Getting Better Answers In Forums

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RaleighGuy

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The Radio Reference Forums are a great thing, there are so many people here with so much knowledge, and I really appreciate all the help. One, of the many, awesome features is the ability to follow threads or forum topics you are interested in. Many people with an abundance of knowledge are following topics such as Uniden Scanners, SDR information and decoding, Whistler Scanners, Military topics and more. But, these same people may not be following other topics. For example, I have Radio Shack and Whistler scanners, so I don't follow the Uniden topics because, for the most part, I am not able to answer questions on these scanners.

With that said, I urge everyone posting to think about what you are posting and where to put it. If it is a question about favorites lists, DMR or NXDN on your Uniden scanner use the Uniden forum for better responses, if it is a Whistler scanner issue use the Whistler forum or Whistler Support topic for better answers. If it is a state or local agency or frequency question post it in that states forum.

Too often I'm seeing specific scanner brand/model questions or state/local questions popping up in the general scanning forum where the people with answers may not be following that topic. I have found that I get much better responses if I post in the correct forum and often get ignored or general/vague responses when I don't.

Just a thought and what I found helps everyone with the search for information on the forums. Mods, if you feel this is the wrong spot for this post, feel free to move it.
 
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hiegtx

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The Radio Reference Forums are a great thing, there are so many people here with so much knowledge, and I really appreciate all the help. One, of the many, awesome features is the ability to follow threads or forum topics you are interested in. Many people with an abundance of knowledge are following topics such as Uniden Scanners, SDR information and decoding, Whistler Scanners, Military topics and more. But, these same people may not be following other topics. For example, I have Radio Shack and Whistler scanners, so I don't follow the Uniden topics because, for the most part, I am not able to answer questions on these scanners.

With that said, I urge everyone posting to think about what you are posting and where to put it. If it is a question about favorites lists, DMR or NXDN on your Uniden scanner use the Uniden forum for better responses, if it is a Whistler scanner issue use the Whistler forum or Whistler Support topic for better answers. If it is a state or local agency or frequency question post it in that states forum.

Too often I'm seeing specific scanner brand/model questions or state/local questions popping up in the general scanning forum where the people with answers may not be following that topic. I have found that I get much better responses if I post in the correct forum and often get ignored or general/vague responses when I don't.

Just a thought and what I found helps everyone with the search for information on the forums. Mods, if you feel this is the wrong spot for this post, feel free to move it.
I agree with your comments, and I also don't pay much attention to forums regarding equipment that I don't have, or areas I am not familiar with, unless the topic shows up often in 'recent posts', in which case I might take a peek to see if I can help answer a question.

That's already noted in a sticky thread for the General Scan forum, but unfortunately, that is not read by the ones posting in the wrong area.
 

Kaleier1

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To add to this I see a number of posts without a description of what it is about. Example "SDS200", "Sentinel", "Antenna", "Help"(there is a "Help" in the Whistlet forum now), "New Ham", "Passed Test". What about an SDS200? Are you thinking of buying one? Have a question about filters? Have a question about optioning it? How about instead of "New Ham", you put "New Ham, looking for good first HF radio" or "New Ham can't have outside antenna".

If you look at the forum you will see there is plenty of room to fit very long titles. I like to help but many times I won't waste my time trying to see what a post with the title "Sentinel" is about and will just move on to a descriptive title where I think I can help.
 

AK9R

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And, when you see a thread with a non-descriptive title, you can help by reporting the first post with a suggestion to the moderators that the thread title be edited. It doesn't hurt the original poster of the thread to report their thread. I just went into the Whistler forum and renamed that "Help" thread.
 

spacellamaman

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And, when you see a thread with a non-descriptive title, you can help by reporting the first post with a suggestion to the moderators that the thread title be edited. It doesn't hurt the original poster of the thread to report their thread. I just went into the Whistler forum and renamed that "Help" thread.

i had no idea that was a "thing" you could do, my interpretation of when to use the report button was for only serious sound-the-alarms type stuff. vague, non-descriptive thread titles are a real sore-spot with me, cause its a frustrating time waster. i can't say i have been all that great with my own thread titles either, so i think the "suggest the Moderator edit" option is an excellent way to go. is this a pretty well understood and accepted function by most moderators here?
 

AK9R

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is this a pretty well understood and accepted function by most moderators here?
Well, there's always a bit of push-back if someone is seen as increasing our workload. ;) In other words, don't over-do it as we are volunteers here. But, I think that if editing thread titles to be more descriptive makes the forums more usable, that it is worthwhile.
 

wtp

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some folks are lazy and just post in the first area they think it belongs.
like if they have a question about an antenna for a radio shack scanner, they just post in the radio shack area.
but the real question is about the antenna. or worse yet, they put it in their state listing.
 

mikewazowski

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And please, if prefixes are available where you're posting, please use them. Makes searching a whole lot easier.
 

KevinC

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While I have everyone's attention... :p

Please don't report a post from 5 or 10 or.....16 years ago. Whatever was said in that post is either long forgotten about or no longer relevant.
 

Kaleier1

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And, when you see a thread with a non-descriptive title, you can help by reporting the first post with a suggestion to the moderators that the thread title be edited. It doesn't hurt the original poster of the thread to report their thread. I just went into the Whistler forum and renamed that "Help" thread.
Wouldn't be better if the original poster did that to begin with?
 

JDrisc3480

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The Radio Reference Forums are a great thing, there are so many people here with so much knowledge, and I really appreciate all the help. One, of the many, awesome features is the ability to follow threads or forum topics you are interested in. Many people with an abundance of knowledge are following topics such as Uniden Scanners, SDR information and decoding, Whistler Scanners, Military topics and more. But, these same people may not be following other topics. For example, I have Radio Shack and Whistler scanners, so I don't follow the Uniden topics because, for the most part, I am not able to answer questions on these scanners.

With that said, I urge everyone posting to think about what you are posting and where to put it. If it is a question about favorites lists, DMR or NXDN on your Uniden scanner use the Uniden forum for better responses, if it is a Whistler scanner issue use the Whistler forum or Whistler Support topic for better answers. If it is a state or local agency or frequency question post it in that states forum.

Too often I'm seeing specific scanner brand/model questions or state/local questions popping up in the general scanning forum where the people with answers may not be following that topic. I have found that I get much better responses if I post in the correct forum and often get ignored or general/vague responses when I don't.

Just a thought and what I found helps everyone with the search for information on the forums. Mods, if you feel this is the wrong spot for this post, feel free to move it.
I agree with everything you said. I think the problem is that there is so much great information here and the way the topics are broken down that there is some grey area as to which topic to post in as some of the posts could go into more then one topic. I will use myself as an example. A few days ago I posted asking for a review on a radio. I put it in one forum (I forget which one) because I thought it was a better fit then any of the others. Anyway, the next day I had a notice that it was moved to the Budget Transceivers forum which was fine because that was the other forum my post could have gone into.
 

RaleighGuy

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A few days ago I posted asking for a review on a radio. I put it in one forum (I forget which one) because I thought it was a better fit then any of the others. Anyway, the next day I had a notice that it was moved to the Budget Transceivers forum which was fine because that was the other forum my post could have gone into.

Those type of issues I understand, I have a PRO668 scanner with the Whistler WS1080 Legacy Upgrade, does a post about that go in the Whistler or Radio Shack forum? But what I was referring to is posting a programming question about your Uniden scanner or maybe a talkgroup question about your state system in the general scanning forum. That is people not giving any consideration to where it belongs and takes time to look and see if it applies to those who follow the general scanning forum. But thank you for agreeing.
 

GlobalNorth

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The issue that I see and sometimes frustrates me is that outside of the State/Province/Nation specific forums are posts with city/county/region names in General forums in which posters refer to their area without further geo-referencing. Example - "what are the FD frequencies for Moscow?" City/Oblast of Moscow, RU? City of Moscow, ID, USA? The unincorporated towns of Moscow, TX or Moscow, TN, USA?

A simple state, province, or national geo-reference in the initial reference of the area of the post would help immensely. There are a lot of Franklin/Jefferson/Union/etc. counties, Madison/Springfield/Washington/etc. towns and trying to guess which an OP is referring to can be confusing.
 

RaleighGuy

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@GlobalNorth Or one like this..."not sure where to ask this. but i see there updates in my state. is there any way to scan for changes in my list of channels. " That is the whole post, in the general scanning forum.

 
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