comfortable asking a more basic question there.
maintains an Ubuntu PPA: https://launchpad.net/~showard314/+archive/ubuntu/bitshares [15% delegate] wallet_account_set_approval maqifrnswa true [50% delegate] wallet_account_set_approval delegate1.maqifrnswa true

Offline vegolino

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Great if there is no complaints regarding this proposal by this time tomorrow, than we could make Poll, something like BTSX User Poll by bluebit. We could ask in this poll how many levels it should be and ask wider community to make proposal and vote for it. This should be fairly straight forward for somebody who knows how to make a poll.
Having a quiz to determine your level would be great, but that is far out of my depth and somebody with much higher level than me could create it. Quiz does not have to be created immediately it could come latter.

aloha to all  :)

Offline emski

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I like this! I have a lot of ideas (not saying they're good), so I'm  pretty sure in the long run I'll have several posts in here. But as aloha pointed out, it's not because you have lots of posts that you know how to code from source! In my case, I know nothing (or almost) about coding. Just for example, I had a "D" in my beginner C++ course during my engineering degree... And I forgot the little I learned at that time.

Anyway, I'll probably ask for technical help often, and having a technical knowledge rating for each forum members my be good. I would suggest that everybody starts with the lowest technical level, and in order to get to a higher level, they need to do a short quiz and have all answers good. For lower levels it could only be multiple choice questions, and for higher levels it could be more technical development questions. I know it may take time and resources to put in place, but it could be nice anyway!

Just throwing ideas out there!

And the quiz doesn't need to take time. Just a few simple questions requiring truthful answer (if anyone wants to cheat he will do it anyway). For example "how many lines of code have you written  yourself". "can you assemble a desktop pc", "can you compile and run bitshares-pts".

Offline Chuckone

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I like this! I have a lot of ideas (not saying they're good), so I'm  pretty sure in the long run I'll have several posts in here. But as aloha pointed out, it's not because you have lots of posts that you know how to code from source! In my case, I know nothing (or almost) about coding. Just for example, I had a "D" in my beginner C++ course during my engineering degree... And I forgot the little I learned at that time.

Anyway, I'll probably ask for technical help often, and having a technical knowledge rating for each forum members my be good. I would suggest that everybody starts with the lowest technical level, and in order to get to a higher level, they need to do a short quiz and have all answers good. For lower levels it could only be multiple choice questions, and for higher levels it could be more technical development questions. I know it may take time and resources to put in place, but it could be nice anyway!

Just throwing ideas out there!

Offline xeroc

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I like where this is heading .. just one comment: I advice to use an odd number of options as many studies show that's the best way to do.
I'd prefer 5 or 7 :)

Offline vegolino

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I like Riverhead idea to make it fun, but 6 levels may be to many. I would propose 3 levels plus developer level so 4 in total. This is mainly to help people to communicate better with each others, specially beginners which have simple questions which do not require developers to get involved. Quiz may be good idea, but it may scare of beginners.
 So based on Riverhead idea I would propose following levels: 4) Developer, 3) I dream in Binary, 2) Friends call me for IT support 1) Homer Simpson.
I think there must be some better and funnier names which could be acceptable to all so please feel free to share them  :)

Offline wesphily

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IT is pretty broad. I have a strong understanding of infrastructure but, I don't know anything about software development. Needs to be more precise if it is implemented.

Offline Riverhead

Pretty good idea. I'd say it's relative though. Compared to the average forum user I'd say I'm about a 6. Compared to the likes of BM, Toast, etc. I'm probably a 2 or 3 :).


However since the purpose is for us to know a bit better where each user is coming from maybe the levels can be more about who you are and we can have a bit of fun with it! These are way too long but you get the idea:


6: I dream in Binary
5: I like to build from source
4: Friends call me for IT support
3: I can figure most IT stuff out myself
2: I can operate a computer as long as it's working well
1: I can talk Fib Charts all day, let me show you on this napkin.

Offline vegolino

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It is much easier for beginner to understand another beginner. Beginners should be helping other beginners  and medium and advance can supervise and jump in if beginner can not get help from another beginner. Sometimes I think medium and advance guys forget how little we beginners know.  :)
I sometimes feel embarrassed to ask some question which are very simple and than bytemaster comes and answer it as I am sure his time more valuable and most of my answers could be answered by another beginner or intermediate. 
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 12:37:16 pm by aloha »

Offline vegolino

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Good idea .. but honestly .. can you tell how good your "IT knowledge" is on a scale from 1 to 7?

 Unfortunately I can it is 1  :), where 1 is the lowest.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 03:39:36 pm by aloha »

Offline emski

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Good idea .. but honestly .. can you tell how good your "IT knowledge" is on a scale from 1 to 7?

Better than nothing... A quick quiz could be used and the result auto-attached.

Something Bitsapphire could do if interested. To show us why we see their add upright... (intended as a friendly joke)
« Last Edit: September 04, 2014, 12:23:01 pm by emski »