[Moses101]

I asked for some help in OOTP9 Tech Support thread days ago but no response. Then I post the same thing here hoping someone would respond but instead the thread is deleted. Is it too much to ask for a little courtesy?

[endgame]

Your threads are still in both the 9 and 10 Technical Support area. I don't know where you're getting the impression they've been deleted.

It's never too much to ask for a little courtesy. By the same token, it seems too much to ask those posing questions for a little patience.

The volunteers who try to work with the questions tend to work from the oldest to the newest, with the exception of a post that is either so simple to answer or the user is so familiar with the issue that it gets a response a bit more quickly.

Your thread may have not been deleted, but simply moved from General Discussion to the more appropriate area.

[Moses101]

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I did not mean to imply that I was being impatient, all that I knew was that according to the forum numbers dozens of people had looked at my original post but not a single reply. I understand that everyone is volunteer but might I suggest a quick note in future cases. It might say something like "I am looking into this and will respond when possible" or "I will get to this as soon as get done with older problems." That would certainly allow the poster to know that he wasn't just being ignored.

As for the deleted thread, I do not know anything about a thread in 10 but perhaps that is where my previous post was moved. In that case, it would be nice to have something that would tell me it was moved otherwise of course I'm going to assume it was deleted.

Anyway, thank you again for being so polite in your response and I hope my post is not taken as anything other than suggestions for how to avoid confusion in the forum.

[kq76]

My guess is that in most cases where someone looks at your tech support thread, but doesn't answer it's probably because they simply don't know the answer. I myself have been around the game for 7 years now and I can only answer such a small fraction of the threads there that unless the title includes something about licensing I usually don't even bother opening them. The few real tech support gurus we have do a great job IMO, but there's so few of them and so many of those threads that a lot probably slip through the cracks especially when not around release when fewer people help out.

As for getting a note when your thread is moved, coming from someone who does move a fair amount of threads (I didn't move yours though), I'd agree with you that you should get a note, but I myself usually don't send them (although I just did a minute ago to someone). Why? Well, because IMO people should know better and I think most of the time they do, but they just post on a general board likely because they believe their thread somehow deserves more attention over everyone else's. IMO that's unfair to others who do post where they should and it also takes away from my time working on more important things so I can't help but be reluctant to spend anymore time on those threads than is necessary.

Don't feel too bad about it, but you for instance just repeated your OOTP9 tech support thread on the General Board here. What if everyone did that? That wouldn't be cool at all. I'm sure there'd be a heck of a lot of grumbling about it as threads on their proper boards would quickly get buried by all the threads that really belonged elsewhere. Is your problem worthy of getting its due attention? It certainly is, but so are most threads. Besides, posting threads where they don't belong might get the person more help in the short-term, but in the long-term I have to believe that they actually turn many of us off from helping that particular person when we know that there are so many others who are posting where they should.

If someone is a repeat offender, though, then I'll probably send a note just so I hopefully don't have to move anymore of their threads. Maybe I should take the attitude that if a thread is worth moving then it's worth sending a note too, but at this point in time I don't. What I will often do is leave a, usually 2 or 3 day, redirect that points people to where the thread was moved, but vbulletin makes it really easy to do that when you move a thread so I don't consider it a bother like I often consider PMing people about their threads being moved to be. Part of me even thinks we shouldn't even leave re-directs because it's still giving that person more attention, but I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt that they just don't know better.

That said, it'd be great if there's some vbulletin mod that will automatically send a note about moved threads so I'll do a quick search to see if I can find one and ask Andreas to install it. Maybe you can take a look for one too. I'd certainly like to have it.

BTW, other than mistake threads that threadstarters sometimes ask to be deleted, threads are very rarely deleted now. There was a time where other kinds of threads were occasionally "deleted", but AFAIK that very rarely happens anymore. IMO at least, if a thread is that bad it's usually best to just close it and end it with a note why it's been closed. So, if your thread has "disappeared", it's most likely just been moved and you can easily see where by looking at your post history via your profile.

EDIT: I just checked out your tech support thread and, sorry, but I don't know the answer to it either.

EDIT2: I've just moved the duplicate thread that was incorrectly moved to the OOTP10 board and merged it with your original thread on the OOTP9 tech support board.

[Moses101]

Thanks for the polite and informative response. I had posted here only because I thought that perhaps that the OOTP staff might actually see it and I could get some help. I apologize to the community for the post.