Biggest turn-offs

So, for no reason other than it's Monday morning and the prospect of working seems unappealing, my countdown of the five things most likely to elicit an inward groan from me, followed swiftly by the decision to close a post here and leave the solution to somebody else.

5. "...pivot table" - dammit, I haven't spent 15 years learning Excel formula so that I could make things easy by putting them in a pivot table!

4. "When drawing a chart ..." - A chart?! Excel is an application for hard-core data heads, the kind of people who see the green text in The Matrix and think, "I wonder how you up the scroll speed". If you want to draw charts then you're some kind of middle-management wannabe and should stick to Powerpoint, or maybe MS Paint.

3. The master of a vague, whose entire first post is, "Hi. I'm new to the forum and I need to use Excel to change some data so that it works in a different format. Is this possible?" Yes. The answer is "yes". The answer is always "yes". It might be "yes, it's easy", or "yes, but it's a bit tricky" or "yes, but you'll need to sacrifice 10 years of your life, learn to think in assembler code, grow a beard and wave goodbye to your sanity", but the answer will be "yes". If I could just post "yes" then I would, but I can't, so next thread, please.

2. "The following code gives me an error". The code is 4-pages long. There is no attached workbook. No clue is given as to where the error is. Half of the code is select statements, most of the other half is recorded .sort or .replace methods, no variables are defined, comments are not in the Roman alphabet.

And, #1 ...

1. "Mac version of Excel"


Please feel free to add your own, should you also feel that Monday morning reality is too dull.

What kind of hard-core data head never uses a chart??

5. "Please explain this code" followed by 5 pages of uncommented garbage.
4. "Doesn't work" and nothing else.
3. "one more thing..." - for the fourth time in that thread.
2. "oh - I'm using Open Office" - post #26 in the thread explains why nothing suggested so far has worked.
1. "never mind I figured it out." after three days of posts, without sharing what the answer is. Guaranteed to get you on my ignore list.

1. Coming back after a month of no communication with I need to add some more to this "project" now.....

2. Working with someone for 30 posts in the thread only for it to come to a dead end without so much as a thank you for all the work you've done for me.

3. Seeing someone from my ignore list posting makes me cringe.

4. Number 3 from Romperstomper's list kills me too! I tend to get those quite often!

Posts on forums seem to go in phases (it's one of the reasons I post in a few different forums) - I suspect it has something to do with search engine rankings, and then the posters find they don't understand the previous answer (as it's VBA usually) so they post another similar question. This then boosts the chances of that site appearing at the top of the next search etc. I may be way off base as I have no knowledge of SEO at all.

I don't use the forum ignore list either. I have a workbook (naturally) with people who have really irritated me (it takes a lot to get on this list) with a link to the forum and post that tipped me over the edge.

How about I need to do this with that and that with this and here is a picture so please use your crystal ball to figure out where it is and what it is i would like.

We take everything really seriously. Now that you have confessed your crimes, expect a visit in the small hours...

Originally Posted by Marcol

@ snb

[EDIT] ... oops!
Apologies, wrong thread.

Freudian slip?

Originally Posted by RS

Doesn't work" and nothing else.

Big on my list, especially when I've tested the solution and it works perfectly.

Originally Posted by Whizbang

Wierd. It was a great solution too

Yes, all of my greatest solutions have also vanished as has the destined for a pulitzer novel I was writing, and the Chemistry treatise I was writing that was going to win a Nobel Prize and you should have seen the fish I caught last weekend but didn't get a picture of.

I forgot:
0. Anything in text speak. If you can't be bothered to type "you" instead of "u" then I cnt b bothrd 2 ansr u. (may be a symptom of age)

"symptom"? I was told it's a feature.

Originally Posted by arlu1201

The biggest turn-off is when you work real hard to get the code to work and spend a couple of hours on it and all the OP says is "Thanks, it works great" but no rep....

I think the "Thanks" is much better than getting "rep".

Originally Posted by Andrew-R

5. "...pivot table" - dammit, I haven't spent 15 years learning Excel formula so that I could make things easy by putting them in a pivot table!

lmao -- pivot tables! glad i'm not the only one to despise them initially...although i do occasionally use them now...

but i remember creating workarounds to avoid them for many, many moons

Originally Posted by NBVC

I think the "Thanks" is much better than getting "rep".

yes...but you have Rep in abundance i'm just "very helpful"

They didn't come for free... but still the Thank you's are better.. the rep is just promoting competition.... and we are here to help not compete for the best....

no need to compete...NBVC is the best...you mastery of the index (and array) functions is most impressive

Much easier to say when you're the 2nd highest rated member NBVC...

So is having something like this end a thread you helped someone in be better than a minor boost in your rep?

i'm with NCVB on this

So is having something like this end a thread you helped someone in be better than a minor boost in your rep?

Reps are nice, but Thank yous are better

I like to know if the solution works or fails.

Originally Posted by alansidman

i'm with NCVB on this

Who? _

Originally Posted by alansidman

i'm with NCVB on this

Reps are nice, but Thank yous are better

I like to know if the solution works or fails.

Whose NCVB?

that's racist yo....

Yeah. Old age and dislexia have set in. My apologies NBVC.



Alan

For awhile I didn't understand what rep was, I just randomly seemed to accumulate it without rhyme or reason. The FAQs had to enlighten me as to what was going on, hehe. That being said, I've always liked the posted thank you's better than rep, probably because I instantly get an email letting me know that what I provided not only worked but was appreciated.

Regardless, back to the original spirit this thread was started in, one of my biggest pet peeves is when a poster decides to use all sorts of crazy formatting to try to get their point across, like all caps, bolded, large text, red font, etc. It can be painful to read and if I see that sort of stuff, I don't usually bother reading the post at all

Originally Posted by tigeravatar

......when a poster decides to use all sorts of crazy formatting to try to get their point across, like all caps, bolded, large text, red font, etc. It can be painful to read and if I see that sort of stuff, I don't usually bother reading the post at all

I AgrEE _

the rep is just promoting competition

It's hardly competition when some of the "players" have 1) several years' head start, 2) apparently lots of knowledge and experience and 3) countless opportunities to contribute based on point 2.

If it were a race, I'd be resigned to not winning and probably give up after being lapped several time

I have to say that I appreciate both ... but to get neither is quite a turn-off, particularly if it involved some significant effort.

Regards, TMS

Oh ... another annoyance but something of a moot point ... I would really have liked my ID to be just TMS but that was taken years ago by someone who has never, ever posted.

Restricted to the thread's title:

- no codetags icon in the quick reply box
- no codetags icon in the edit box
- no images facility in questionforums
- no formatting between codetags
- no ........

- links (digg, del.icio.us,stumbleupon,google, fb, tw) that have no connection to the content of this forum

Originally Posted by NBVC

the rep is just promoting competition.... and we are here to help not compete for the best....

Agreed 100%. There are always sites like Experts Exchange if you want competition...

... or Stack Overflow for the masochists who like to get beaten about the head by their peers.

I must try that place sometime...

Another one (it's quite cathartic, this):
Posting "that didn't work - I still get an error here" followed by a line of code that was never in the question.

Hairy armpits

Originally Posted by teylyn

... or Stack Overflow for the masochists who like to get beaten about the head by their peers.

I've found Stack Overflow the most helpful site for questions about C# (aside from MSDN), though I have found the people there are quite viscious. I've read countless threads where people are repeatedly insulted for a slightly less efficient answer than the "best" answer.

Another turn-off:

Participating in a thread you wish you had never seen in the first place! some are never-ending stories!

@NBVC: tell me about it

Yeah, and he still hasn't added the attachment or proven that he tried my suggestion... hopefully Marcol will have the patience.. I ran out...

1. Fat chicks
2. Moles

But, in the world of these forums, I need to echo on the Page2/3 debate. I don't mind getting Thank You replies as some feedback, but I'd also like to see more Reputation given out and more Solved tags...

Really the solved tags drives me crazy, it really makes it easier to help people when I can quickly assess whether or not something has been solved. Typically I'll just pull up a thread with 0 replies, to ensure a solution hasn't been proposed... but then I'm subjected to the http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...-here-and.html

Java, Stacks, Queues, Dequeues, Singly Linked Lists. Blrghh! University is turning me off right now!

Hashing, B+-Trees, relational algebra!

I am sure someone mentioned changing requirements. I'll mention them again, though this is prompted by work, rather than the forum.

"Could you make a report that contains X,Y, and Z? Thanks. ... Why isn't A,B,C on this report?"

Grr.

Oh, related to both the above comment and this forum,

People who resist change.

Forum: "I can't change the data structure because then it would make too much sense and save me time and effort."
Work: "I used to just type all this into the document, then copy it to this report and then print it and send it to Finance who then copied it and sent it to my manager., if they didn't accidentally misfile or forget about it. It was easy. I don't know anything about Access or Macros and don't trust them. Lets just keep things the way they are so I feel empowered."

Users who, after several comments have been exchanged, finally get around to attaching a sample file. To the first post of the thread.

Maybe we shiould start a thread for the best thank you's....

e.g. http://www.excelforum.com/2623636-post3.html

Kinda creepy but still gives you the satisfaction that rep points don't, don't it?

Back on topic: negative rep for trying to point someone in the right direction (but not leading them by the hand and doing their work for them).

Wow NBVC i would prefer that salutation any day than rep points....

If someone gives you negative rep unfairly, please report it to a mod so we can have a word, and possibly even things up a bit.

Originally Posted by NBVC

Another turn-off:

Participating in a thread you wish you had never seen in the first place! some are never-ending stories!

here is another of those! I don't think I can continue any more!

http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...ml#post2624193

From that thread....

Thanks. It works, just not correctly

I like it

I hear you Kyle that definitely is a pet peeve of mine too!

Originally Posted by Kyle123

but... it doesn't work in my real workbook that has no similarity to the workbook I picked at random to upload from my documents.

I've seen that kind of scenario quite a few times. It can be frustrating to work on something for someone and then they pull something like that.

Yes, the text "here's my real workbook" makes me cringe.
Then you open it up and it looks nothing like the example workbook, having at least 3X as many tabs, 100 columns (unlike the three in the example wb) and none of the tabs or columns resemble anything in the example wb.
It is, of course, posted with no explanation other than the text quoted above.

I don't understand how this one got past Andrew-R without a response. I'd have thought the attachment to be irresistable.

I'm a bit late to the party here, but my biggest pet peeves are the ever-changing requirements and the occasional emperor wannabe on here: "Your solution doesn't work for me. You are obviously a moron. Let us ignore the fact that I can't solve it, either, and came to you for help. Does anyone on this miserable site have a brain?"

One of my favorite types to watch and least favorite to get involved with are the types who ask the same questions in different threads over and over. I think it was a year or year and a half ago, we had someone who kept asking for ways to predict random numbers in Excel, completely sure that it was possible and that we were all a bunch of nitwits for not being able to figure it out. Anyone remember those threads?

I already posted this in the bad threads but it's a great mock up and still makes me laugh.

Dom

Is it just me....

I personally find it irritating to see posters post solution that simply says, "see attachment" and so we are forced to open the attachment to see the proposed solution. Why not post a "real" answer and use the attachment for support?

Me too, especially when it's basically one formula or a few lines of code that could have been posted easily. If nothing else, why not do both - add the attachment as a demonstration and post the solution in the thread body.

I've been guilty of that on occasion, though I usually try to at least give a high-level explanation of what I did. Didn't know it bugged anyone. Sorry.

Speaking of attachments, I get a tad irritated when I ask for one and I get a workbook that ends up being very little like what they're actually using. I'd much rather start off giving them what they need than give them something five steps simpler and working my way up step by step.

I'm glad it's not just me.

I always try to post all my formulas or steps to a solution, and post a workbook only if I think that the OP needs to see it for them to understand. I feel it is better for the OP to try the formulas themselves instead of being fully spoonfed, so that perchance they may learn something as they are applying the formulas themselves.....

Perhaps we need a new Rule 14 about not annoying Moderators?

oooh, nice ... there would be quite a bit of infractions on that one, I can tell you

Ha! That sounds like a slippery slope into Dave Hawley/OzGrid territory.

See attached...

Dom

Nice, Dom!

I'm too afraid, in case I've put my foot in my mouth.. which happens too often... it still bugs me, though

I'm now going to spend the afternoon going through NBVC's

Dom

That falls under the purview of Rule 15: Do as I say, not as I do.

Originally Posted by Domski

I'm now going to spend the afternoon going through NBVC's

Dom

Don't let the powers that be catch you on the internet though

I get bored very quickly, I only got to page 2, and I've been very well behaved today with it being nearly lunchtime before I succumbed.

Dom

Arrgh!

Negative repped in this thread; and this is the substantiation given?

"Didn't address the root question."

Now I have to go to my corner and count to 100!

My sympathies,

I've had the odd one or two ingratiates in the past too. What riles is the fact that they think an honest attempt at an answer (to oft ill-specified questions in the first place), is deemed to be worth an actual negative rep. rather than simply ignoring the rep altogether.

Regards

I have been fortunate enough to not have negative rep so far, but I'd rather have that than some of the comments I've seen in threads. I've been called a moron before because the solution I proposed didn't do exactly what the OP wanted. The difference, to me, is that the former is private whereas the latter proclaims that I made a mistake to whomever reads it.

Although public, it probably says more about the OP than you and will be recognised by others as such. I would choose not to respond to questions from an OP if I knew they could "turn nasty" ... so, one more for my list.

I've taken a similar approach to ConnexionLost in a similar situation and made the neg rep public and open to discussion. I have felt supported by other contributors and the moderators and the mods have "recompensed" me for the grief incurred.

Regards, TMS

Originally Posted by darkyam

I've been called a moron before because the solution I proposed didn't do exactly what the OP wanted.

If something similar happens again please report it - we don't tolerate that, as per rule 6

Thanks, DLL, but so far, it hasn't been necessary to. I'd tell the OP it wasn't called for and that such responses discourage further help, then NBVC or DO would usually step in and lock the thread or take other action. This site has always had good moderators, at least since I've been here.

Perhaps a stupid question, but if the green dot means positive rep, does a black one mean negative rep? Or does it just mean that particular feedback has no value either way?

hi darkyam,
yes, no banana for those ones . The values are in the FAQs section.

Ok, thanks, pike. For a second, I thought the same guy who'd negative repped ConneXion Lost had gotten me, too. Looks like he's just in the red himself.

if the OP doesnt have enough posts and reps you they are also black

Really? I've had positive rep from people new to the forum. It only counts for one point, but all my other feedback heretofore has been green.

People that ask for a workbook as soon as the open a thread before they even think about the question and try answering or asking relevant questions!

Originally Posted by NBVC

People that ask for a workbook as soon as the open a thread before they even think about the question and try answering or asking relevant questions!

plus one........

Hey! How else am I supposed to up my post count?! Uhh, I mean.. plus two! Good day to you, sir!

It's probably been posted in this thread already, but one that gets me is when students come on here and ask obvious homework questions, expecting us to just give them the answer. I've even had one person say they were in the middle of a test and get mad at me when I said that helping them cheat is not the purpose of this forum.

Some are wise and try to mask it too! I am pretty sure that I had one today try to mask it... but what can you do... I've seen people get accused of it being school work, and they come back insulted saying it is not school work and is real work or their own side project...

Obvious homework problem.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...emisphere.html

Chemist, was any of that thread in english?? Sad thing is I used to be so good at math, from algebra through calculus. I've tried to read some wiki articles on number series and other mathematical topics, and my brain simply tries to escape. If it ever did I'm sure it would beat me unmercifully.

After reading all of Richard's thread two things happened: 1)I was amazed at the number of different replies and 2)My brain turned inwards on itself!

Originally Posted by ChemistB

Obvious homework problem.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-gene...emisphere.html

Hi,

Would that I were still that young to be doing homework - which stopped for me sometime in the mid 60s.