Comments posted by readers in response to forum threads and articles can often add value. Whenever I read a tech-related article I always peruse the comments section under and most of us would have, at some time or the other, visited a forum seeking help or some solution. However, there are also comments that are quite commonly posted and add nothing whatsoever to the discussion. These are the types of comments I find very annoying.
One of the most common useless comments posted on help forums in response to some poor soul who is experiencing a particular issue and seeking a solution is:
I have the same issue
You will often see this comment posted multiple times throughout a thread and it provides zero value and does not help one iota. In fact, all these comments do is bloat the thread and make it more difficult to find a potential solution.
Another common comment that gets up my nose and is often posted on help forums in reply to someone seeking help with a Windows issue. Or posted under an article reporting a bug/problem in Windows:
Install Linux, problem solved
Not only does a comment of that type add absolutely nothing to the discussion but it has been repeated so many times across so many forums it has become tiresome as well as annoying. I recently visited a Windows help forum where someone had posted that same comment and another reader replied with… “Hey pal, this is a Windows forum. If you want to post about Linux, p*ss off to a Linux forum and post there“. I wish that comment had a “like” button (Facebook style), I would have clicked that button in a heartbeat.
Another comment often posted on help forums in reply to someone seeking help with a Windows 10 issue. Or posted under an article reporting a bug/problem in Windows 10:
Windows 10 is malware
No, it isn’t. What a silly comment. I am guessing these comments are referring to Windows 10’s telemetry. If data collection is the basis for assessing malware then everything Google, Apple, most mainstream browsers, and just about every online service and/or website we interact with are malware. If you hate Windows 10 that much– install Linux, problem solved. 🙂
Finally, one of the most annoying comments begins with:
With all due respect/I mean no disrespect
Then goes on to completely disrespect whoever or whatever they are responding to. If they mean no disrespect, then it’s probably best not to follow that statement with a string of corrections and insults that constitute the very antithesis of respect.
Rightly or wrongly, most tech writers judge the success or failure of their articles based on the number of comments they attract. Fortunately, the vast majority of comments posted here at DCT add value to the discussion. However, that is not always the case. Some weeks back I wrote a detailed article explaining a particular Windows 10 feature and one reader posted a rather rude comment complaining about some perceived grammatical error. All that work, all that detail, and all he could find to comment about, and not in a polite way, was some minor error in grammar that did not affect the context of the article one iota. Not cool.
Thankfully, regular DCT readers are, in the main, way too savvy to post stupid or useless comments, and we writers always appreciate your comments. So keep ’em coming, folks.
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I mean no disrespect, but, I have the same issue! It is because Windows 10 is malware. Install Linux and the problem is solved!
Haha. Very good JD. I like it.
There is another area which I find annoying. Those who ask for assistance and never reply. I call this rude, Mindblower!
Hey MB,
Good point. It happens a lot and you are correct, it is very rude. I think quite a few users post their requests for assistance across multiple forums then interact with whichever responds first and ignore the rest.
I see this a lot on the forum for Eset which I’m a regular contributor. A lot of people complain about problems on there, but won’t give much information or logs when required.
With all due respect for WIN10, linux and malware, I agree with you on all but the “I have the same issue” one. That one can be useful particularly if the company whose product is misbehaving monitors the forum and/or the poster has some additional insight or solution. Case in point is the TiVo forum which is monitored by TiVo engineering. Several f/w upgrades broke other things and TiVo customer service would not acknowledge the issues and told everybody who called that there were no other reports of those problems. Naturally, those issues popped up on the forum and the volume of “I have the same issue” comments made it apparent to all, including TiVo engineering, that these were not isolated problems. It took a number of months but they did finally fix them – much to my delight as “I had the same issues.”
It’s also a useful comment where it encourages a discussion to share solutions or share sources for parts or or other resources.
If it wasn’t for the anonymity of posters that exists I think we’d have a much more polite online world.
Hey Bruce,
Good point about the “I have the same issue” comments maybe raising a flag with a developer to take some action. Agreed, in such cases, it could certainly help.
Very good about the TiVo site. Speaking from my experience on the Gmail Help Forum, engineers and staff DO NOT monitor the forum, so “I have the same issue” is only going to be seen by the volunteers who work on the forum. And often it turns out that the person does not have the same issue anyway, and it becomes quite messy trying to address slightly different problems in the same forum thread.
To me, “I have the same issue” is meaningless. “I also have that same issue and here are my details.” on the other hand has merrit. Take it from someone that does lots of tech support.
Hey Norbert,
Agreed. That comment on its own is useless. Except perhaps, as Bruce points out, when an accumulation of those comments spurs some action from a developer to fix a specific issue. Although, in my experience, that would be a very rare occurrence.
Still like the Larry David..”Having said that..”
Then one can claim/spout the opposite viewpoint with immunity! Perfect for us “fence sitters”.
An example of the – ‘I have the same issue’ comment helping.
We bought a lenovo 10″ google home device a couple of years ago and after a few days it went buggerup. I contacted the seller and lenovo and apart from sending it to one of the repair centres they didn’t want to know.
Luckily I checked the Lenovo site and there were many people complaining about the same issue – It seems a batch was faulty and had just stopped working after a few days use.
I just contacted the seller – and our card issuer in the UK card transactions are covered by Hire Purchase rules – and explained what I had found. The supplier’s attitude changed and they supplied a new gizmo immediately – they didn’t even wait for the return of the faulty item and paid for the faulty one to be collected.
Over two years later Dora as she is known is working happily and telling dad jokes whenever asked – part of the family.
My point is that ‘I have the same issue’ comments do have meaning to people with the same issue and can be very helpful to people with ‘the same issue’
I do agree on the others
My pet peeve is someone asking a question about a specific item on a selling website, and getting the answer, “I don’t one one of these, so I don’t know.” Why bother answering, then?
*own one
Good point David. Why indeed.
Hi David. Thanks for the reminder. I avoid answering individuals on seller websites when they ask without reading, especially when the information is clearly stated. See many others do the same, Mindblower!
I ran an internet business selling beads with my wife and there is a type of person that asks questions because they don’t think you know the answers. There are some very weird people out there and if you don’t laugh it off you would be gibbering by the end of one week.
Some have obvious problems – like the guy who asked the exact size of the holes in all our beads to the nearest 100th of an inch – I tried to explain that the beads we cold were either hand or machine made but the hole size varied and got met by such abuse about what we were selling I had to delete the comment.
There are some very weird people in this world who see their position in life elevated by the belittlement of others Or even just getting other people to do something for them whether they actually want it or not.
Sorry to be such a cynic but I was self employed running micro businesses for a good few decades until retirement and some people are just weird.
These people don’t like to read so they ask these stupid questions. I don’t answer this type of question.
Thanks Jim,
I agree with all your comments and I believe that useless retorts are partly due to ‘free speech’ rules disliked by many people hidden behind a monitor/smart-screen who like to see their name ‘in lights for 10 seconds’ without any input, either negative or positive, plus a lack of social etiquette by using profanities in many forums, akin to ‘tough talk on the streets’ syndrome.
The Windows vs Linux debates especially, go from the sublime to the ridiculous and remind me of our younger days of car ownership, the Holden vs Ford narky comments.
Regards,
Jonno
“I don’t know” is definitely one of the more pointless ones, but another very annoying one is “Did you try Googling it?”
I agree it’s wrong to respond with “Did you try Googling it?”, but the facts are that those of us who help on forums quite often find our answers via Google – a simple action that the asker could have taken on their own.