Quality Control

There has been an undercurrent of what I will term Quality Control in Absolute Beginner Talk.

I have seen the issue expressed in several ways, but would summarize is as follows:

What to do when conflicting or worse misinformation is posted in the Forums ?

My take is that if we see this situation arise we should take it as an opportunity to educate. First, the information should be reviewed, and then some type of resolution should be suggested. If you personally are involved in such a situation, ask or help ~ are there any other team members on line ? Avoid starting any kind of flame war. If you see others, team members or not, involved in such a situation offer assistance.

For example, sometimes there is more then one way to skin a cat. In this case it should be pointed out that either solution will work.

Sometimes, however, poor or even bad advice is given. In that case I think we should educate the posters ~ Why is the advice poor, what is the correct solution, etc.

If information seems more malignant in nature, the post should be reported to the mods. For example, there are certain commands which will do serious damage to a system.

IMO this is an optimal solution in the spirit of the Ubuntu Forums.

Any thoughts from the rest of the team (or others) on this issue?

Sometimes it's better to not offer advice unless you know you can make a situation better- like the beta nvidia 6150go driver and hp DV6000 which either works or bombs out.

Several times beginner enthusiasm to answer questions can make for difficult situations -personally I just try to give info I know is tried and tested, in the hope that it will be used.

I think there are two points 1) misguided beginner enthusiasm giving advice-polite education from mods the best way, we want these people to help others with their passion for ubuntu. But also we hope they can give good quality advice.

2)Someone who is intent on causing problems- not personally found this, but look hard enough and from time to time they appear on most sites.

:popcorn:

How bout if you don't know the answer, give the poster some tips on doing a search. I've found either people don't know how to do a search or just don't want to. I see it all the time at work. Kind of goes back to the old saying about giving a man a fish or teaching him to do it himself.

Like teaker1s said there will be those trouble makers. There always are, I've even seen people posting links to paid sites or services here. If you have ever played a FPS online you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. These people should be reported as soon as possible to prevent further damage.

We can divide the users into two sections - beginners and advanced.

The beginners are much more likely to be misled.

A prominent paragraph with mild warning and direction to proper documentation can help in sorting the problem to a good extent. The documentation should also include some common unresolved problems. That is the reason why I have always insisted on documentation for beginners organized with minimal links (for further reference only). An user must be able to download and burn iso, run live CD and install with minimum problems, normally in one go. Then the user is very likely to stick to UBUNTU.

Those giving incorrect or incomplete information can be given the corrections with advice in very polite manner, the life of UBUNTU is in its forums and the 'charged' members should stay charged.

I will give you one case. Someone posted about one UBUNTU GUIDE available for free download in pdf format from a site. I downloaded, just breezed through its 900+ pages in 15 minutes, found sort of useful for beginners, made a new thread and posted in beginners forum. Next day it was moved and after another day it disappeared. I do not know why, my only guess is that maybe the download of soft copy was illegal. Maybe the book had wrong information. I should have been at least told.

Those giving damaging information intentionally shall get noticed. They have to be handled.

It surely is very important to be correct in the forums.

dptxp said:

I will give you one case. Someone posted about one UBUNTU GUIDE available for free download in pdf format from a site. I downloaded, just breezed through its 900+ pages in 15 minutes, found sort of useful for beginners, made a new thread and posted in beginners forum. Next day it was moved and after another day it disappeared. I do not know why, my only guess is that maybe the download of soft copy was illegal. Maybe the book had wrong information. I should have been at least told.

Oh dear! I just had to remove the link from my signature...I found it in that post too, seems out it is not legit!!

As for the topic of this thread, I largely agree with you all, however there are a couple things to bear in mind. Firstly, if there isn't already, (I may just not have noticed) there should be a huge disclaimer somewhere! Whilst I agree we should try and handle things, including the quality of advice. I don't think we can realistically get to a point where we can make any guarantees. There is bad advice around, and when delivered with enough confidence, it will most likely be followed. Disclaimer is really not the word I was after, what I mean is just a notice to spell out very clearly, that advice in the forums is given on a voluntary basis by users OF ALL LEVELS. It is good that it is, but requires that people following advice do so with care, and also do their own research. Secondly, we should encourage people to read threads a bit more completely. Following the suggestion on post # 2, is not always the best bet...at the very least, they need to scan through the thread to the end to make sure they have done what they can to help themselves.

Often, new users can surprise themselves, and will know what they need to do, in order to research and correct a problem they may have, and all that is required is a more general suggestion of a starting point, or maybe just an initial clue. I don't see any problem with that moral support approach either. Particularly as it enables greater participation from users of all levels.

Bad advice is a problem, and needs to be dealt with, but I think we should be careful how this is done. Consequences of moderating peoples best efforts worry me a bit. I don't want people put off from offering a suggestion. However I think people should be encouraged to point out if they are having a guess!! Finally, whilst I know people get a bit bored of saying the same thing over and over because new users typically don't search enough, I really don't like the tone of some peoples' suggestion to use search. (I realise that I should have some links there, but haven't got time to find them just this second, but you all will have seen them) There is always two ways to get a point across, and people should always choose the nicer of those two!

I have given this issue a lot of thought. None of the folks who raised the question have commented so I would like to re-iterate my view of the situation.

The issue I would like to address is in the treatment of members of the Ubuntu community who may make mistakes in posting advice.

Ubuntu and in particular the Ubuntu forums is open to new users. We are a community of users helping other users, and not paid technical support.

See here for policies : ***Beginner Talk Rules***

In particular, >

• There are no stupid questions (II:1). Everyone was new to Linux at some point.
• Be polite, respectful (I:1) and considerate (II:6).
• Try to communicate as clearly as possible (I:10).
• Give basic instructions, in step-by-step form when necessary (II:14). Try to avoid jargon (II:7).
• Answers like "STFU", "RTFM" or "Google it" [COLOR="Red"]ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES[/COLOR] (II:8 ). Those answers will incur warnings, infractions or bans if a staff member feels it is appropriate. This is a cardinal rule of our community.

IMO this set of rules is why I am active with Ubuntu.

IMO this courtesy not only includes posters who start threads, but to all members of our community.

Thus, IMO, we should extend the same respect to members of our community who make mistakes, whether that be a typo or mistaken advice/technical information.

It should seem self evident, but I will hold Beginner Team members to this code of conduct.

If you see errors, please educate and correct those errors. If you see malignant posts, report them to the mods.

FYI Malignant postings are moved (by the mods) to "jail" and are no longer viewable.

I also like this set of rules I came across in the UDSF :

[*]in laymans terms - Be in those places so each individual can

communicate, or give me some other forum to allow all of you to communicate on a level thats easier than an email. IRC is prefered - irc.freenode.net #ubuntuforums

regularly.

• in laymans terms - If you are there, you can do. Be on the board

• in laymans terms - You can always blame me.

well not most of the time....ok mebbe some of the time.....but not alot, I promise.

• in laymans terms - Dont act like a kid and I promise you I wont either,

feel that way. At least when I feel stupid I can do something about it, the beginning or desktop user cant most times.

• in laymans terms - Make me feel stupid first, before you make a user

~ Quote [color=red]KingBahamut[/color]

Obviously the UDSF rules are outside of the Ubuntu forums, I think they express the spirit of Ubuntu and may serve as guidelines for our team as well (meaning team members will not be held to them, but may find them useful).

So go ahead, make me feel stupid, it is not that hard and I don't mind. But don't pick on Ubuntu community members.

Peace be with you,

[color=navy]bodhi.[/color][color=darkgray]zazen[/color]

while I agree with you on educating people who give wrong advice, I feel that it's an area that involves walking on egg shells-possibly getting infraction points. wouldn't it be better to involve a mod in this?

Absolutely, but again, it just worries me that 'reporting' people who end up giving bad advice, even though it may be their best effort, could lead to a number of people being reluctant to even try, and I am just not sure that would be a good thing. Of course, malicious bad advice, if there is such a thing here, I've never seen it, but should certainly be dealt with by a mod.

teaker1s said: while I agree with you on educating people who give wrong advice, I feel that it's an area that involves walking on egg shells-possibly getting infraction points. wouldn't it be better to involve a mod in this?

I agree the poor advice can be problematic, thus I started this thread to see if the Beginners Team could help. In my opinion we should help where we can and it sounds as if we all agree the primary tool is education.

I disagree with infraction points in the absence of malicious intent. To me would seem very un-Ubuntu and, IMO at least, contradictory to the Ubuntu ethics as stated in my last post.

Again, IMO I have always seen Ubuntu as a welcoming community. The natural evolution will obviously be new users asking for help will become new posters who are trying to help others. This is the natural next step that allows new users to become involved and give back to the community. That is how I started, one day a light bulb went off and there I was ~ "hey I know the answer to that", or so I thought...

The point is all posters, both new and old, both deserve of our support and understanding. Over time they will mature and our community will continue to grow. This is how the community built and it seems that infraction points, as you suggest, would profoundly change the nature of the community.

None of us is perfect or all knowing and wrong information will thus appear from time to time. I do not see the mods taking issue with this. My intent is to help posters, new or old, learn and enjoy Ubuntu.

Sometimes it is helpful to give someone a nudge if you will ~ Try xyz. Now xyz my not be the solution, or x an y correct, but z wrong. But the advice leads to a solution indirectly in that you will see a response like " I did xyz, but z failed, so I did abc and problem solved, Thanks". In this case, not only problem solved, but I would assume both posters learn.

IMO moderation is only required if there is malicious intent where xyz are not only wrong, but actually known malicious code (which I will not type here of course).

/rant :lolflag:

adam.tropics said: Absolutely, but again, it just worries me that 'reporting' people who end up giving bad advice, even though it may be their best effort, could lead to a number of people being reluctant to even try, and I am just not sure that would be a good thing. Of course, malicious bad advice, if there is such a thing here, I've never seen it, but should certainly be dealt with by a mod.

You do not see malicious bad advice because the mods move such things to "jail". Jailed posts are not viewable thus you do not see them. It is uncommon and the fact you do not see it is proof the mods do their work unobtrusively.

bodhi.zazen said:

You do not see malicious bad advice because the mods move such things to "jail". Jailed posts are not viewable thus you do not see them. It is uncommon and the fact you do not see it is proof the mods do their work unobtrusively. Seriously? They do happen, outside of the backyard, as in people deliberately giving advice that might lead to real problems such as loss of data or whatever? Wow, I am actually very surprised by that. Go the mods!!(<--now there's an expression that would have held different meaning when I was growing up in the UK in the early 80's!!)