Vigilante at LabVIEW Job Openings Forums

[kikiduu]

I know I am walking a very fine line here... but I just can't help it.

I am a lurker in many forums and this one and LAVA being my favorites. In all forums I find four types of users.

1. Who are level-headed and are around with the sole intention of gaining knowledge, helping others and, may be, hang around with like minded people.

2. Who are either too frustrated , too fresh, too desperate or too naive to understand posts, or formulate a proper question or give a proper response to a post.

3. Who have been around for a while, has learned a lot and contributes to the forum, but every now and then takes pot-shots at someone who is way below his/her league (such as a new comer).

4. Lurkers, like me

I have utmost respect to persons who fall to the first category. NI discussion forums is what it is because of these people.

You can see a lot people of the second category in many discussion forums. People who belong to the first category normally tend to ignore such poor souls or try to help them by pointing out their mistakes in a polite manner. But persons belonging to the third category just boss around, trying hard to make the poster realize what a fool he is. More often I have seen these guys fail miserably in their endeavour.

I see this a lot in the Job Openings board. People trying to explain what a fool someone is for not being able to read something as simple as the date when a job was posted. What they don't realize is, they are bumping up an older post by replying to it and increase the chance of “category II” people replying to it again. And when it happens our “Vigilantes” pounce on the new poster, only to find another “Category II” replying with his resume.

I am not sure why this simple logic eludes the so called “intellegent persons” who are “moderating” the 'Job Openings' board without being invited to do so.

Sure it may be annoying to someone who is desperately looking for a job and finds such noise (by category II people) irritating. However it doesn't take much for a regular to realize that the new post is from someone who is naive and desperate to get a job.

In case people want to increase their post count and scale the forum rank, it should not be done by demeaning someone who is desperate and probably very low on self confidence. Surely there are better ways of doing it.

If you can't HELP, don't HURT.

Message Edited by kikiduu on 10-30-2009 07:43 PM

[Harold_Timmis]

I hear you on this post I have been looking for a job for around 6 months now and I sometimes have posted on jobs that where a bit old..But on the other point I feel I fall into the category 1 person at least I hope so...

[aeastet]

I think this is true on all of the forums here. There are people that want to help and do not need rankings or titles to do so. Then there are the people that are here to show how smart they are by degrading others here on the forum. They do this to the requesters of help as well as the people that vloenteer to help them. I have seen this over and over again and it make me feel bad even if I were not invloved. There are even sections on forums to make fun of people and how they program. Now this may make some people feel good that they can laugh at others and make fun of thier efforts. It is really sad. I have no problem learning from someone elses mistakes but to degrade them in the process is not a win for any one. I have not problems with and example of poorly written code with an example of the better way to do it right next to it. Try to make it as transparent as possible and not make fun of the person especially if they were trying to help.

My 2 cents.

[Ray.R]

Interesting post kikiduu.

According to your own evaluation of the personality classes within this forum, I definitely fall into category 3.  LOL!!  Thanks 🙂  I'd hate to be one of the boring guys in category 1 as it would not fit my personality.  LOL!  😄

With respect to the Job Openings.  Well, you must understand that there are two sides to the story.  And I guess, you must have been hurt by replying to one of those posts.  If so, I am not feeling bad.  Why?  Well, I sit on the other side of the fence.  I actually posted job openings.  On this forum and elsewhere.  I clearly state the requirements for the job opening.  I then get flooded by:

1)  People who clearly do not and will not meet the requirements

2)  People who obviously didn't bother reading the requirements

3)  People who apply continuously with slightly modified resumes by trying desperately to hit some words that obviously have no relation to the type of job

4)  People who do not respect the fact that the location and citizenship requirement is a must and they clearly do not meet that.

Out of 500 resumes, maybe 10 were appropriate and met the requirements.  Some of those 10 were interviewed and hired.  The others were just noise and trashed.  As a matter of fact, the pattern of people applying was so predictable, that a simple routine was written to filter the resumes.  Anyone with a little bit of intelligence can figure out the pattern. (just an once of intelligence will suffice.. not much.. a tiny bit will do LOL!!  😄 😄 :D)

The jobs were technical in nature and one of the requirements was to be able to read and understand customer's requirements (in English). If they cannot simply read and understand the job requirements, how will they ever even understand the complex technical requirements from a customer? 

One of the pattern or personality classes that you forgot to mention is:

5.  People who post continuously in the Job Opening forum, without reading the job requirements.

Now those types of people show everyone that they are incapable of reading a job requirement.  Lokk how often that the same person posts within the same thread, where they could ask for someone with a CLD or CLA certification and ifyou look at the resume, the person is fresh out of school and has probably never worked using LabVIEW.

As for the Rube Goldberg and Locals threads.  I can't speak for the Rube Goldberg thread.  And heck.. I've done my share of them.  As a matter of fact, I recently asked help to improve some code I was working on.  It's actually funny how obvious the Rube Goldberg was in that one.  We deal with many things when writing code.  Maybe not in your case, but in mine, less than 50% of the time is writing code.  The rest is managing things.  So yes, strange code props up every once in a while.  You make mistakes, you fix it, you move on.  No need for tears.   It's all fun.  Even when it doesn't seem that way.  It's all fun..  🙂

The Locals thread came to life because so many people were absolutely convinced that using Local Variables was the better way to program.  It actually did come to life because of an instance where the bug in the code was due to serious abuse of Local Variables and the person needing the help was arguing that it was not because of Locals and that we didn't know what we were talking about.  Strangely enough his posts stopped..  He probably figured it out and realized that the Local Variables were the root cause of his problems.  Nowhere in the Locals thread did I make fun of that person (maybe I should check LOL!!  )

So as you can see, there are two sides to all stories.

I did enjoy reading your side and I think you are correct.  I will even give you kudos.

I simply ask that you do not go on a killing spree to get rid of all those very nice Category 3 people that have fun in this forum. 

Lurk on and do have fun writing code (LabVIEW, TestStand, CVI or any other language).

Cheers dude.

RayR

[kikiduu]

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Ray.R wrote: I definitely fall into category 3.  LOL!!  Thanks 🙂  I'd hate to be one of the boring guys in category 1 as it would not fit my personality.  LOL!  😄

---

I don't know if I am right, but I remember seeing a huge thread somewhere in LabVIEW board where you(?) take extra effort to help a novice user. 

[Ray.R]

Hi kikiduu,

Oh yeah.. I remember that thread..  Over a year ago.  😄  It was fun.  I should have kept the examples down a bit.  I often get carried away that way.  I start typing an explanation... then I don't like it, so I start doing an example because it's faster.  🙂  Also gets me into trouble..  which is fine.. LOL! 

You've been doing good on the forum.  That's good.  🙂

Cheers!

RayR 

[muks]

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In case people want to increase their post count and scale the forum rank, it should not be done by demeaning someone who is desperate and probably very low on self confidence. Surely there are better ways of doing it.

If you can't HELP, don't HURT.

---

With the risk of getting atleast some 10 strong opposing voice . Here is my take on the whole thing.

To me words dont actually entirely convey the exact point. An act which you say is out of desperation can be because of arrogance and negligence and those people need not be low of confidence either. Well it was not insulting or hurting someone but telling them politely to check the date posted which we have done a lot of times. (we have done that). We have discussed and implemented the "read only" option for certain threads. what is the remedy if an outdated post gets floated up because of people who dont pay enough attention. There had been some sarcastic comments on those posts.

For yor infrmation nobody needs to reply to those threads to increase their post count. There is always going to be threads like this to which we can give our reply  .I have personally replied to imcomplete job threads requesting email ids and company info . When you have an exclusive thread to post your resumes, why to to again attach the resumes again and again to all the requirements? 

Please note people here dont immediately bounce on the post with insults but start with trying to rectify and guide the poster but i am sure you will get annoyed when the effort is not helping after say 7th or 8th attempt. People give up and each has their own style of giving it up.

[muks]

Any comments for this?

[kikiduu]

I don't have any comments about that. But as you can see, this was a better, sensible and useful response than this.

Message Edited by kikiduu on 11-07-2009 02:13 PM