Do you read every post?

I ask questions in on this board, and in return I try to answer questions. But this is a problem in the PHP forum. It's such a high volume forum, that I could keep up with ever post, but it's not something I'm really willing to do. I feel guilty about that because other people take the time to do it, and I feel like I'm taking and not giving back enough.

Do you read all the posts?

I guess noone here reads all of them.

I myself am mainly at the Linux, Unix, Windows and Security forums. There is few traffic and few people that can answer questions, so i am trying to support these.

In the PHP forum, there is really too much traffic and I could tell every second poster to RTFM and that´s it. I go there when I am really bored and then i read the posts with no replies or those that have an interesting title only.

You can´t read all posts here. It would become a 24/7 job then, and most people here are doing this in their free time. Also, if I answer a question, in about 50% the person does not reply at all anymore and i never know if it helped him/her or if (s)he just never came back to read it. And most people here don´t know how to say "thank you" anyway. (mostly the noobs)
I like that you think about it that way, but I really see no need to feel "guilty".

You know, I can´t save the world nor stop hunger and war though i really would like to, but I don´t feel guilty about not succeding there either. There is already too much other stuff to worry about...

... just my 2ct ... others ?

M.

errr... read every post in the php forum? have no time to do that. i just pop in now and again in some forums, not just php, and try to reply to some questions.

Same thing here, there should be an advanced php forum or something like that because right now it's so pathetic. Every once in a while I just go in, read the titles and get the hell out. The php mailing list has quit a lot of interesting posts but there are simply way too much messages (~200 per day!).

iirc we discussed about an "advanced php" forum some months ago. But the main problems i can remeber are:

- N00bs will mostly consider their problems being "advanced" just because they can´t judge yet ("anything beyond my scope is advanced")
- Who would decide what is "advanced" and what is not?
- Moderation (like in the Jobs forum) cannot be a solution either because it would do too much work and delay the posts and replies too much
- Some might even take it as invitation for cross-posting ("i don´t know if this is a basic or advanced question - so i just post it in both forums")

I think unless the MODs here become more strict and start closing threads more often (instead of deleting them very seldomly), there is no way avoiding these... (does vBulletin support closing threads?)
I think most n00bs would learn quickly if they read the reply to their thread "This thread was closed because the answer is in the FAQ on top of this page" or similar...

... just my 2ct ...

... message understood ...

?

I don't.

They would just go start another thread to bitch about the rotten, asshole, bastard, punk, luser moderators who are such snobs for daring to suggest that they asked a dumb question (yes, contrary to what you were taught in that mentally-steril box called 'school', there is such a thing as a stupid question).

I can't stand reading through the PHP forum most of the time. Every now and then I pop in and flip through the threads, but short of the things I know absolutely nothing about (like Mail Servers... plus FreeBSD scares me ), that's probably my least visited forum.

I don't even read all of the threads in the Perl forum. Anything with a stupid subject, I usually ignore. If it looks like a newbie post, I often ignore them to because some other folks have started posting in Perl that usually respond to that sort of thread now.

There's way too many posts to read them all, and you're not the only member here who can answer questions, so why even bother trying??

No Ctb, there's no such thing as a stupid question, only stupid people.

I definately don't read every thread in the php forum. Don't have that much time, but I mainly look for subject titles that are interesting, ones that have had no responses to, etc...

i think that goes for 99.99% of ppl here.

All I do is scan the PHP and beginners forums as I know pretty much zip about Linux etc, then scan for interesting sounding threads and read/reply to those.

Then again with about 1 hour a day reading everything would be a little tricky...

Trev

I'm pretty new here, but, as in other forums I frequent, I like to read a lot of threads. I love vbulletin's subscription feature and subscribe to just about any thread that seems interesting. That way I get a handy notification whenever there is a reply and can get back to the thread at my leisure. I have an e-mail account dedicated to forums so it works well.

Here I visit just a few forums, and quickly browse the most recent threads for anything interesting. I usually visit the Perl, Database, Mysql, HTML...,lounge, and beginners forums when I get a chance to visit.

I used to read them all and answer quite a bit... but I'm a little tired of it now. I really don't read many of them at all, anymore.

Now it's time for the infamous Lounge-post-never-stays-on-topic post....

How long does it take you to get tired of this? The same questions over and over, usually... I'm on the PHP mailing list and it's the same way, although I'm a little more active there. Is this something that happens to everyone eventually? I imagine it is. Would you call this a "phase" that you eventually overcome and go back to reading and answering everything, or a "platau" that you reach and you never go back to the old way because you're moving on to bigger and better things?

Just curious what everyone thinks.

---John Holmes...