Virtual Dr. seems more than a little sick: "Member Participation Issues"

Folks:

I'm sorry to hear about the fall-off here at VDr. I gugess I have just been taking it for granted that I can always go here and get help. Now that I think about it, it does seem like there is less response and less discussion. I don't have a lot to offer except good wishes. Search engines arae indeed imiportant; I know that's how I got here the first time. But as an old time user of the net and bulletin boards before that, I can't help pointing out that there seems to be a natural ebb and flow of things in cyberspace. Things some into being, are successful and then wither away. Who knows why? I surely hope that is not the case here. Maybe you just need to shake the box a little.

Best of luck.

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/logos/logo-drwho.gif Well here is my summary.
The posting of worthless chit chat on these message boards,in the middle of threads in the last eighteen months is something to be desired.I think
they are just trying to post more messages then anyone here can,or something like that.Lets get back to what the Dr said increase the activity,I have not seen any fair reason yet to make me say "thats it",apart from
the site revamp,and if thats a lemon what next.
I don't intend to rant on and write a manuscript,but I do have my little fun now and then,but some stuff in this thread has come out of the ark,its taken several hours to read all,and some was dribble,I do wish lots of luck for VDr,the members,Mods,and Adim,
and to the man who started this thread..

Yes, I stopped coming to Vdr as I too felt the site had just become pretty boring. Mostly the same questions. Nothing you can do about that. I also feel that you can't joke around much here, or like previously said, don't post a congrats on number of posts. Though now you do have The Lounge.

None of us are paid for helping. Without us VDr doesn't exist. I think that Vdr is going to (or has) lose some of their smarter members over time.

Lastly I too can't stand the design of your homepage. I too have become a gollum (lurker) coming out once in awhile to answer questions (and ask too).

Anyone notice any difference in the speed lately?

JPnyc--Some pages load much faster--close to what I would expect as normal, others are still a bit slow--especially posting a Reply. Thanks for working on this.

Hi troyz, Nice to see you surface long enough to make a comment. I followed many of your posts in the past. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JPnyc

Anyone notice any difference in the speed lately?

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Seems a little quicker to me, and I was having fairly profound problems... I'll watch it for a few days carefully. Thanks for the work so far!

My pleasure. Hey, I'm a user too. If it's slow for you, it's slow for me.

Seems to be good on my MOchine. I try never to complain however. :p
Thanks for your work and the work of those "others" who are un-seen and often un-thanked. Hoping we will see more thank you's!!

BTW, you are right about the posting Jim.

DrMDJ
Yes I agree with your observation and also understand the dejection you are experiencing. With the pletora of forums on the net the majority of us non-geeks try to find a good location to post our problems and hopefully the computer savvy can help us getup and running again.
The problem with the majority if not all of the forums, it is a work of love and because of that there is no incentive to log on on a regular basis. Besides all of us have other responsibilities to attend too.
It is understandable that there is no easy solution to the status quo.
IMHO what draw to the forums are professionalism, excellent archival system that filters out redundancy, the subject matter has to be clear so it can be sort under certain categories, no upmanship, respect for our fellow members no matter how wrong he or she is on a particular subject. Give credit where credit is due.
Posting problems has to be to the point, as clear and as short as possible. That goes also for solutions, do not assume that we all are computer savvy, so certain steps sometimes need extra knowledge of a precondition so extra clarification will go a long way.
The best forum will be those that attracts the best computer wizards so they can in turn teach us poor earthlings some of geek magic and hopefully we in turn can help other newby's with problems we experienced before.
Again forums are a work of love and requires volunteers to make it work . If enough volunteers are willing to host the forum then maybe the moderators can be assigned on a rotational basis.
I am certain some one will come up with a neat idea that will attract the experts to join and share their knowledge.
This is my 2cents input.

I am a long time supporter of VDR forums since May 2002, when I discovered VDR.

Although I am computer savvy, no one knows everything about computers. The area is just too big and everything changes every 5 minutes or that is the way that it seems.

What I have noticed is that VDR has become an excellent source of information for basic issues. I have been searching the internet for answers to two questions, one involving server hardware firewalls and the other pertaining to Windows SharePoint Services.

I posted a message about hardware firewall in the security - AV conference but that post was moved to the Networking conference. To date there have been no responses to that post.

For this forum or any forum to be viable, there must be a diversity of participants with varying levels of expertise, so that questions of all levels can be addressed. I think that this is the primary reason that we have lost a number of moderators and others with extensive expertise.

Hence, we are now getting the complaint that the problems seem to be the same thing over and over. Whether this is true and a fair statement is not the issue in my opinion.

What is the issue, is that a number of VDR members do not feel that they can surf this forum and expand their knowledge level.

IMO, it is these core issues, which are driving current participation levels.

It is up to VDR and Jupiter to devise new strategies to address these issues, so that VDR continues to grow and prosper.

Cheers,

Linda

;) :rolleyes: :cool:

Linda, for sharePoint questions, you might try here. That's an IT management forum, and I've seen sharepoint mentioned there a few times.

Just killing some electrons & stumbled into this.

I'll get around to absorbing it sometime as I may not be the most valuable member of this community, and frankly don't have the level of expertise to offer much. :(

I do feel like home here though, and for this site I am very grateful.

DrMDJ:

Quote:

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(I hate that word, LOL). And they (IMO)

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What's lol and imo mean anyway?? ;)

A search for LOL yields:
Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
The following words are either very common, too long, brokeback, or too short and were not included in your search : lol

When I google it: I get 1,936,578,852,362,782,892,929 results:in 10 nanoseconds no less!!!

Where can I find out more about intruiging things like this?
:confused: :D :confused:

Search for online acronyms...
http://www.google.com/search?q=onlin...en-US:official

And your "value" here is fine just fine ... a community needs people of all varieties and knowledge levels. So you are just as valuable around here as anyone else k!!! ;-)

LOL - Laughing out loud

IMO - In my opinion.

Generally they are concidered IM Acronyms.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steve83

I do feel like home here though, and for this site I am very grateful.

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my sentiments as well...:)

I was mostly just fooling around. :p

I'm not that bad. :o

Thanks for the replies at any rate.

Bear with me as I get accustomed to where everything is, who knows what & where the snacks are hidden...
First, I am frightfully new at tech forums(shamefull, I know), but find this is essential if I am to keep up with the tech world. Aside from some general greeting work, I haven't gotten an clear idea of where to start, but I'm trying. I'd like the oppertunity to eventually be one of the VDr. ppl who gives advice one day(*snicker...) & hopefully find the answers to my pesky pc problems in the meantime. I hope I represent the variety of individules you wish to associate with on the good VDr. I found this link via another (social)forum & you came highly recomended. So if you have your doubts as to the status of this site & it's popularity/helpfulness...
...just remember, I wouldn't have found it & decided to make my nest here if it was just another fly by night site.
Thanks for the chance to be envolved~

:)

Spiceygamble, Welcome to VDr....:)
IMHO you've made a very wise choice.
The dip and chips are in the cooler under the left side of..... ;)
The learning curve for me was steep and have been able to keep up with the rudimentaries. You sound a bit more advanced and this is a super & helpful place to learn.
Enjoy your stay...:D

Welcome to the Best, friendliest help forums on the net. :D

Trust me: as a person who Obey's alot & surf their argumentative, unfriendly forums, I know the diff. :(
The Micr$oft forums (most) are too far above my head, and talk in languages I can't understand.

I work with 'puters in business applications daily, and they have evolved into a hobby.

I've NEVER seen anyone flamed here for asking any question or contributing, whether someone perceives it's a StOOpuD one.

I can't count on my 3 hands :rolleyes: how much I have learned here --> And it's Pleasurable!
The moderators are unparallled, true experts, generally unbiased and absolutely loaded with Facts that help anyone who needs computer help.
Other members never cease to amaze me with the knowledge.

I know these fellow V-Drs. little, except here.
I feel/hope I have made & developed friendships here.

So, keep coming back: contribute when you can, be polite and you will visit here often.
The only suggestion I have is: Please do a search for your ??'s prior to starting a new topic.
Someone was right.
Most common to complicated answers can be found that way.

My best,
Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steve83

I've NEVER seen anyone flamed here for asking any question or contributing, whether someone perceives it's a StOOpuD one.


My best,
Steve

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And you never will. Not as long as our mod crew is here. Thank you very much for the kind words. It's really appreciated. -Joe

Well, I'm glad to meet all of you.
(found the chips, thnx poppy)
I hope I did ok...
alas I'm no longer a VDr. virgin.
*sigh...could be worse.

;P

Nice to meet you too. This place can be fun as well as informative. I come here sometimes just to vent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steve83

The only suggestion I have is: Please do a search for your ??'s prior to starting a new topic.

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I think the beauty of this site is that that, unlike other sites, is not a must. Many sites won't answer your questions if there was anything remotely similar, amongst their databse of 14,729,936,839 threads. We don't make that rule around here. Questions are answered with patience over and over again, because everyone wants to feel that he is getting that special attention with his question. And I am sure he will feel special.
This site is absolutely priceless. I can honestly say, that most of what I've learned about computing has come solely from this site. And look at me know. I entered the computer tech world a couple of years ago (officially) and now I have my own business, fixing computers. All thanks to VDr! Unbelievable what influence a web site can have on someones life!!! And for that, I am eternally grateful and loyal.

Well Usil its nice you feel that this site has contributed to your success. I cut my teeth in forums here and will be eternally grateful. Theres some very knowledgeable people here that contributed to what I do now also. However, I have moved on to a situation that makes me feel more comfortable and I am having success there too, but will always feel grateful to VDr for being the place I I learned to participate in communities like this. While I'm here I'd like to say hi to Train and P3-450 among others for showing me the way :). Come visit www.bleepingcomputer.com for another experience in computer self help and say hi to an expatriate.

When I first stumbled onto VDr....no ....really stumbled....I was surfing the net and got up to get a Coke and was coming back, see, and I tripped on the rug and accidentally smacked my elbow on the keyboard and poof! the VDr site came up and....but I digress...

When I first stumbled onto VDr, I just lurked for awhile....mainly just looking up answers to some Win 98 problems. I thought I knew a lot, but in reading the responses in that forum in particular, I had an almost overwhelming feeling of ignorance....felt like I would never be able to really contribute anything (kind of like walking into a conference room full of nuclear physicists to present my elementary school science project made out of Elmer's glue, popcicle sticks and Playdoh). When I finally started actually posting, the good folks here made me feel right at home...and for that I will always be grateful. It was the people here at VDr that gave me the confidence that I could contribute a little something....even if some of it sounds like the ravings of a lunatic. :eek: :rolleyes: :D

Don't ask me how I got it, but this is an actual picture of that Science Project that Bistro made in 2002.
http://familyfun.go.com/Resources/Fe...ect_pops01.jpg

That's IT!! That was my model of a P896-AX Nitrogen-Cooled Pre-Conductive Nuclear Core Enrichment Module ("Thingy" for short...)! She's a beaut, huh? :)

(I was gonna put a tutorial on how I made it in the Desktop Computer Hardware forum, but JPnyc wouldn't let me....)

I stumbled upon this forum too, not that long ago either, mid 2004, then disappeared into a cave with a lot of IT books, came out with some knowledge to throw around, came back here about mid 2005 (June) and started posting properly, when i first found the shiny front page, i delved into the discussions and i learnt a hell of a lot from just reading replies to threads, threads that i was going to attempt to reply to, and didn't have a clue what some of these repliers were going on about.....the best thing is that you can learn a lot and help a lot, and all in a short space of time, i learnt more here in 6 months of posting than i did in 5 years of school.:eek::D


Liam

This is a great forum and I'm so happy about what I learned here.

Now where do you guys keep the Spell check thing? :confused:

As far as I know: there isn't one here for use on posting.

There's a thread called: What "little" program could you simply not do without? that I think has an internewt explorer spell checker in it to use on forums liek thsi won, butt I don'ttt use itt. :p

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Originally Posted by Leurgy

Now where do you guys keep the Spell check thing? :confused:

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For internet Explorer plus Avant and variants try IE Spell and for Firefox try Spellbound

I use the spell checker in the Google Toolbar.

Leurgy , WELCOME back!

I use my 3rd grade copy of "Spelling with Dick and Jane"....and it shows....

i been lurking on here or a while now since early 2004 found this site origionaly through google founs some of it to be very interesting so i bookmarked it and started reading learnt a hell of a lot if i knew an answer to a post i tried to help.
i have always been made to feel welcome hear by the mods and other users.
this is the best site for pc help i have found with the moast detailed answers to sometimes realy nasty problems.
keep up the good work

That's great to hear, thanks. We try to make it a friendly atmosphere.

I am still lurking and watching Bistro. :D

Welcome back Leurgy. :) :)

When we do the next upgrade to the forums, it'll have spellcheck.

I haven't been here in awhile (real life and all that). It only takes a pop-in and quick read to get caught right back up in the atmosphere around here and makes me realize how much I really miss you guys. ;)

https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2008/03/5.gif...I used to know what "real life" meant....