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If a question is posed in a way where there's essentially no effort being made to explain the issue, let alone word it in a way that makes sense, then it should be closed. We are a community that encourages people to post questions regardless of whether they are "dumb" questions, but as a community we must also ask our users to meet us halfway and at least put a modicum of effort into a question.
Bill - you've a saint for taking the time to answer the question in the manner you did. I would like to really stretch the friendship and ask that, before answering a question, you ensure the question is clear and answerable for others, which may mean taking a moment to clean up the question first.
PS. I've cleaned up the question and restored it.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris, I'm not convinced this is quite working - there are some individuals here who seem rather too "trigger happy" with the "not a question" marker. If they don't understand it, then it's not a question and they mark it as such. If the OP has poor English skills it can take some thinking to work out what they are trying to say, but it's important to them and kinda rude of us to say "talk better or go away".
I've had what Bill describes a couple of times, and I assume the "sea of gray" that washes across QA from time to time is related to this. Not sure what can be done, but not all the questions that disappear should have been squashed to my mind.
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
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OriginalGriff wrote: I've had what Bill describes a couple of times, and I assume the "sea of gray" that washes across QA from time to time is related to this. Not sure what can be done, but not all the questions that disappear should have been squashed to my mind.
When the only tool you have is a LART all posters start to look like Lusers?
Some people need bigger tool boxes. With rare exceptions 7x2x2 feet, with a padlock hasp on the outside should be big enough.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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OriginalGriff wrote: Not sure what can be done, but not all the questions that disappear should have been squashed to my mind.
The dilemma seems to be that we either guess what the OP was asking and risk a right answer to a wrong question (though this is still valuable to others) or we leave it alone and have unanswerable questions. The worst thing, in my view, is to do nothing, so I lean towards trying to correct the question and then, if further discussion clarifies things, then further adjustment of the question and answers. An iterative, and potentially slow/painful approach, but the most likely to achieve convergence to the intention of the question.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I absolutely agree - get clarification!
The problem is that some members appear to be rather less tolerant of beginners with poor English skills, or don't realise that a learner is probably confused to start with, assumes there is only one way to do anything and doesn't know what to ask, let alone how to say it! 
Perhaps your stats could give you a list of "highest non-a-question" voters and then a quiet word is all that is needed? I don't know - I'm guessing based on the kind of responses you see to poor questions before they vanish, is all.
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
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I have to agree with OG on this. I've seen people commenting that something isn't a question or that there's been no effort when all that was needed to turn the question into a good one is just a gentle bit of coaxing. Judging by the amount of gray I see on questions in the QA section, either every question poster is a wastrel simpleton, or people are being a bit too heavy handed with them.
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So the question for me is: how do we motivate people to clarify instead of drive-by slam?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: how do we motivate people to clarify instead of drive-by slam?
Hi Chris,
Well, that rhetorical question is a good excuse for me to bring the old nag's corpse out, and flay it again 
As I've said (too many times) on this forum, I think there are several practical ways CP, as a community, can, without "scaring people off," improve the quality of questions, and responses, on general discussion forums, as well as Q&A.
1. Partly based on the idea that people generally don't respect, and don't "invest" psychologically in what they "get" "for free:"
a. Have a simple question entry facility that absolutely requires the OP to enter more than one Tag. For example, if the OP selects "C#" as their language, then I believe they should have no problem specifying whether they are working with WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET, etc.
b. If a question is asked of the OP via a comment, asking for clarification, then allow moderators, or other people with certain types of high reputation, to suspend accepting solutions for the question asked ... until the OP responds in some way to the question asked. Yes, I realize that's a tricky one. Probably better would be that if three or more persons with high reps as Authority use the Report facility to select a category like: "Suspend until OP responds" ?
I do realize the StackOverFlow "blocked/stopped by posse" method reflects a whole different "culture" that may be quite alien to CP's more free-form weltanschauung, but I believe that CP, as a community, can come up with a "humane" way to place a reasonable demand on the OP for response, as a condition of receiving further help.
2. The issue of moving questions from general discussion forums to Q&A is something I think should be addressed, somehow. What is the point of having two types of forums, with very different interfaces, when they are both filling up with the same type of questions ? I know you are already thinking about this, Chris, and, if you, and CP, decide to merge them, that's fine with me, although my preference is to maintain the two types of forums.
3. On the other side of the equation in Q&A, in terms of the respondents: there is a high frequency of "canned" replies (as solutions), often having little to do with the question asked, by certain persons who, in my perceptions, have become "rep-automatons." I believe this phenomenon, and its concomitant behavior of frequently posting hyper-critical comments on others' solutions, is not healthy for CP, but doing something about that is, inherently, "sticky." I feel recognizing the issue is, at least, a first step towards bringing our collective wisdom to bear on how we can change the phenonmena without being punitive, or hurtful, or dampening someone's enthusiasm.
How easy it is to think of issues other people could deal with
As always, thanks for the wonderful playground for the mind that CP has become in my little life.
bill
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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Been an active user of codeproject and discussion topics always attract me but the way are represented and comes in disturbing nd annoying threaded view makes it hard to read it properly.
Can you CodeProject guys please improve the layout for this
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And what would you suggest?
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exexzian wrote: the way are represented and comes in disturbing nd annoying threaded view makes it hard to read it properly
If you don't like the threaded view then choose "Thread View" in the "Layout" dropdown and click on the "Update" button. After doing this, you only see the threads in the forum, and to see the replies, click on the "View the <number> replies to this message" link.
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exexzian wrote: thanks alot
You're welcome!
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exexzian wrote: alot
 [^]
Keep Clam And Proofread
--
√(-1) 23 ∑ π...
And it was delicious.
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When i am uploading image for my article it is giving me error!!!
Quote: Unexpected error during upload. One or more files may not have been uploaded.
Thanks
-Amit Gajjar
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Have you had the window open a long time? Please re-edit the article and try again. If you still have problems please email me the images along with the URL and I will tackle it.
Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject
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I have emailed you.
FYI,
I am using Google Chrome and i tried with refreshing and re-editing but No Luck 
Thanks
-Amit Gajjar
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Hi there,
not really sure if it is the right place for my question.
Since September the 20th i am missing the link to the online version of the daily Newsletter.
Why is it not available anymore?
Thanks in advance.
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You can find a list of the Newsletters in the Newsletter archive[^], if that is what you were asking for.
You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colon."
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Hi,
thanks for your reply.
Is there also a Archive for the daily Newsletter (The Insider)?
Your Link is only for the weekly newsletters.
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sidvicious18 wrote: Is there also a Archive for the daily Newsletter (The Insider)?
Not as far as I know, but the topics are posted to the Insider News Forum[^].
You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named "Bush", "Dick", and "Colon."
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Ok, thanks for your answers.
I hope that this point will be fixed soon for the next "The Insider" and weekly Newsletters
because i often sent this link via messenger to my colleagues.
But now this isn't possible and sending every link for every article is inconvinient.
Greetings
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At the moment, if you hover over a deleted member (loctrice in the soapbox for example) nothing happens - which is a little disconcerting, since you don't know if you should just wait longer, or the account is gone. Could we have a "This account is no longer active" message instead of nothing at all?
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
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