Do you find this board useful?

Post by **pagefault** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:36 am

When you are reporting a bug do you find this forum helpful or do you find yourself being flamed by people? The reason I ask is the more and more I read this forum it seems like whenever someone asks something someone feels it's time to pull out some "apparently funny" image they spent 5 minutes on in photoshop or simply insult the person. Quite frankly I am sick of it. If you want to do this then do it on some other forum. These forums are here to help people, if you aren't helping then don't post.

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:38 am

Maybe if people read the documentation before asking questions answered in it, they wouldn't get flamed so much.

This is not a new development.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:41 am

Only reason I posted a picture I "wasted 5 minutes on in photoshop" was Mike was stating the obvious about keyboard limitations. Sorry about that.

I've reported a few bugs here, and they I was helped rather than flamed.

Actually I didn't use an image editing program for mine, I just snapped a pic of it in VBA then Kode crunched it down.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:58 am

The forum can be useful to some if they read the docs or search the forum before posting a problem. Some of my bug reports were helpful. It's true that the photoshop pictures are sometimes annoying to see.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:15 am

adventure_of_link wrote:Only reason I posted a picture I "wasted 5 minutes on in photoshop" was Mike was stating the obvious about keyboard limitations. Sorry about that.

I've reported a few bugs here, and they I was helped rather than flamed.

Actually I didn't use an image editing program for mine, I just snapped a pic of it in VBA then Kode crunched it down.

ME?! Well w.e. it probaly wasn't obvious to the other guy. BTW you still didn't have to insult me with that picture. It wasn't needed. I haven't really flamed people unless it was something really wierd like they couldn't load a rom. That's just plain wierd.

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:08 am

I think it's pretty hard to determine if this board is really useful or not, I mean, most of the people that come here ask a question and then leave, so I guess it's pretty hard for them to answer.

But I can say that from a couple of days to today, that there hasn't been a lot of post from people asking questions. Maybe a couple of Black screens and that's it. This could mean two things:

1.- People are reading the docs or searching the board.
2.- People are too scare to ask a question.

I'm willing to bet on the first one, because people who ask "dumb" or repeated questions aren't the kind of people that search the board anyway, so there is no way they can see the "hostility" in it.

Although I agree that sometimes Aerdan jumps the gun in some threads, but the problem isn't that. The problem is that everyone celebrates him as if he had defeated God with his bare hands. One 'doken at a question that's answer is in the docs? Fine. 3-4 different 'dokens from different people and others laughing at the guy? I think that's a bit too harsh.

Also, we have the issue of the Original poster's fault. I mean, he has to put some effort in order for the other users to take him seriously. Spelling, grammar, a little searching and reading the docs, it doesn't cost a thing but it's worth a lot.

Then we also have the Original Posters that come here in a very aggressive stance, I still can't believe the guy that said that "your" and "you're" were the same, and not only that, he told us to "look it at the dictionary"! I mean, that really deserves all the 'dokens we can throw at his general direction.

But really, there are a lot of threads with problems that have been solved with no problems, I honestly think that we have a better ratio with the solved ones, but it's those 2-3 threads that become a war that makes the forum look bad.

That's just my point of view.

Truth Unknown · Post by **Truth Unknown** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:19 am

OR 3. They give up on ZSNES.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:29 am

I agree with Joe's assessment... perhaps we should take the approach like Snes9x does with its forums.. have a list of FAQs in one special forum so we can point to when a question has been asked a million times or so... so threads with questions with "Will ZSNES be supported for X?" will be one reply and done..

Somehow, even with the documentation around.. perhaps there should be a newbie system implemented? Like, can the forum software give like a warning or popup saying "Did you read the FAQ page or the documentation?" cause that might turn a few heads (the few that might exist).. You will always have the obligatory dumbasses though....

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:50 am

I'd suggest to start packaging a documentation with the WIP releases, or at least a text file that tells them where to get one. Often times, the first piece of advice that is given to the OP is to "read the docs". What we may fail to realize is that these people will not have docs if they are using a WIP.

Although personally, I'd prefer if WIPs weren't released at all, but that's just me.

Truth Unknown · Post by **Truth Unknown** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:16 am

Or put a warning that they are betas.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 6:31 am

A text file would probably be a good thing. It should say like "This is a work in progress version of ZSNES. Please be sure to read the documentation at (site).com"

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:11 am

True X Unknown wrote:Or put a warning that they are betas.

I may be wrong, but the last thing I know about that is that ZSnes actually is a beta. I have read this somewhere in a doc. long ago though...

As for myself, my questions went either not answered, flamed or both. I think because they were too specific, not worth the effort and sometimes with spelling mistakes. Nothing to help

There's a kind of special climate on this board that I'm just starting to get used to. And I was there back in the old board time.

Also, we have the issue of the Original poster's fault. I mean, he has to put some effort in order for the other users to take him seriously. Spelling, grammar, [...], it doesn't cost a thing but it's worth a lot.

So could we say that french is an excuse, grinvador?

as2100 · Post by **as2100** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:24 am

This seems like a thread geared more towards the "regulars," but I thought I should toss in my thanks for the quick and helpful responses I received as a first-timer. Thanks!

Post by **badinsults** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:08 am

My feeling is that people could likely answer a simple question in the same amount of time it would take to write some flaming comment or "RTFM you n00b!!11!1". For instance, in that thread where the guy was asking about the Chrono Trigger button thing, if someone had simply said "due to a limitation of the keyboard, you cannot press three keys simultaneously. therefore you have to map all three buttons to the same key", instead of having 10 posts that said "read the manual idiot", it would be far more helpful.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:24 am

or just "read the manual page 900"

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 10:05 am

I think (and most board members will probably agree with me) that the very reason why the regulars have taken an aggressive stance towards newbies is because many people come here to ask a simple question that has been answered either in one of the numerous stickies on the board or in the documentation. Most of the time, they could have just skimmed through the forum topics on the first page of any given forum a bit before clicking the 'New Topic' button.

To be frank, I can't stand people who won't even try to look into the matter themselves before asking for help, or alternatively, type like retarded monkeys so I have to read their post twice or thrice to make any sense of it.

But yeah, I agree that a small text file should be included with the WIPs that points out the importance of the docs... a small comfort, but still.

I still think Grinvader said it best

Lord Alpha · Post by **Lord Alpha** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 1:57 pm

I think this forum is very useful. Granted there are idiot n00bs, and overzealous regulars, but I've seen some quality stuff come out of here too.

At the same time, alot of the n00bs (NOT newbies) deserve what they get.

When a person posts here to ask HOW TO LOAD A DAMN GAME and makes it obvious that he hasn't even started ZSNES to poke around in the menu, it's time to start slapping people.

And that is a lot of the sort of assinine stuff that I see here. Really simple questions that would be answered if the offending idiot would read or search the forums, or load ZSNES and look around the menus (what a concept huh?).

In short, if it's posted here and it's good, it's high quality. If it's bad, it's truly horrible.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:33 pm

My feelings match those of Agozer and Lord Alpha. I am not willing to help people who aren't willing to try and help themselves first.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:24 pm

Give me server access and let me make a pre-registration quiz. I honestly believe that will filter out a large portion of the idiots.

ThunderClaw · Post by **ThunderClaw** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:00 pm

Aerdan wrote:Maybe if people read the documentation before asking questions answered in it, they wouldn't get flamed so much.

This is not a new development.

Copy and paste is your friend for FAQs.

Ichinisan · Post by **Ichinisan** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:30 am

Everyone: STOP FLAMING PEOPLE WHO CAN'T FIGURE OUT THE GAME>LOAD MENU

These people are always greeted with "OMG WHAT AN IDIOT! U CAN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO LOAD THE EFFING GAME!!!! HA HA HA HA!"

The ZSNES Game>Load menu is extremely cryptic to newbies who don't understand files and directories. They probably don't understand what happens when you open a picture or any other non-executable file. This may be the first time they have ever used an Open menu from within an application. ".." doesn't make a bit of sense to a novice who doesn't know what it means and may not even understand the nested nature of directories and subdirectories.

Believe it or not, knowing how to locate and open files does not mean that you are better or smarter than someone who does not. Give these poor unfortunate souls a break and help them out.

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:45 am

Nontechnical people shouldn't be using programs geared mainly towards technical people. If they can't figure out ZSNES, they should be using SNES9x or bSNES instead and quit pestering us because they lack sufficient clue to handle interfaces like ZSNES's.

Post by **Agozer** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:49 am

But in most of these 'how do I load a game?' questions, someone has pointed out that if the user doesn't know how to use the file selector, all he has to do is to move the rom file to the folder where the Zsnes executable is, and then the Load window automatically defaults to this directory (unless cfg file has been modified, which I doubt).

Yes, I agree that these people should be helped, and my pet peeves aren't questions like the aforementioned one. However, should these people be using emulators in the first place, regardless of how complicted the Load menu is or isn't? Eh, maybe I think too much... people shouldn't be robbed of their joy of playing old games just because they don't understand much about computers.

I'll just shut up now.

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:12 am

I will admit, I do find this forum helpful. That is when I'm not adding my retardation to it.

ThunderClaw · Post by **ThunderClaw** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:18 am

Aerdan wrote:Nontechnical people shouldn't be using programs geared mainly towards technical people. If they can't figure out ZSNES, they should be using SNES9x or bSNES instead and quit pestering us because they lack sufficient clue to handle interfaces like ZSNES's.

Copy and paste is your friend for FAQs.