Comments about the 'So you have a problem...' thread
 

[moderator note: The following posts were moved from the thread 'So..you have a problem and need some help...' ]

IMHO this sticky post asks the supplicant to do 12+ hours of work to avoid asking the Knowing Ones to provide 5 minutes of help.

That's not the way I conduct myself when I have knowledge others need. It's not the way I wish to be treated when others have that knowledge.

I have already done 8 hours of trying to learn, trying to solve. If that didn't qualify me to ask my starter question, then I will continue to continue to work toward a solution. But not here.

:(

"'something doesn't work, can you tell me how to fix it?'"


I honestly and earnestly don't understand why this is not a legitimate question. Unless the moderators assume that the asker did nothing to try to fix it themselves. An assumption I would not make.

Before I started a thread (in the wrong place, perhaps, but I couldn't figure out how to move it) I read the FAQ. Nothing. Searched the post archives, and found little. Which astounded me since I would think that styling sidebar text would be commonplace (perhaps the illusions of a star-eyed designer). Found one post that I thought provided clues. Tried those clues for 35 minutes, and got nowhere. Then asked here. (After reading tutorials, watching videos, printing/reading Help documentation for other hours.)

That is not I want My Answer! laziness.

It may be... probably is ignorance. Is that a crime?

Unfortunately some of the "'something doesn't work, can you tell me how to fix it?'" questions are just that. They don't give a link to their site. They don't mention anything they have done, they don't tell us what version of the theme or WordPress they are on etc. So we end up having to try and determine what the issue is from very little information.

That is why this thread was born. Just to give some guidelines on some of the info that can be helpful to help people. There are also those who just want to use us as free CSS or PHP coders and not try to learn any of that themselves.

You did give the link to your site and did mention what you have done in your post so this thread doesn't really apply to you. Also I am not sure where you got your 12+ hours of time and very few of the questions we answer are just 5 minutes of our time. I often will take the time to test my answer before posting, look up and post a link to the plugin I am mentioning, install a plugin that someone is having problems with to test, etc. so many of the answers we give constitute 10, 15, 20 minutes or more.

I hope that helps explain this thread a bit better and thanks for questions. You do not fit into the category of lazy.

Your reply makes a lot of sense and I accept it. I'm sure you know, but it may be on point to say it again, that what leads many of us to post here is FRUSTRATION. That led to the tone in my comments, which I think was respectful but prickly. :o

The list of things to be done (or considered) given in the first post was *very* long. If one takes them seriously (often an over-reaction in the real world) it would take I think longer than 12 hours to do them. Might take me a week.

My belief is that Frustration explains much more of the sloppy or self-entitled behavior you see here than any form of "laziness" does. If I was the Senior Moderator here ( :p ) (if there is such a person) I would not "accuse" frustrated people of laziness. True or not, I can't imagine that it's productive to throw that kerosene on the fire.


I might say something like: "You may be frustrated with your problem, and we understand that and want to help, but this forum only works if you do some of the work yourself. If you check to see if your answer is already here. If you take a couple of calming deep breaths and describe the problem specifically with its symptoms, and tell us the software you're using."




If you decide that my posts here and your reply are a sidetrack not useful to most, I have no problem if they're deleted.

BTW, the help I received in my problem thread was Just What I Needed.

Day-yum...glad I got here too late to be in the middle of THAT...LOL.

One thing mods (you excepted Larry...you seem acutely aware of this), forum visitors, Flynn...everyone here might keep in mind is...

ThemeFrame is TOO DAMN GOOD...in a good sorta way, of course.

I can't be the only one here whose computer ignorance surpasses belief...and I bought TF for that very reason...its simplicity. It's so simple even a caveman Luddite can do it! (Apologies to GEICO)

The problem is, folks like me can't even put in words exactly what the problem is...at least not much above the grunt/stone tablet level. I've seen some answers here that started off WAY above my level, and got worse as they progressed. I would venture to say there are folks here who can't even tell you the actual words the acronym CSS stands for...I know I couldn't 3 mos ago.

Larry seems to get it...some others might follow his example.