Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
The worst thing about rockbox
evanthepanther:
honestly the worst thing I've found about rockbox is the lack of help (although I'm sure its the same repetitive "dumb" questions over and over that gets mods/senior forum members aggravated) that people are willing to give. I have asked some of these questions, being completely new to rockbox, and instead of being told an answer, i get pointed to where to find an answer (often involving the person looking up the answer themselves, and then giving me a link to it, basically saying "READ"). I've felt belittled by some people, and treated like I havent done enough reading to warrant a question being put in the forums, when in fact, I've read, and I've searched for the question, and had turned up nothing.
I have 4 themes I would like to submit, but I'm not sure if I want to because I got some weird error when I tried to submit them, and I don't dare ask about it on the forums.
I'm currently running a call of duty competitive ladder with the clan I'm in (consisting of 80+ members), and believe me I get some questions that seem like common sense, but whats the point of flexing muscle, and acting like your the big man on campus!?
By saying this, I dont want to get banned for making some mod angry, i want to bring to their attention how they are making the new people feel. When I found rockbox, and first loaded it up on my mp3 player, i was shocked at the ability, and style of it, I love rockbox. I would love to work on the coding side of it, but being nervous about asking any kind of question isnt helping in the least.
TexasRockbox:
I don't think it's the lack of willingness to help or intention to belittle. The developers of Rockbox:
1. May have lives outside of Rockbox
2. May have families
3. May have "real" jobs
4. Code Rockbox
5. Moderate rockbox.org (and answer questions)
5. Provide Rockbox and documentation for free
7. Are human
8. All of the above (and more)
There are two schools of thought (may be others):
1. Just give an answer and feed a person for a day.
2. Teach a person how to find the answer and feed them for a lifetime.
I strongly suspect that #2 applies here.
The best route to asking a question on Rockbox is (minimum) check the manual first and if the answer isn't found or isn't clear, then ask the question. In that way the person asking the question helps the developers (and others) out by indirectly pointing out something that needs to be addressed, added or corrected in the documentation or wiki. That's something a developer or technical writer can relate to and work on a fix. Time is precious and in short supply.
I can understand how the attitude seems harsh but people who ask questions, expect immediate answers, get them and never come back have drained (little by little) a finite resource whether it be people, forum space and/or forum hardware.
Having been both a coder and customer service rep (sometimes simultaneously) it can be a very tough juggling act to present an atmosphere that the customer is the only one. That atmosphere isn't easy and it isn't cheap. In a way the Rockbox project is something one might never encounter in the "real world" -- interacting directly with the developers. In the company I work for access to developers is not in the support contract and when demanded by the customer it is *very* expensive (think thousands of dollars an hour).
It would be great to have a customer service dept. for Rockbox and let the coders do their thing but who to staff it and when? At that point, for many, it stops being fun and becomes a job. Who wants to work multiple jobs?
The forum (and IRC) is the customer service, but so is the manual and wiki.
How may I help you?
yapper:
--- Quote from: evanthepanther on March 04, 2010, 01:13:48 AM ---instead of being told an answer, i get pointed to where to find an answer (often involving the person looking up the answer themselves, and then giving me a link to it, basically saying "READ").
--- End quote ---
I think this is one of the best ways of answering questions. I frequently simply post a reply to a question simply pointing to the appropriate part of the manual. I appreciate that many newcomers simply don't know where to find information, but once they know where to look, it reduces the load on the rest of us.
If the information in the manual ISN'T adequate, then we need to know so the manual can be improved. If the answer in the manual IS adequate, then everyone gets the same answer (from the manual), rather than a new version of the answer being typed on the forums each time the question is asked.
bluebrother:
--- Quote from: yapper on March 04, 2010, 07:29:34 AM ---If the answer in the manual IS adequate, then everyone gets the same answer (from the manual), rather than a new version of the answer being typed on the forums each time the question is asked.
--- End quote ---
You should also not forget that things change over time. For example, some features might get added or features might get changed. Posting the "correct" answer might be an answer that is wrong in a couple of weeks simply because the feature it relies to changed. Pointing to the place where it is documented (which usually should be the manual) is a much better way, simply because the answer will be correct even if the feature changed -- the manual should be updated (of course it might be out of date), so if anyone searches for the question he gets not an outdated but a correct answer. Which is way better.
Besides, who wants to answer (and type that answer) over and over again? There is a reason we have documentation: to make life easier for both developers and users.
You should also not forget that it's important to ask questions the correct way: see http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html It's quite simple: people put in a lot of work to make Rockbox work as good as it is and to make it available to you. It's only fair of them to expect you doing your part of the homework, which means checking the documentation and available resources first before you require them to put in time to help you. Remember, Rockbox is not a product, you haven't paid for it and all work done is not paid at all but on a free time basis. Which means that you shouldn't expect anything at all. However, there are quite a lot of people trying to help in the support channels. If you did your homework then there shouldn't be any reason to be afraid of asking anything Rockbox related in the support channels.
evanthepanther:
Thats another problem I didnt address in the OP, the majority of people that reply to things, do not listen.
@ Texas
the list you made is negated by the fact that these people are on this site, attempting to help people in their own free time, and doing it the wrong way. If everyone was so busy with their normal lives, then they dont need to waste the time with hounding a person for asking a question.
also, having looked in the manual over and over for things that I have posted in the forums, and then being told its in some place that would not make any sense at all, when in fact its a glitch (which is later labeled as a "fix for another glitch"), THEN on top of that, being pointed to a forum for the "fix" when it does not apply! Saying that by asking a question people expect immediate answers is completely false, I practice the virtue of patience, if I am showed how to find an answer on my own, i'm extremely happy for it, but if I am treated like an idiot, then what do you expect?
@yapper
Having said that I looked in the manual and turned up nothing before asking the question/s, it would be obvious that there is a problem in the manual. With looking through the manual out of curiosity I've run into ton's of holes (and when searching for what the manual didnt provide, i often see the response of "rockbox is an mp3 player, not a ______"), one of the holes would be the "dict" plugin/application, the manual entry for it is non-existent
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