Solved Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking
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I agree, I did call the person dense.
Because of the terms of what he's described as the issue. He himself said.
"I had a VMWAre Evaluation version which expired, my VMs went off because of power outage and now i cant start them because i get a license expiration error if i try to start it."
Which to me means he should know that an evaluation will expire at some point, prior to which a decision must be made. It does come off as mean, true.
But in IT honesty is better upfront, compared to playing dumb. If the OP configured this system, this conversation should've been had with management that the software must be purchased, and therefore he would never be in this situation.
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I think that approach matters a lot. The phrase "what were they thinking" CAN sound benign but is also used as a way to say "what an idiot you are."
The same question posed this way would illicit a different feeling and discussion:
"What Thought Processes May Have Resulted in This Scenario"
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@Jstear said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
The post I made the comment on, you called the guy dense and I took it as you demeaning the guy for making a mistake. I'll have to find the other posts to make you aware, maybe they aren't meant to be taken the way I'm taking them. I'm just letting you know how I see it as a newcomer to this community. I would say the same if it were coming from any other community.
I have to side with Jester here - I feel like you've been kinda on a crusade against people over at SW lately.
Mostly it's around wording issues like Jester mentioned.
If I was new and came here and found those posts, I'm not sure I'd stick around. It's one thing to bring them to attention here so people here will go there and post - man it would be so much better if we could just get them to post here as well, but SW won't be having that.
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@Dashrender said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
@Jstear said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
The post I made the comment on, you called the guy dense and I took it as you demeaning the guy for making a mistake. I'll have to find the other posts to make you aware, maybe they aren't meant to be taken the way I'm taking them. I'm just letting you know how I see it as a newcomer to this community. I would say the same if it were coming from any other community.
I have to side with Jester here - I feel like you've been kinda on a crusade against people over at SW lately.
Mostly it's around wording issues like Jester mentioned.
If I was new and came here and found those posts, I'm not sure I'd stick around. It's one thing to bring them to attention here so people here will go there and post - man it would be so much better if we could just get them to post here as well, but SW won't be having that.
This is especially an issue when those users are often invited here at the exact same moment that these threads about them arise. Which happens almost every time.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
I agree, I did call the person dense.
Because of the terms of what he's described as the issue. He himself said.
"I had a VMWAre Evaluation version which expired, my VMs went off because of power outage and now i cant start them because i get a license expiration error if i try to start it."
Which to me means he should know that an evaluation will expire at some point, prior to which a decision must be made. It does come off as mean, true.
But in IT honesty is better upfront, compared to playing dumb. If the OP configured this system, this conversation should've been had with management that the software must be purchased, and therefore he would never be in this situation.
But we all know for hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of posts over there that this process just doesn't take place. We all aren't @scottalanmiller, we need to learn from somewhere and since college is nearly clearly a complete waste we often find ourselves stumbling around until we find a good community to join that we grow with each other.
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Yeah I gotta say. It needs to be reduced. If you are going to have that opinion about X topic. Why not post it on the source thread?
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@Dashrender I don't know if I'm on a crusade, we do have the "burned by" topic, which is clearly for educational purposes. And there has been a rash of those posted on Spiceworks to which I've posted to that topic.
If I'm bashing, by all means call me out for it.
I personally won't be offended, but if there are situations in which 15 minutes of thought prevents hours or days or weeks of headaches I'll call it out, and recommend a solution in a not so subtle way.
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In addition to the wording, consider this technique....
Get an IM to the OP ready with something like this:
"I had some additional questions about how you arrived in the situation that you found yourself in and want to understand what chain of events or decision making process led to this scenario playing out as it did."
Then post your question on ML as best as you can. Then grab the link and send it to the OP for their input.
If the OP isn't invited to the discussion, it behaves like a semi-private group talking behind their back (even though it is in the open.) And inviting them is the only reasonable way to get good insight, either way. And by doing so you mentally know every time that the OP will see what you write which should, in theory, cause you to think differently about how a question is phrased or approached.
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@Dashrender said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
But we all know for hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of posts over there that this process just doesn't take place. We all aren't @scottalanmiller, we need to learn from somewhere and since college is nearly clearly a complete waste we often find ourselves stumbling around until we find a good community to join that we grow with each other.
This wouldn't be an issue of SW had an awesome search feature like ML ha.... oh dammit.
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So to me if discussing the thread, in a separate (not so delete happy forum) is essentially bad, according to you if and only if the person doesn't know it's being discussed?
So the real simple solution is "Hey OP I'm discussing your thread here, join in if you wish"
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@DustinB3403 If you have a problem about posts getting deleted for no reason/questionably over there, let me know. Discussions go into most deletions.
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@Jstear said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
@DustinB3403 If you have a problem about posts getting deleted for no reason/questionably over there, let me know. Discussions go into most deletions.
I would have to say I've had completely honest and blunt but eye-opening replies to others topics be deleted for "not being friendly"
Just the other day in fact.
Here is a screen grab of the email, and here is a link to the article of the OP who wants samples of Ransomware to show his superiors how awful Ransomware is.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
So to me if discussing the thread, in a separate (not so delete happy forum) is essentially bad, according to you if and only if the person doesn't know it's being discussed?
So the real simple solution is "Hey OP I'm discussing your thread here, join in if you wish"
I think that that is likely to solve nearly all problems. In another community we found that private discussions that didn't include the OP tended to devolve due to that fact. It because a bunch of speculation in private and not really very useful. Inviting the OP both allows for the discussion to be more productive. But it also changes how humans will mentally think about what they are saying. We aren't talking about "someone we read about in the news" but having a conversation with a fellow IT pro.
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The burnt by topic should be a warning. Not a "here's another dense idiot who should know better. We don't know enough about the people to know if they should know better.
I've had a lot of my previous actions (and many more to still go) be shattered by participating here and SW. I've learned a lot, and continue to learn.
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@Dashrender said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
The burnt by topic should be a warning.
And even less of a warning but a collection of evidence. People often claim that best practices, rules of thumb or math on risk are silly or pointless. But evidence has shown for a long time that these things are best practices or whatever for a reason. Collecting that in a thread is useful for when people claim that "this doesn't actually happen to anyone."
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@DustinB3403 your comments here and on SW come across to me as if people making poor choices is a personal affront to you, and you have a responsibility to correct them. I've become very choosy about what topics I post in on any of these forums. It is a survival/sanity mechanism that I've needed to develop. Otherwise the unwise or uneducated will drag me down.
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Then it becomes even more important to not only post a link to the other thread, but also to spell out what they did, what best practice they should have followed so future searchers can find the thread useful.
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@Kelly said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
@DustinB3403 your comments here and on SW come across to me as if people making poor choices is a personal affront to you, and you have a responsibility to correct them. I've become very choosy about what topics I post in on any of these forums. It is a survival/sanity mechanism that I've needed to develop. Otherwise the unwise or uneducated will drag me down.
The topics posted here or on SW, that are asking for advice on how to address a problem are as much my responsibility to assist with as they are with anyone.
Just because I respond bluntly, and don't sugarcoat it means that I'm affronted by the person asking for advice? I don't see the correlation.
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@Dashrender said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
Then it becomes even more important to not only post a link to the other thread, but also to spell out what they did, what best practice they should have followed so future searchers can find the thread useful.
I think that that normally is done or is overwhelmingly obvious. If not, definitely ask. Normally it tends to be RAID 5 winchesters, IPOD, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
@Dashrender said in Is it bashing to ask what other were thinking:
Then it becomes even more important to not only post a link to the other thread, but also to spell out what they did, what best practice they should have followed so future searchers can find the thread useful.
I think that that normally is done or is overwhelmingly obvious. If not, definitely ask. Normally it tends to be RAID 5 winchesters, IPOD, etc.
I've had replies to brand new topics, (and I wont go digging for the emails) that have been as quickly bashed for assuming it was an IPOD in design with as innocent a question of: "Can you describe your setup a bit more, as this sounds like it might be an IPOD?"
I tend to try and be kind, but I don't coat it with butter and sugar.
