And perhaps (c) that the user base doesn't have confidence in Eons respecting and acting upon user advice for improving Eons.
posted by MrBassMan 13 minutes ago
@BassMan: Yeah, I hear 'ya. In an ideal world, most or all of those, 'how do I' questions probably don't belong on the 'advice' group...but...what's a mother to do? They are important questions. If a member is stuck on a technical point they really do need to get the problem solved, and there does not seem to be a special group for such questions. Some of the questions keep getting asked over and over. Tall Bob and those guys do a pretty good job of furnishing links to previous discussions of each of the repetitive questions. Considering that we are barely a week or two into a new version, the number of questions is reasonable.
MrBassMan,
I completely support your statement. I rarely come to this group anymore. In my opinion there are to many questions that can be found in the How to Guides. Many of these questions are not related to the new version. Also many questions can be asked in the HTML Group. Thank you for bringing this situation to the forefront Bass.
It suggests to me that:
a) We have a lot of new members.
b) People would rather ask for help than learn how to help themselves.
c) Despite our protestations, Eons Advisors is perceived as the place to go to ask these questions.
I think that a lot of new folks, or even folks who have been here a while, don't know much about how to do things in the cyber world. I know I didn't even know what HTML was about. A group with the name "Eons Advisors" will be the first place to go for advice about Eons...right??
Oh for crying out loud!
What do you expect when we have over 13,000 new members a month? You think there is a small clause in the initial sign up process that says "you cannot ask 'How do I' questions, you should know it all"????
Many people our age or older that are joining have little or no computer experience, and I base that on the fact that my computer group grew from 112 members to almost 500 in a two day time frame. We get questions like what does www mean, we don't make them feel they are not smart for asking, we answer their questions because everyone doesn't know everything.
So be patient, and try helping instead of putting the people who have questions down, with this many new members a month - you will see How do I questions and lots of them.
Eons is easy to use, but as is anything, when you are new to it, it does take time to get the feel for things. This version is much easier than the other, so I say KUDOS to Eons, and the Crew!
Debirae....exactly what I was trying to say only you say it so much better..LOL.
I think we can agree on MrBassMan's point that there is an unmet need for helping people overcome ease-of-use issues. The primary reasons for this are the sheer number of new members along with the desire (or need) for new members to connect with other people and ask questions about Eons as opposed to finding the answers in the Help section (e.g. by reading the FAQs). As anyone who has ever worked in tech support knows, nearly all tech support questions could be answered by "read the manual." But getting the users to read the manual is a pipe dream. They won't do it!
So I think we all agree that there needs to be a place for people to ask questions and get help. It's good for business and I'd like to encourage it. At the same time, however, it is not a good use of my time to provide individual tech support or manage a group that provides tech support - let alone beginner-level tech support. For my sake, the conversation needs to be high-level and as sharply-focused as possible. I need Eons Advisors to be the group it was originally intended to be: A group of helpful members that advise Eons on product design decisions. If we need to start another group to fulfill that purpose, there's a risk that one or both groups will suffer. However, I can't see any way to predict the result, so maybe it's something we'll just have to try?
Thank you TB for your comments. I can appreciate your time is valuable. It's too bad more of these questions aren't posted in the Newcomers Group. I was a Moderator in the first group that was formed and we tried to encourage members to ask questions.
Debirae: With all due respect...No one needs your sarcasm. It's unnecessary when someone is bringing up a very good point. Maybe we can steer some of the newbies in the direction of your group?? LOL..Seriously, I think any reply that starts out with "For crying out loud" doesn't set a good example.
