Forums their future?

Hi, how would you feel if you posted a problem and with your permission a member took control of your computer and with live voice and or video proceeded to fix the problem? Is this the future for help forums.. what would be your concerns... how comfortable would you feel... what assurances would you need...

How would I feel?

I think its a great idea!

Assurances? I would look at their post counts, as well as feedback others have left.

I regularly speak with someone I met at VirtualDr, and he's taken control of my pc to sort something out. No probs, grateful in fact.

What do others think?

Thinking about it, there is quite a big element of risk. I mean, whats to say that a member that is normally reputable in the forum has THEIR pc hacked, and logon details stolen? The hacker could then log on, offer to help someone and screw their pc over.

Many other security risks, but I still think its a good idea.

I've thought about that myself. I do it with my brothers computer using PCanywhere on a regular basis which got me thinking about what would happen if it were done privately or publicly with strangers that need help.

The liabilities would be enormous I'd think... it's one thing to offer suggestions in thread for someone to try out but (virtual) hands on could be another story. Would you be able to sue someone if the problem wasn't fixed or was made worse? Who would be responsible? the individual doing the work or the company he worked for? There would need to be some lawyers working on that problem before any service was implemented..

And of course there's the privacy and security concerns as pointed out by Hongman. Would I give a stranger access to my PC over the internet?

no.

I think the idea of this sounds great. I would also have to go along with what fink mentioned about if someone's problem wasn't fixed. Who would be responsible? However, keep in mind that let's keep the problems inside these forums for everyone's benifit and can learn from it.

“OMG. Where did the novel I’ve been writing for the past fives go? It was here before YOU connected to my computer. I was going to retire off the money from the book sales.”

Course that's a worse case scenario.

I wonder how all the existing Pay Per Fix sites are protecting themselves?

And what if something went wrong in the middle of a repair and you lost the internet connection?

Dead in the water.

There would need to be a foolproof backup plan and when I say backup the fixer would also need to backup files before he started working on the computer in case there was data loss... or at least insist the user back up everything important before he touched the computer. There would be a lot of work to do even before the repair started.

And what about users with slow internet connections? if someone had dialup then remote control would take a very long time and presumeably be even more expensive because of the hours involved.

I agree with ecross's point that these forums aren't just valuable to the person with a problem. They are valuable to others that follow a problem from first post to solution (or suggested ideas). We could lose that if members paired up to fix problems privately.

Too problematic. I really don't think we are "there" yet and probably won't be for quite some time. I also agree with DuaneB...the learning would not be available for others.

I thought that was the idea behind WEBM that's built into MS Windows OS >= WinMe ??

However having said that I would say NO.

I know enough people who can't even fix a pc problem when the things sitting in front of them let alone letting them lose on one remotely.

[Anecodte]
About a year and a half ago we moved from one building at work to another.

When we asked the networking guys if we needed to back up our HD they said no it was just a straight pick up and move.

We left on the Friday in jovial spirits looking forward to the weekend.

Our joy of moving to new surroundings on the Monday morning was short lived when we discovered that a different area of networking who was setting up our machines in the new building had decided that they all needed to be rebuilt.
[/anecdote]

When we moved floors just recently, most of us either moved our own mahines or packed the 'box' inside a box.

One guy removed his HD and took it home over the weekend.