Gentoo Forums

We all know that these are the best forums on the net, but for some people are missing out on this enormous wealth of knowledge. We currently have 8193 unanswered posts on these forums so we are setting up the adopt an unanswered post initiative.

What's that all about?

Our aim is to reduce the number of unanswered posts on the forums. Nobody likes to be ignored so get onboard today.

How can I help?

Each time you visit the forums have a look at the unanswered posts.

First you should search to see if the question is answered in another topic, if it is please report it as a duplicate.

If not then please try and answer at least one of them, the more the better.

Even if you don't know the answer you can still help by asking people to post more information or show where they can look for more advice.

Add a link to this post in your sig.

Don't delay get answering today!

Sounds like a good idea if they are constructive posts that is

surely many of these posts are just newbies asking questions that could be found by searching, going back and answering them will
a) be pointless as they will searched and found the solution
b) reward the lazey who dont search
c) fill up the forums and slow them down, werent they talking about dumping unanswered posts some time ago to speed things up

it is a good idea is you spot an original question though

Any dupes found in the unanswered posts should be reported and a helpful reply along the lines of "I searched for x, y & z and found this post", that way dupes are gotten rid of and people will learn how to better search/ask questions.

good point i may have found a new hobbysearcing the forums for dupes

tomk wrote:Any dupes found in the unanswered posts should be reported and a helpful reply along the lines of "I searched for x, y & z and found this post", that way dupes are gotten rid of and people will learn how to better search/ask questions.

Also, report those dup threads to the moderators using this thread:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=28820

I'll do my best!

Hmm, I notice you can see the titles of unreplied-to posts in Moderators, possibly a bug?

I've started on these, managed to answer ~5 so far...

I try my best to find unanswered posts that I can lend a halfway helpful comment to.

That's a great idea! I know there are newbie qeustions... sometimes im guilty of that too. However, the Gentoo forums are known for great service and even if that means pointing a newbie to an already discussed topic I think it's worth it! Half the reason I love gentoo sooo much is the wealth of knowledge on the forums! It wouldn't be there unless alot of questions were answered and people had patience with new/lazy posters! I say bravo to this idea and I'll do my best to help out!!

Cheerios, - JP

This is a splendid idea

Answered two to the ebst of my ability already

Great Idea. Maybe one of my posts will be answered

Great idea.
Count me in, I try to answer what I'm able to.

I like the idea, but there are practical issues.

This isn't bugtraq, and as said, newbies might post a thread and later on find out the answer anyway, and are lazy and won't post that in the thread. You can't tell wether you're actually helping someone, or if you're simply wasting your time because the thread poster won't even read your post.

Azaghal wrote:newbies might post a thread and later on find out the answer anyway, and are lazy and won't post that in the thread. You can't tell wether you're actually helping someone, or if you're simply wasting your time because the thread poster won't even read your post.

Granted, I have only started actively posting recently, but in my experience, this doesn't happen, so long as the post is answered in a timely fashion. Of course, if the post is left for a long while, the poster will have either found the answer themselves, or have given up altogether. But isn't this the case regardless if the poster is a newbie or not?

I would also like to point out that while answering unanswered posts is a good idea, it may not be sufficient. For example, I am sure there are several topics out there where the first response in the thread is a "Me too! I'm having the same problem!"

well I always look for the "0 reply" in the forums and try to answer those..
but having more people involved in this "hunt" its nice too.

Don't forget to include it in you sig!

Great initiative

Starting on it right now... I don't have anything better to do while my system is installing...

Whats up with all the "wasting time to post replies if the poster already found out" replies?
its a good thing anyway, because then others who have the same question can search and find it, and doesn't have to make a new post.

I have been doing this for a while now, but I am glad to see someone posting this message.

The trouble seems to be that many/most of those seem to be rather unique issues; or, issues that need to be addressed by people more guru'ish than many of us are....at present.

I have an enhancement proposal, for a time now, it's been on my mind but I don't nkow how to implement it.

Appart from unanswered posts, there's also the problem of the resolved posts that don't get tagges as such, it would be great if when a problem is solved, the title of the post is changed, that way, the info would bo more clear for someone seasching the forums, this task should be responsability of the original poster but could be done by the mods too.

tomk wrote: We all know that these are the best forums on the net, but for some people are missing out on this enormous wealth of knowledge. We currently have 8193 unanswered posts on these forums so we are setting up the adopt an unanswered post initiative.

8193 unanswered posts? I bet its far more, since the search function of phpBB caps at (2^15)+1 (aka 8193).

Maybe you should ask an admin for accurate values.

But nice idea...

Joe

It shows currently 8191 unanswered post, but the last one shown is 4149 on page 83. Behind there are only empty pages. I wondered if this is an error with the forum or my browser, but I guess it's the forum.

Joe wrote:I bet its far more, since the search function of phpBB caps at (2^15)+1 (aka 8193).

That's interesting, but sometimes there are even 8194 unanswered topics.
[edit]
I counted ones again, not 4149 but 4120 unanswered.
[/edit]

afraner wrote:It shows currently 8191 unanswered post, but the last one shown is 4149 on page 83. Behind there are only empty pages. I wondered if this is an error with the forum or my browser, but I guess it's the forum.

Joe wrote:I bet its far more, since the search function of phpBB caps at (2^15)+1 (aka 8193).

That's interesting, but sometimes there are even 8194 unanswered topics.
[edit]
I counted ones again, not 4149 but 4120 unanswered.
[/edit]

This would mean that the counter up there is accurate, but it will not go past those 80 or so pages. We don't need to answer the older posts.