Private posts - mainly from new members

Zoltan_Gyimesi

Zoltan_Gyimesi

Legendary Poster
Hi JDEListers,

I really hope, most of "old" Listers still visit this board sometimes, because I am really curious to your experiences and opinions.

I often receive private posts, e-mails - mainly from new members - generally with subject as "help needed" or as "about documentation", etc. - either as private post on JDEList or e-mail in my Inbox.

Up to this point I always kept my patience and encouraged the poster to post her/his issue onto the public JDEList forum.

Today - I am afraid - I am almost out of my patience.
I waited 6 hours to cool down a bit, before this post.

Please, check the dialog below without further comment from me.
I would like to keep the anonymity of the new member, who registered today - so let name he(she) as x_y.

Regards,

Zoltán
[ QUOTE ]

FROM: x_y
hi
i am a newbie in worldsoft
could u please tell me where can i find some documentation on it and if you have some could you send those to me (especially for dreamwriter).
thanks
x_y


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

FROM: Zoltán_Gyimesi
Hi x_y,

You are welcome aboard on JDEList.
On the other hand, please, in the future post your issue(s) onto public JDEList Forums instead of sending it on private channel. Thanks.

You can download them from the PSFT Customer Connection site, on the following way:

Left Panel: Support > Documentation >
Mid Panel: > Documentation Updates

OR

Left Panel: Updates + Fixes > Documentation Updates

To acces PSFT Customer Connection you have to open

www.peoplesoft.com

and press the "Log in now" on the left upper panel.
You should have a valid user id and password to acces that site.

Regards,

Zoltán


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

FROM: x_y
Thanks for the link, but i dont have the required login id/ password. could you please email me the documents from the site or send me ur userid/password


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

FROM: Zoltán_Gyimesi
Hi x_y,

I do not believe to my eyes!!!!!

Do you ask me to send you copyright protected documentations and/or my legal user ID + password to Customer Connection?

Zoltán


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

FROM: Zoltán_Gyimesi
call your Oracle representative to claim your own User ID and Password.


[/ QUOTE ]
 
Zoltán,

when you get those emails - just click on the delete button. Thats what I do 98% of the time.

Cheers.
 
Hi Larry,

You are right, as usual
tongue.gif

I'm glad to read you here.
Generally, my first reaction is to help - if I can a bit.
...and encourage the new member to post the issue onto the public site (I suppose, I shouldn't tell you, what are the advantages of the public site - of course, here are a lot of professionals all over the world).

This time, I was a bit out of my patience, when somebody ask for my User ID and Password to PSFT Partner/Customer Connection site. It was really too much form me today (...and I let my coffee cool down
on my desk
tongue.gif
)

OK, I like JDEList very much - but I feel so, that the "standard" is changing - and the direction of these changes is not the best.

I know, I am a bit sorry about these changes - but I can not do anything - except to press the DEL button - as you advised.

Just a question Larry:
Do you receive also this kind of posts?

...and a final question (to all of you):
Where is Adrian Chimirel?

Excuse my English & Best Regards,

Zoltán
 
Hi Zoltan,

I have been getting a lot of these lately as well. My reflex is to try and answer questions but I find that once I answer one question they respond with more. They are the one sentence type of questions that make it clear that the person asking is simply trying to answer a list of interview questions.

Remember that the JDE market is now under one universal Oracle umbrella. This consolidation process started with PeopleSoft. There are a lot of people out there looking for work in this new larger Oracle market. With very little information out there to teach themselves they look to the List for help. I guess they simply start with the list of logged in users.

I think back to when I sweet talked my way into my first programming job having no knowledge of the target language. For the first 6 months I would read furiously at night to keep up with my new job. That would have been impossible with JDE given the lack of publicy available information. You have to be a paying customer before you can get anything. Under PeopleSoft non-customers/partners couldn't even pay for training! I have some sympathy for these newbies. Now if they would stop starting their questions with "Pls can u tel me..."
wink.gif


Cheers,
 
Zoltán,

as always your english is excellent.

I lied actually. 50% of the time I delete the messages with no reply. The other 50% I give an answer along with a statement directing them to post any future questions to the forums. I had one this morning on Crystal Reports - they got lucky - I had time to answer
wink.gif
 
My experience is the same as Justin has described. I had one person ask for a copy of my CV. I explained that my CV would be useless to them because it is out of date and is for the Australian employment market - they were from a different country.

I have had a couple of other private messages where I've provided help where I could and had time. I hadn't realised just how wide spread this phenomenon was.

I agree with Zoltán that the "standard" is changing and not for the better. A couple examples of this are (1) that a lot of (new?) members do not add there configuration to there signature or there posts; (2) "add on" questions to existing threads that are entirely unrelated. A 3rd is that there is a certain amount of laziness implied in some posts - this does not include those members who admit that they are trying to save time and their reputation in JDEList is "good" in that they rarely make posts of this type.
 
Hi Peter, Justin & Larry,

Justin has shed light on the other side.
OK, I can feel with those people, who are looking for job on this market, I can feel with their situation, that Oracle does not publish free materials, etc., - but I can not aggree with the method, how they act on JDEList and Private channels.

Yes, I have to tell you, this phenomenon disturb me and I am a bit disappointed about the changes of "standard".

Many (not all!) of new members does not waste their own(!) time, neither to read the Board Rules (TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE) nor the sticky posts like NETIQUETTE nor the FAQ and does not lurk a little bit, before hook on JDEList and finally does not fill their profiles.
frown.gif


Peter, I totally agree with you:
[ QUOTE ]
(1) that a lot of (new?) members do not add there configuration to there signature or there posts; (2) "add on" questions to existing threads that are entirely unrelated. A 3rd is that there is a certain amount of laziness implied in some posts

[/ QUOTE ]

...and many time they do not take trouble over to find the appropriate Forum for their posts. Yes, I had already pressed the "Notify the moderator" button on several posts.

I do not mention:
- the minimal politeness
- pressing and impatient posts on their thread when they do not receive response after an hour
- missing signature, at least a short but human nick
- no replies on helps (currently I am waiting for such a reply, where I suppose, I provided the poster with a simple, effective but a bit tricky solution - though the poster already opened a new thread, so he(she) check JDEList
frown.gif


As I know, the goal of JDElist is not:
- to ask for demo CD
- copyrighted materials
- copyrighted softwares
- asking for other's CV
- asking for other's User ID and Password
- etc.
...but to help each other as we can do.

At last, excuse me this long and a bit disappointed, plaintive post - probably, somebody can understand me a bit.

Thanks for your patience to read this post.

Regards,

Zoltán
 
Peter, Zoltan, et al

I agree with your comments, sorry I hadn't checked this forum earlier, hence the late response. Yes I have also had private messages from unknown new members looking for clear solutions to poorly defined problems, or general info about JDE that is too vague. Often they appear shortly after I send a response to someone's post. I don't recall anyone trying to get my CV or any Userid or password - if I do you can be sure that I will "go off like a box of firecrackers". Zoltan, you have my commiserations - glad to see that others feel/react like I do. I liked your post and I am perturbed to realise that this new "practice" is more common place than I would have thought

I usually respond with a suggestion that they post their question on the list and leave it at that. In two cases I have replied offlist directly to their email address with a very blunt and acerbic response. No I don't use a Hotmail or Yahoo etc account to conceal my identity.

Yes there has been a trend in the past 2-3 years that shows a degredation in attitude of many new posters, especially basic politeness and social etiquette. Many of these posters seem to reside in the same geographical area of the world and most seem tarred with the same brush of personal and intellectual laziness. Political correctness (which I think of as incorrect politicals) precludes me from being more precise. Often their email address indicates that they work for some consulting group that also has a website extolling the virtues of the huge numbers of "qualified" consultants. Strangely these people never seem to have thought of discussing things with their fellow consultants, almost as if they are embarrassed to seek help from their work peers. The latest one had an email addressthat indicated he/she worked for a large global consulting group that claims to have 16,000 consultants worldwide!!

I enjoy the list and I am quite happy to help any user/IT person (even fellow consultants) who show that they are trying to help themselves (ie they have done some analysis and hopefully some research of their own). I am a freelance consultant and can only once remember asking the list for some detail about a possible bug in one of the AP integrity reports in a new cum upgrade. Nobody on the list seemed to have struck it but it did turn out be a bug and JDE issued a UQF a few weeks later. I am not happy giving advice or help to some "wannabe" consultant who is probably charging his/her client for the time they spend "on the 'net" causing angst amongst people like myself. Generally, if I need to learn about a feature or function in JDE that I don't know then I don't charge my client for the time I spend coming to understand it, and I don't bombard the list and every other site on the internet either.

Speaking of politeness and social etiquette, it seems rather rude that the moderators of this list, when exercising their moderator's rights (which are in question), chop a post that might be too hot or flaming, don't bother to email to let you know. Of course the index still has your name as the last poster even though your response didn't make it. Eric and your team, hope you are reading this and take note.

Well that's my dummy spit for this month.
 
Hi Colin,

<font color="blue"> Well said all! </font>

(if I can express myself correctly in English language)

I was really glad to read your post and feeling - not be alone.

Tell the truth, I have fears for the future of JDEList. Listening mainly the developers forum, I noted, many of Old LIsters left of us or reply rarely. It should have a cause - generally.

But I think, the "better" part of JDEList will go on - omitting the "new" posts, but helping each other - including newbies, where we can see a little...

OK, after a hard day and before a weekend with work - I am out off my English to express myself correctly.

Read you later,

Zoltán
P.S.: hoping to get help here in the future, and/or help the others as I can.
 
Woops - I really do wish I had learnt to type at school, and maybe learnt to proof read my own posts.

In my very recent post on this topic in the last full paragraph I made reference to the list moderators and in brackets I said (which are in question). My sincere apologies to all readers and the moderators in particular - I really meant to say (which are NOT in question).

I have had no cause to question the moderators "chopping" a post - I just think it is rather impolite of them to not advise me that they found my post unacceptable and state the reason.

So Eric and your team, apologies on one hand for my typo but on the other I am still "chucking" the same briquebat.
 
It seems to me that most of these newbie posts (at least the ones that I see) originate from India, where there is a huge growth in IT development and support for many companies.

While not wanting to put people down, and I know there are a lot of very good and experienced IT professionals out there in India, but if there are places with a lot of inexperienced programmers, without the systems history that many of us have had (25 years on IBM Midrange for example), and with few if any co-workers to help them out, they are turning to our forums for help - but lack the skills to ask the right questions, and frustratingly to RTFM or STFW first. I haven't seen any documentaries on how these new support companies are set up in India, but it's quite possible that some are just huge offices full of newbies with few really experienced consultants.

I have always RTFM - if not first then second, and Google has been my friend for the last 10 years - I have lost count of the number of occasions when I have found solutions via a Google search - lost count on JDEList alone...

It's frustrating to see our forums turn into a "newbiefest" of stupid questions - and frankly I agree with Colin - I just ignore or delete those messages. If people cannot ask sensible (or even sensibly phrased) questions then it's not worthwhile answering them. Silence in responses might result in fewer stupid questions.

Just my 2 cents worth...
 
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