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Programming discussion topics get abandonded if somebody posts wrong advice

poliver

Member
Is it just me, but I've noticed a trend that whenever somebody posts a programming question
and then somebody posts a somewhat completely inaccurate/useless reply
topic dies without a solution

unless the op is persistent, everyone just assumes topic is resolved??
usually no one else jumps into the conversation

am i imagining things?
just ranting... :D
 
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robproctor83

Guest
Hmm, I think it depends. I see a lot of posts go unanswered, but then I also see a lot of posts get answered. I think it's somewhere in the middle, it just depends. A lot of the complicated/abstract problems go unanswered, or problems that are too ambiguous or open ended. The forums are a small subset of people, and only a smaller portion of those people actually know enough to provide help, so it seems about right that a lot of the issues go unanswered. I think, however, unlike other forums bumping your post should be allowed here. However, with that said, I think if you do bump the post to try and get help, you should also be posting progress with each bump and not just relying on someone in the community to figure it out.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I think, however, unlike other forums bumping your post should be allowed here. However, with that said, I think if you do bump the post to try and get help, you should also be posting progress with each bump and not just relying on someone in the community to figure it out.
Bumping posts IS allowed, as long as you do it after 48hours from the last post, and we do encourage people to add more information or details about what they've been trying in the meantime as well. :)
 
It seems to me that posts that often go unanswered are ones I'd presume there'd be zillions of gamemaker users qualified to answer. Side-scrolling collisions, one way platforms, that sort of thing. I have no interest in platformers, so I stay away from those topics myself.

However, getting back to your point. Becoming involved in a topic, in order to provide helpful advice, can invovle a pretty heavy investment in time and effort. So that brings two things to mind. If it looks like others are already making that commitment, it can feel redundant to jump in also, unless you've spotted a serious shortcoming in others' replies. And keeping in mind the commitment of time and energy that you'll likely be making, you'll often want to get involved only in topics that are of some interest to you. Otherwise it will be a soul draining exercise.

In my opinion, bumping should be allowed immediately, as soon as you have any details to add to your topic. It's not like we're flooded with traffic here.

Oh, one other thing. If the OP isn't persistent, I usually presume they've just lost interest in the problem, or have resolved it on their own. It's not a lot of fun putting in a detailed reply to a thread when you suspect the OP might not ever even read it.
 
Well, the Programming section of the board is by far the busiest (unless I'm missing some super active sub-section somewhere), and there's probably around 50 users max that at least semi-regularly post and are good enough to give answers that don't have some errors (and even those users can still have brainfarts). Then you whittle down that bunch of answerers by how many have already answered a few questions that day and don't feel like answering anymore, they might be busy for the day and not visit the board, do they simply check for posts with 0 replies (when I'm in the answering mood, I'll do that occasionally, to try to help out the people that are getting no love at all), is it a topic that interests them, can they give a good answer without going into a massive amount of detail that can be exhausting to formulate and then type, etc. With all that happening probably every day for at least some percentage of the answerers, it's no wonder that some questions slip past with a shoddy answer or two.

Just remember that no-one is getting paid to answer questions, everyone is doing it for the love of GMS, game design and helping those around them.
 

Rob

Member
I usually look at threads with only a few replies or if I see the topic creator is the last post.

Sometimes I just read because the information is interesting, but usually it's because I think I can give some useful feedback but if I don't think o have a good answer I won't post (sometimes I wish I could delete a post I already made!!!)
 
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carbodemnice

Guest
May be it is a good idea to invite experts to participate? If you know someone that can potentially help. Everyone will benefit. An expert will be promoted, the platform will be more interesting and a person who has a question will receive a quality reply...
 
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