You created multiple posts on multiple sites for the same question. That is bad etiquette and only serves to annoy people in both communities. Remember you're asking volunteers in two places to spend their time on you while not telling them that you've asked another set of volunteers as well. You're not getting quotes from competing businesses, you're wasting volunteers' time. Please do not repeat this in the future.
Of all the blunders people do on this website, posting to multiple forums bugs me the least. Maybe that's because I do not participate on multiple forums, or maybe because I don't expect an average user to know that this is considered a "bad etiquette." I still remember one of my first posts on this website where I was chastised as unprofessional, while I considered the post to be very helpful.
My poor early experiences aside, it may be a good idea not to slam the first-time users of this website with "bad etiquette" or "bad anything" declarations if the goal is to retain them. There should be a way to tell them to modify their behavior without using bad
, unprofessional
or other strongly negative adjectives, and without telling them they annoy people and waste their time
. I know this is not easy, especially for moderators who read almost all messages and see all kinds of negative behavior. All of us are triggered by different things - mine is when people act entitled - but it may help to have a standard language for standard offenses. Also, it may help to force everyone upon signing up to read a simple set of rules and acknowledge them (do a search before asking a question; don't post on multiple forums; don't ask homework questions; upvote/accept useful questions and engage in discussions; etc). I apologize if something like this is already there, but it's been a while since I signed up and I don't remember reading any rules of this kind.
Thanks for making this post. I have certainly been guilty of this and we're all often too quick to judge.
If it's someone's first time and they are unaware of the rules, we should be a bit more gentle. Only after they're informed of proper etiquette and still engage in the same behavior should we express our disapproval.
Owner of biostars wants to keep the barrier for participation low and as a result there is no captcha/verification required to post on biostars. One can create a simple local account or use one of the external site logins (google etc) before posting.
We had discussed adding a click-through/verification like you mention when we were having a problem with bots a couple of years back. At that time Istvan chose to implement a software solution to manage bots rather than adding an extra verification step for sign-ups.
Someone trying to post on Biostars has a pressing question that they are looking to get help for. So to be realistic not many are going to read through "best practices" before mashing the
Accept
button.I am not bothered by multiple posts but providing closure to a question is important. If a question gets answered on a different forum then indicating so on biostars is least posters can do.
I think there is a contradiction in keeping the barrier for participation low and the unwritten - but often cited - expectation that everyone should be writing in a professional tone. Chances are solid that first-time users will do something that collides with community guidelines in their very first post. Yet it seems like it is more acceptable to put the burden of correcting behavior on moderators and users than to demand 2 minutes of user's time to educate themselves. I think that at least 5-10% of posts on this forum are behavior-correcting in nature - telling people to upvote, how to format posts, to show some effort, etc. It seems like an awfully high price to pay to lower the registration effort for a bunch of users who will visit the site once or twice. But I defer to Istvan Albert when it comes to business models, because this may be a good model even if it defies my logic.
I think the people who need training are the ones least able to recognize that.
I foresee a lot of potential in AI-based methods to help assist users in asking better questions.
I am keen on exploring ways in which an AI-based agent would proofread a question before the user posts it and then suggest improvements for tone, content, specificity, etc.
The quoted content is mine and I'm probably also the person that you had the bad interaction with when you first became part of biostars. I do have the reputation of being the jerk cop around here.
I think cross-posting is bad practice because it shows a sense of entitlement on the part of the asker. If I were asking on multiple forums, I would at least mention the other posts so it serves as a record. Anyone that puts in enough effort to ask a good question in one forum is a lot closer to the answer than someone copy pasting the same low effort content in multiple places.
In my experience with pointing people to these cross-posts, I've seen people claim that they were unaware and would not repeat that behavior, but only when the language says that it is unequivocally bad. Cajoling into good behavior is largely ignored by most people. But perhaps I need to moderate myself.
Going forward, I'll add a pointer to other posts with a simple "Warning: Please do not ask the same question on multiple sites without cross-linking them" the first time, and reserve this kind of messaging for repeat offenders.
Stealing from the poor is unequivocally bad. Maybe even from the rich :-) Double-posting is not unequivocally bad. How do I know this? If a person double-posts with a disclaimer about double-posting, it becomes acceptable. When there are such swings in what is considered acceptable, that behavior can't be unequivocally bad. This is especially the case because we are not taught in school, or in any other aspect of our education, that double-posting is a bad behavior.
That's a valid point. I will soften my language.
Or is it desperation? I would contend that most users who resort to this are newcomers to the field working in a state of urgency. Often, as a beginner, you don't even know how to describe your problem. It takes experience just to become familiar with the right keywords (e.g., "regex"). Not everyone has the capacity, need, nor luxury to develop these capabilities. I don't think there is any harm in being tolerant of what can be considered poor etiquette should it be unlikely to be the result of bad faith behavior.
I agree with your general meaning, but there are different ways to manifest the newcomer desperation. To me double-posting is acceptable when people want their problem solved quickly. How is everyone supposed to know that posting at two places simultaneously will get the members upset? This is simple ignorance. I have less patience for those who think their problem is the only thing that matters in the world and expect someone to write full code for them. Or those who write a single-sentence posts that require follow-up questions before they can be answered properly. That's entitlement, and it should be something that most people know is unacceptable in any human interaction.