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Why I stopped coming here.

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11 replies

by rob k.

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From: -Q
Date: 07/11/01 02:15 PM EDT
Status: Rejected
Points: 0

Get a book...since i know you won't rate this answer and time will expire it, I thougt I'd just grab some points....Heh.

From jeff@intellicominc.com on 07/18/01 02:03 PM EDT: Poster rated this answer

Answer 20:

From: chad@wolforddevelopment.com
Date: 07/17/01 01:50 PM EDT
Status: Rejected
Points: 0

im with this guy above me. you should get that book. im snagging some points too.

From jeff@intellicominc.com on 07/18/01 02:03 PM EDT: Poster rated this answer

To most people here it is all about the points and not abut helping other people. What a waste.

Going over to sysopt.com where are no points awarded for helping people. Just the satisfaction of knowing that you helped someone.

I will follow this discussion for abit then I am gone for good. To bad this used to be a good place to come to.

Rob K.

11 replies

by generalist

I've avoided the point problem by avoiding the Q & A section. From what I've seen it is a mess that has lots of problems when a handful of people disobey the rules and a different handful of people don't participate with the proper frame of mind.
There are times when I would love to rate discussion responses on what might be called a 'civility' scale. Those who provide useful information and are polite about it can be given 'civility' points. Those who are rude and crude can have civilitypoints deducted.

The civility rating would then be displayed in a prominent location so people can avoid the rude and crude types.

To avoid slander, awarding negative civility points would require links to examples so that people could judge for themselves.

It would be interesting to see if it would do any good.

by rob k.

ha I am better than you because I have more points than you do.

The funny thing is that when I was on the thread where I got the info. form I took alook at the users who posted the above answers. -Q did not have his questions show up and the other one had only one question answered and one rejected, and had a total of 0 points.

So with that in mind it seems that the only reason he replied to the question was to try and get some "free points". HAHAHAHAHAHAH they got rejected anyhow.

It is just a shame to see a good website get ruined by a bunch of bad apples.

Rob K.

by generalist

I can certainly agree that there are some bad apples whose behavior makes me cringe. And when it is combined with the 'More Points' chic some people have, I wonder how they can survive in the work world for longer than three months in any one job.
There are times when I wish that TechRepublic had a filter that would allow me to block out their replies.

Of course there are other times when I wish I had a way of linking their TechRepublic personna to live bodies and then linking their postings to on-line resumes and other job hunting sources. Potential employers could then see what type of people they would be hiring...

Ah, well... We can always try to improve the world a little bit at a time.

by glen_mcleod

While I admit that I've been shafted a few times when answering questions, it really has been the exception rather than the rule. I think it has been 3 times that all of the answers have been rejected and the question "closed by the author" just toavoid giving out the points. And these are mostly programming/technical questions where the supplied code or script work fine.

I'm not in this for the points, although it's a nice touch. Often I'll go to clubs on Yahoo and answer questions there, too, and there's no points involved. For me, it's just the satisfaction of being able to help someone out.

Glen

by andrew

I just started answering questions here and the points are just icing on the cake. It's fun to take a break from my current project and help solve problems in different areas. Like many people here I'm competitive, but not just with other posters; with myself. If I don't know an answer, I'm chagrined and spend some time researching a solution. If I don't have anything worthwhile to contribute, I don't reply.

If other people just want the points, so what? Let 'em. It's much more satisfying when someone responds: 'Thanks! That worked great!', so the pointmongers actually the losers.

by syscokid

You know, Rob, I noticed that -Q post too. Funny thing is, a year ago, (s)he was just as disillusioned as you. Check out this thread (s)he started:

https://www.techrepublic.com/forumdiscuss/thread_detail.jhtml?thread_id=18824

It starts.

"From: -Q
Date: 9/11/00

Questions here need accountability!
I know some of you who are regulars here can sympathize with me here: People who are posting questions are not closing them or even bothering to rate any of them. Now, I try to get here as often as I can, but this isn't my only place of visit. I'm here to keep up with everything and help out when I can, but none of our time here is well spent when the questioners are ignoring your answers or don't even bother to thank you with point awards."

I guess (s)he figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

by admin

Of course, while he looked for it extensively, he always had a point....at least in the movie.

Well, here's my 2 cents on points.

If points really didn't matter to people who believe points are ruining the system said people would have an obvious daily balance of 0, or close to zero points. This may be best accomplished by giving points away to those who already had the most and were actively collecting them, making the pointmongers appear shallow and trivial, and possibly even socially suspect here.
Instead, it would seem that those with 10k squares are often the ones saying the points are "no big deal" which in fact, makes them even a bigger deal.

A funny sidenote is that one doesn't really need much of a brain to figure out that anyone can acquire over 10k points with this system in just a few days if they really want to. It is, at present, very exploitable.

:>

by generalist

Hmmmmm. Five hundred for one transaction and two fifty for others. Then ask questions using the dummy members.

I wonder how many people have exploited it?

And when you get down to it, you could milk each dummy member once a day...

by admin

Kinda sad people fight over 83 and 51 and 150 points when they could all get stars on their bellies w/o hurting others, eh?
Notice I too have not given all my points away with some absurd question, but then, I'm almost to 10k and I have to admit, like some other things, it's fun to do it the old fashioned way.

:>

by admin

is about 20
"dummies" and probably way less than an hour to get the the 10k.

:>

by jgamblin

I don't know about points,what I would like
to know about is, when you have windows 2000
pro up and running good,.What would happen if
you upgraded it with ...windows xp 180 day
evaluation disk (rc-1)what would be the result, and if it went past the 180 day time period. Got any answers,cause thats what I'm
here for.

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