0979: "Wisdom of the Ancients"

[hailthefish]

Whats worse it when there is a complete solution for ALMOST the same problem.

"I already tried that, this is something different. IT'S NOT THE FROBNICATOR"

Or when EVERYONE had a similar problem 3 versions ago.

For chistsakes, upgrade to version 2

I'M USING VERSION 5!!

If it's either of those, good luck getting help. Your posts will be deleted as duplicates. Helpful idiots will pile on with wrong solutions. Google will get you the same wrong answer again and again.

This.

I was going to post about all these things.

But you all already know the feeling.

The agony of it.

[scarletmanuka]

Had this problem plenty of times myself. But last time I had a mysterious error cropping up that I had to track down, I actually found helpful links
which gave me the solution. I was glad.

Oh, and my favorite kind of forum post dating is the "March 13" type (even if it's clear the thread must be dated 2003-ish). Obviously, on some parts of the internet, there is only the one year. EVER.

It's still 1993.

[mbklein]

My favorite variations on this problem:

1. When I Google a very specific issue, discover a single years-old thread on it, click through, start reading the OP, and realize that it was...written by me.
2. When I Google a very specific issue, discover a single years-old thread on it, sympathize with the OP, scroll down, and find a solution...written by me.

[Piskvor]

Worst case: when you realize that your Net handle around 2003 was DenverCoder9; you start to remember that you actually wrote that last post, but you can't remember what you saw.

Damn, simulposted. GET OUT OF MY HEAD, Y'ALL!

[xarob]

What's even worse is to discover that that old lonely post was actually made by myself, many many years ago, and I forgot all about it. And no one had ever noticed.

Some time ago I was in my friend's van amusing myself by fiddling with the inside door handle (why? because I'm a fiddly kind of guy... ). I discovered that the plastic blanking plate that covered the screw hole could be pulled off to reveal a small cavity, inside which was... a tightly folded piece of paper!

Naturally, I took it out and unfolded it to reveal some writing:

You find a mysterious note whose contents are obscure and whose origin is unknown

Excited, I showed my discovery to my friend...

Who was distinctly unimpressed, and reminded me that I had in fact put the note there myself several years previously...

[Yu_p]

This comic soooo speaks for many of us ^^' The most awkward feeling though give threads, where the poster, who gave the solution or hints, that helped me solve the problem, gets criticized for having replied to a 1-year-old thread.

[tjunction]

Also incredibly frustrating are threads where the only responses are like:


Q: How do I fix this issue I'm having in (insert the particular Linux flavour you happen to be using here)?

A: If you were using (insert another competing Linux flavour), you wouldn't have that problem.

I DON'T CARE. I'M USING WHAT I'M USING. SWITCHING WILL NO DOUBT BRING A WORLD OF DIFFERENT PROBLEMS. IF I ASK FOR DIRECTIONS DON'T TELL ME NOT TO START FROM HERE!


or

Q: Is it possible to do (something in a slightly unorthodox way, because that's going to be necessary for your particular weird set of circumstances) in (the programming language you happen to be using)?

A1: I don't know, but you could do something similar in (some other programming language) like this.
A2: Yes, but I'm not going to tell you how, because although I don't understand the full circumstances of your problem that might mean you need to do something that way, I'm going to assume I know best and tell you that you should do it some other way that happens to be impossible given the constraints of (your project/your customer's requirements/your company policy/etc).

YOU'RE NOT HELPING. I'M NOT DOING THIS FOR FUN, I'M AT WORK. I CAN'T SUDDENLY DECIDE TO REWRITE AN ENTIRE CODEBASE IN YOUR FAVOURITE LANGUAGE. MY CUSTOMER NEEDS ME TO DO THIS BY YESTERDAY, SO I DON'T HAVE A MONTH TO REDESIGN EVERYTHING SO I CAN DO IT YOUR WAY. EITHER ANSWER THE QUESTION I ASKED OR KEEP QUIET.




Sorry. I guess I had to vent some anger somehow...

[big boss]

The story of the internet right there.

[Tova]

GOD YES

[ThemePark]

Q: How do I fix this issue I'm having in (insert the particular Linux flavour you happen to be using here)?

A: If you were using (insert another competing Linux flavour), you wouldn't have that problem.

I hear you, bro. 90 % of the times I need to ask a question in a forum, I get completely unrelated and useless answers. It seems to be too hard for most people to either answer the damn question or keep their fingers off the keyboard. And fair enough that people may not understand completely what I mean by what I say and thus ask me questions, but way too often they NEED to know why the Hell I need to do the things the way I describe.

IT DOES NOT MATTER, JUST ANSWER THE F***ING QUESTION!

The internet saddens me.

Edit:
Actually I see that my second point is your second question. Except that it doesn't only go for work but also for hobby projects. It's really amazing how people need to know every single thought you have ever had and every single decision you have ever made about your project before being willing to answer.

And sometimes, you specify your question as f***ing clearly as possible and in clear, understandable English, and people still go "Huh, what?" and ask questions that were already answered in the original post, causing me to make another post saying exactly what I have already said, causing the whole thing to loop infinitely until I just raegquaat. This happened to me recently with a sudoku/math problem I had. So I decided to screw them and found a way to figure it out with programming.

[dotancohen]

What pisses me off now is that its 2011 and there are still new service websites not putting dates or useful dates on things

How about the blogs that state the month and day of the post, but not the year? That seems borderline malicious to me.

[Deep_Thought]

I actually giggled out loud at this comic.

There's one thing worse: a single followup reading just

Never mind, I figured it out.

Not particularly wanting to show off (okay, just a little bit) but a while ago I had a weird Cocoa bug. Posted to a list, got no response, then figured it out a week later. I posted my solution to the list and a few months later received a thank you e-mail from someone who had the same problem. I received a warm, glowy feeling as a reward.

[ThemePark]

Not particularly wanting to show off (okay, just a little bit) but a while ago I had a weird Cocoa bug. Posted to a list, got no response, then figured it out a week later. I posted my solution to the list and a few months later received a thank you e-mail from someone who had the same problem. I received a warm, glowy feeling as a reward.

It is people like you that give me a little hope for humanity.

[Thibaw]

This is what I usually find with really rare bugs/errors/problems:

All topics at least 6 years old.
1. The thing randall described. A single post with the same problem.
2. A single follow up post fromt he same guy: "Nevermind, I solved it."
3. A single follow up post from the same guy: "Nevermind, I tried a 6hours/2days/a week now (no one has ever tried longer than a week). And I am giving up/using xyz instead."
4. A single follow up post from another guy: "There is a simple solution and it took me less than a minute to find it. Just learn to use google you faggot and don't spam our board."
5. A post on experts-exchange, that stupid "pay to see the solution"-site that somehow was almost always among my top 10 google results for almost every problem for some time.
6. A linux guide, not applicable to my FreeBSD Problem or vice versa.
7. The same as 4. followed by a lengthy discussion about forums culture, not related to the problem at all. Maybe followed by 2. or 3. XXX Then followed by a link to 5. Where a "6."-guide is posted after I created a trial account to see at least one "solution". (ok, I admit, this never happened, but I have been at the XXX before)

[heltonbiker]

On my Firefox searchbox, StackOverflow is used more than Google search itself (and way less than Wikipedia).

BUT, I agree with previous answer: it happens so many times it's not even funny anymore...

[Deep_Thought]

Not particularly wanting to show off (okay, just a little bit) but a while ago I had a weird Cocoa bug. Posted to a list, got no response, then figured it out a week later. I posted my solution to the list and a few months later received a thank you e-mail from someone who had the same problem. I received a warm, glowy feeling as a reward.

It is people like you that give me a little hope for humanity.

I think...I think the glowy feeling just happened again. Thanks!

[ubel]

My favorite variations on this problem:

1. When I Google a very specific issue, discover a single years-old thread on it, click through, start reading the OP, and realize that it was...written by me.
2. When I Google a very specific issue, discover a single years-old thread on it, sympathize with the OP, scroll down, and find a solution...written by me.

Another variation on this is when I google a very specific issue, discover a single years-old thread on it, click through, and can't understand a damn thing the guy is saying, before realizing that it was.. written by me. haha

[willdude]

An alternative to this is when you Google an error, and the only results are for the error string within the source code of the software itself. It feels like being in The Matrix and accidentally seeing the code of the world you're in.

[futuremonkey]

My favorite is when the lonely thread has a single reply from some jerk that just says "Google it." Time traveling troll.

[jacksonliam91]

This thread is the summation of just about every outcome of everything I need to google these days.

Although sometimes, like with android custom ROM threads, you get a 3000 page thread mixed with 100's of problems and tracing the answer takes hours of reading everyone else's winging like "I don't like the WiFi icon you've used".
The problem is made worse by people not quoting the question they're answering!

[grantemsley]

I've run into this on so many occasions. And to the people who post "Nevermind, I fixed it" but never give the details on HOW...never have I wished more that I could strangle someone through the internet.

I've actually made a point of going back to at least a few of the forums or newsgroups and posting the solution should I find it. There's one post I made about exchange and openssl certificates that I still get occasional thank you emails for even 2 years later.

[dexeron]

Comic, and thread, are the story of my life. So relieved that I'm not the only one who's had to deal with this!

Randall. My head. Out of it. GIT.

[javahead]

Randall, get out of my IT dept

[kylos]

...
5. A post on experts-exchange, that stupid "pay to see the solution"-site that somehow was almost always among my top 10 google results for almost every problem for some time.
...

When I run into an experts-exchange result, I'm able to ease the frustration by imagining it as "expert sex change".

[marsman57]

There's one thing worse: a single followup reading just

Never mind, I figured it out.

I came here solely to post this.

[marsman57]

but 2003 was only. it. oh.

next step is to search for people who were writing code back in 2003 filter the result by the Denver Telephone books circa 2003/ filter out people who are not working in the field you are interested in and stalk the remaining people until they divulge who denvercoder9 was. someone will know. (and then you find out DenverCoder9 died in mysterious circumstances surrounding his persistant inquiries into the error code...THE ERROR CODE OF DOOM...)

If life were a TV crime show, you would find the identity of Denver Coder out before the end of the next commercial break!

[SpringLoaded12]

I would mention similar happenings, but I think the rest of this thread has covered them all already.
If you ever learn Ren'Py -- which you won't unless you're interested in making visual novels -- you'll find their help forum is extremely helpful, with a veteran user who knows just about everything about the code + program and has several tutorials, plus the program's creator himself stepping in to help sometimes.

I have this problem a lot. Anyone know how to fix it?

Never mind, I figured it out.

So meta.

[spoonyspork]

Even better:

Post: "I have problem X. I have tried [solution A, B, & C] and [idea 1, 2, & 3]. Nothing helped."

Answer1: "Have you tried [solution A, B, or C]? What about [idea 1, 2, or 3]? Did anything help?"

Answer2: "[overly detailed solution A, B, or C]"

Answer3: "tl;dr"

Answer4: "http://lmgtfy.com/?q=problem+X"

... and the original poster either never comes back, says 'nevermind, fixed it' with no detail, or just says 'you are all idiots'

I do try really, really hard to follow up on all of the old threads I found on my google endeavors if I later fix the problem myself... and never check said thread again so I don't rage when someone yells for bumping a dead thread.

[marsman57]

What's even worse is to discover that that old lonely post was actually made by myself, many many years ago, and I forgot all about it. And no one had ever noticed.

It can get worse... if YOU followed up and said "nevermind I figured it out"

[BAReFOOt]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
I had this problem so often, it’s not even funny anymore.

To generalize it: Every process should have a way to show its current state.

So… what’s the state of this thread? As I don’t see what we’ve found out so far about this.

[ThemePark]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!
I had this problem so often, it’s not even funny anymore.

To generalize it: Every process should have a way to show its current state.

So… what’s the state of this thread? As I don’t see what we’ve found out so far about this.

As DenverCoder9 has already pointed out, the problem has been fixed. So the state is Solved. Google the solution, moron.

(Sorry BAReFOOt, this was just too tempting And nice nickname, btw!)

Edit:
He he, I just did the Problem solved thing for real in the thread for comic 974.

[leifbk]

BTDT.

It's even worse when you're running localized software and all the error messages are in Norwegian. How the fsck are you supposed to google that and find a decent answer?

Luckily, in Gentoo I can always disable nls in the compiler options

[BAReFOOt]

Noooo… I just came up with another just as annoying thing nobody here had posted about yet…
And forgot it by the time I had clicked on “Reply” and entered “Another very annoying thing is when”… uuum… wait… GODFUCKINDAMMIT!

[KShrike]

And so the quest begins
to find the poster of the question
it will bring the user to the ends of the earth
but what will happen when he discovers the truth?

Find out on next week's episode of--

Nah, I can't.

[Fenix Rising]

As a help desk tech, I see this ALL THE TIME. In fact, my latest was just 2 days ago. Still haven't found a proper solution. Definitely my first GOOMHR moment.

[NTICompass]

What's worse is when you Google a problem and you find your own forum posts as the result.

[bleh]

As of 8:20 CT googling denverCoder9 returns 6 results, a few lead back here, others just reference the comic, but a few have some telling details:

"DenverCoder9 has been missing for 8 years. All we found on his desk was a note that said, “Null pointer exception: error string may not be null. ..."

[leifbk]

Noooo… I just came up with another just as annoying thing nobody here had posted about yet…
And forgot it by the time I had clicked on “Reply” and entered “Another very annoying thing is when”… uuum… wait… GODFUCKINDAMMIT!

I suppose that you thought of one of those appallingly annoying websites that says that «a reply to this question has been posted. You must log in to view the thread.»

They probably just want your email address so they can sell it to spammers. I wish that Google would blacklist those sites.

[Trasvi]

Thank god (and his prophet Jeff Atwood) for Stackoverflow. The ability to see "yes, this problem has been answered" is a lifesaver.

The version of this problem applying to me lately is "oh, you're using XX distro? switch to YY." or even worse "oh, you're on windows? nah, you shouldn't have that problem". Well, I do have it....

[RobFreundlich]

What's needed to solve this problem is a site where someone who has had a problem and found the solution can write up the problem and its solution, without all of the irrelevant crap. Imagine a "new problem solution" page with fields like this:

Code: Select all

Email Address:                (email entry field)
Date Encountered:             (date entry field)
Short Description of Problem: (single-line text field)
Long Description of Problem:  (multi-line text field with no maxlength or extermely high maxlength)

Date Solved:                  (date entry field)
Solution:                     (multi-line text field with no maxlength or extermely high maxlength)

Discussion Thread Link 1:     (single-line URL entry field)   [ Button: Delete ]
Discussion Thread Link 2:     (single-line URL entry field)   [ Button: Delete ]
...
Discussion Thread Link n:     (single-line URL entry field)   [ Button: Delete]  [ Button: AddThread ]

Tags:                         (tag entry field)


Short and Long description would be required, as would Solution.

Entries would be moderated to be sure they actually contain a solution. The original creator would be able to modify the entry. Other users would be able to notify the moderators that a solution is incorrect, but not to modify the entry (except maybe to add to the solution and/or discussion threads? I'm not sure)

Maybe there'd be a categorization system beyond tags (or maybe tags can be hierarchical?). Maybe there'd be a rating system, although that may be too complex to be useful.

The point is to have a very simple system for collecting problems and just their solutions in one place for easy access.

What do folks think of the idea?