I don’t mean SDMB tech support, I just mean all those generic tech support requests like “how do I network my WindowsME and Powermac” “Why does my Navigator 4.7 keep crashing when I…” you get the idea. I know I’m still relatively new here but I’ve noticed a lot of those in the past week, and it seems like maybe it would be useful to have a separate board for them.
I mean technically they’re general questions, but they’re really more requests for assistance/advice than they are a matter of fighting ignorance. I dunno, maybe a board that was devoted to assistance/advice of any kind (tech or non-tech) might be good. Just a thought, not a big deal.
I suggested this a while ago, since I was sick to death of all the tech support threads (and it’s my job, too). I was told to deal with it.
Then, someone suggested an “Ask the Experts” forum, and I liked that idea. Not only would computer advice be given there, but quasi-legal and medical advice could be discussed there, too. That presents a potential legal nightmare for the Reader, so everything remains in GQ.
Just to give you an idea why I bring it up, here’s all the tech support questions (at least I’m pretty sure most of these are) from the last two days alone:
That’s 23 out of 218 total threads - in other words (at least for the last two days) 10% of all GQ posts are not really GQ’s but tech support.
I can maybe see why there might be some caution about medical or legal advice (though you’d think a disclaimer would cover it, and isn’t that advice being given out anyway?). But would tech support have that kind of problem? It just seems like there’s an obvious demand for something like that.
I agree, for what it’s worth. It would certainly make GQ a lot less cluttered. (And I support the notion of a “Tech Support” forum, rather than just a general all-purpose “Ask the Experts” forum, because isn’t that what GQ sort of is, anyway?)
Also, I really don’t think people should be getting their medical advice from the SDMB. Or any message board, for that matter.
I think the forum could be “Advice”, which could take some of the load off of MPSIMS. I think that GQ should be questions that you would really ask Cecil, but have given up on him ever answering…
We, the staff, discussed this before. We decided against it at that time, simply because we believe questions of this nature would be better served at some other site. While we do not actively discourage them here, neither do we wish to encourage them.
And as I may or may not have said before (maybe I haven’t said this in a while), we don’t want to be in the advice business even part time, that’t not really what we do here and we don’t want the potential legal headaches of someone following advice they got off some message board in cyberspace and suffering some terrible consequence.
Same with tech support. Our Teemsters can be helpful to one another from time to time but we’re not about tech support, that’s a whole different deal altogether.
For what we do, we’re great, but we can’t be all things to all people and we don’t even want to try.
Montfort, I agree with you - I wouldn’t mind active discouragement - I’d like to see tech support questions locked, and an addition to the GQ description saying “This forum is not for hardware or software technical support.” There are plenty of resources on the internet for this type of thing, and it can really clog things up in GQ.
If people want to go there, there is a Forum on the UnaBoard set up for just the purpose of computing hardware/software topics, help, etc. The only problem is that we are so tiny that some questions may not get answered or get near the exposure that they would here.
I think a tech forum is a great idea. These type of questions are not really “general” at all and don’t seem to belong in GQ.
However, I suggest naming it “Technical,” “Technical Questions,” “Computer Questions,” or something other than “…Support.” In this Board, this forum would be more of an information exchange than a true “support” department.
Maybe I just expect more from a “Support” department?
