When you display ranking by topic it is confusing because the columns for questions asked, answered and knowledge points is a total value not an indication of amounts for that particular topic. Thus someone does not have any idea the true topic level of the members.
It would be nice if the Top 50 Member Rankings page only had the totals for that topic.
Then on the individual profile page it would be nice to include the knowledge points for each topic on the line, Also include topics and points for all areas including those where the member has not yet reached Nerd level. This then gives people a better overall view of the members involvement and expertise.

Would like to see a question once and only once. In today’s email you have this same question listed seven times. That’s six times to many.

I would love to see reviews of the new IT technology and it’s implementation in real case scenarios
also on the road I’m accessing http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/ via my Windows 7 phone
if possible to get option http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/ to get optimized for Iphone, Smartphone access
or in the future access via cloud
thank you
I do really enjoy friendly interaction, information, points and prizes
also new badges was really cool idea:)

I’d like to see announcements of cloud computing company start-ups. Thanks.

Cloud computing should definitely be a topic under the tab “Browse by Main IT Topics”.

I think cloud computing is a great topic to focus on. I think though this is a huge topic. A little more delineation on the topic would be good. Some topics I’m looking at are,

Unified Communications (UC) platforms… I think over the next 5 years this topic will turn the systems world upside down.
SaaS … Do we need onsite hardware and infrastructure with the latest SaaS offerings?
P2V … In about 2 hours a Physical server can be converted to a Virtual server then moved into a virtual cloud site. What are the ramifications for onsite systems and system Techs
MPLS and other Secure ways to connect the physical site from the Cloud site

Some other interesting topics that are not so much in the cloud
IT career paths – New paths and legacy paths
Technical Documentation
Project managment best practices
Technology Migration strategies
VOIP telephony and IT integration with VOIP

I’ve also enjoyed discussions about IT departmental role and business process

One funtionality that might be interesting is an IT salary survey
Also Hotspots for different technologies around the country

Oh and I don’t know if this is possible, but I wonder if some fo the onsite experts could also do video presentations on some topics they are most interested in.

If there’s a functionality you would like to see…

Ability to (vote for) delete responses — (voting for) deleting the spam-Qs was very nice, but many responses also show up.

Ability to upload images — restricted to a couple image types is fine — it’s confusing to need to upload to some other service then link to it from here, plus you can’t tell when addresses change.

Ability to edit my own responses or even just get rid of them so I can put a correction in place.

Tom

@HMSSL2K: I apologize for the redundancy in your emails. I am working with the Help Desk to filter for repeat questions. The Open IT Forums are tagged with all of our parent topics to ensure that everyone in the community gets a chance to see and answer them, no matter what parent topic updates they receive.

Thanks for your feedback!

Best,
Melanie

I second the suggestion for allowing a user to edit their own responses. Being the typo king, I would really appreciate this.

I would like to see a button next to a post, that we could click on (similar to the Tick we have already to accept an answer for the question)

We could then blast these niggling little people who think it a good idea to post links to web sites that are totally unrelated to IT. Shoes, for example.

Also those faul mouthed irks who think it is acceptable to swear and name call. I find it very offensive and feel for those being bad mouthed. Could we not assist in catching these when they are noticed?

As for the multiple post notifications, surely there is a post reference which could be listed and then checked for duplicates, when compiling the list for emailing. SQL anyone?

Hi all,

These are all awesome suggestions. While I personally go through answers and discussions each morning to get rid of unrelated links and inappropriate comments, it would be great to have the help of the community. The autonomy of the community is definitely something that we strive for, even as we work in the background, so keep these suggestions coming!

I’ve added all of the points so far, but please come back and add to the discussion if another lightbulb goes off.

HMSSL2K & Chippy088: Our Help Desk has been notified of the problem, and are currently working to filter duplicates out of those emails.

Thanks!

Melanie

“While I personally go through answers and discussions each morning to get rid of unrelated links and inappropriate comments, it would be great to have the help of the community”

Giving moderators the authority to remove entries from the discussion section would help a lot, I think.

I use iSeries Navigator to the best of my ability but would like to learn more about its options and other things I could do with it.

I have just opened the new version of the email notifying us of updates to forum questions.

Melanie, could you let the back room boys know that I think it is a big improvement. Well done.

Hi Chippy088 & everyone!

Thanks so much for the compliments, I’ll forward it along to the boys in the back. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of a snag and for the time being have to return to the old text version. Not to worry! We’re working on the snappy HTML version, and hoping it’ll be up and running (into your inboxes) within a couple of weeks.

Consider it an appetizer! Thanks for your patience.

Best,
Melanie & IT Knowledge Exchange

T totally agree this format is the bomb. I wanted to say this yesterday but didn’t really think of where to post it, like duuuuu! here’s fine. Thanks to all of you in the back including Melanie. Peace.

I subscribe to several forums. I get one email that has ALL the forums. I’m trying to decide if I need one email/forum.

Other user comments.

Santa
Here’s my list, do I get to sit on your lap?
- Good questions
– clear and complete statement of problem
– the person who asks the question should be ready to participate in the discussion
– when the question is about homework, it should say that
- Allowed to edit my discussion
- Way to remove stray entries
- Way to post screen shots
Phil

And in case it hasn’t been mentioned, some way influence the handling of comments (e.g., Comment the compile time values in AS/400 ) would really be nice.

Then again, I’ve clicked ‘Vote to delete’ on a number of questions that, IMO, have no business being here and often see them survive. E.g., EPL Matches. Am I too oppressive? Not even one additional member? Perhaps the same would hold for comments. I did notice that two similar “questions” have gone, so maybe not.

Tom

Related questions: aren’t related at all
Could we vote to remove an item from related question?
Could we add keywords?
Phil

filter the individual advertisement post….
check the post have proper tagging or not …
and consider to insert Mainframe tag in IT knowledge exchange community..

finally, i didn’t get any question updates mail from here…. please resolve my problem…

Have you ever considered extending “IT Knowledge Exchange” to “IT Job Exchange”? IT Knowledge Exchange has grown into such a vibrant IT community that I am sure potential employers and job seekers alike would benefit from the wealth of talent that visit and contribute to the site on a regular basis. The idea would not be to compete with established job boards, rather to find a way to mesh the powerful social media platform that IT Knowledge Exchange is growing into with career building and putting out-of-work IT professionals back to work again. Just an idea.

It’s looking as if no question should ever show up without moderation if it includes a link. Only rare valid questions have links in them. Links in the questions themselves seem to be nothing but junk.

Tom

I agree with Tom about questions with links.
I would add the if the same question is asked repeatedly within a should time period (maybe 10 minutes) they should not show up either. Or at least only one of them.

On the screen where people enter their questions, can you add a statement in a LARGE FONT AND BOLD, that says WE WILL NOT ASSIT IN RECOVERION LOST PASSWORDS.

The ability to edit our posts would be nice.
Mainly afer a question is posted allow us to edit before any replies have been given. There are times when I missed an important point or would like to attach some sample code.

Some hot topics I would like to know more about are Virtual Desktop technologies (VDI), SQL Server 2012, and Cloud Computing. It would also be nice to be able to search across all TechTarget Search*.com sites at once when researching a topic. -Tech Talker

It would be nice to have the ability to follow up and interact further to assist someone after providing them with an initial answer/response by providing a link in the response email that the person could click to seek further clarification that would post to the community and send an email to the person who answered/responded to the question.

AND!!! How about publishing some description of what the syntax rules are for this blasted editor?

The most frustrating are the rules for forward slashes in code. At times, they need to be ‘escaped’ with a slash. At other times, it doesn’t work.

Tom

I’d like to see articles about BYOD, Identity and Access management, and comprehensive tools for shared file system management.

I am looking for latest update from web technologies development. What will be the future of web development.

It’s looking like some throttling method needs to be applied, e.g., a maximum of ten posts per day for any member.

The difficulties that ITKE is having with “spam” posts makes it hard to take seriously as a ‘technology’ site. Perhaps some discussion about why the problem continues (the obstacles preventing resolution) would be worthwhile. Ideas might come out.

Tom

Absolutely agree with Tom.

Maybe this is just my perception, but the site feels a little abandoned by the ITKE staff lately.

Thank you for the input Tom and Carlos…We actually had a minor problem with a spammer over the past couple of days but we have fixed the problem and the website is fully functional. If you see any spam, please report it to us immediately. Thank you again.

What would be the preferred way to report it ?

This time I tried on twitter, but got no answer, then I emailed Melanie, to find out she is no longer at ITKE, and finally I emailed Michael.

I think that removing spam posts quickly is very important, as real questions get lost or go unnoticed because of spam.

Seems like the volumn of junk goes up on the weekends.

It also feels as if the site doesn’t have an “identity” that is clear.

My impression of the purpose of the site is for professionals to help other professionals. Yet, questions often come from apparent home users who want to know how to get PCs talking to their ISPs’ routers (or get their MagicJack working) or from students needing info about ‘heavy metals’ or, maybe most troubling, from very small business owners who need help but who can’t (won’t) hire/contract for it.

I am more than happy to help someone who might be in an operations job and who wants to get into CL or even RPG programming to handle operational issues. And I’m fine with helping to guide students who are willing to try working things out before presenting their work to us to get past obstacles. (I don’t even care if English is their second language.)

But there are definite ethical issues in giving free technical help that would be better served as part of someone’s daily paid work.

There are dozens (hundreds? thousands? ??) of free-help forums and sites out there. I even contribute to some sometimes. For this site, though, I’d like to see it as an aid to the working lives of actual technical workers.

The site FAQ begins:

• IT Knowledge Exchange was created to allow IT pros to ask questions, get answers,
  collaborate and exchange knowledge with their peers.

(Emphasis added.)

But it doesn’t seem to be enough. There are plenty of days when the mix of pro/am questions is 50/50 or worse. The implication is that new posters commonly have an incorrect impression of what the site is all about.

So, maybe something like the opening FAQ sentence could be embedded right in the ‘Ask a Question’ box whenever it’s on a page. In bold. With high-contrast colors. And BIG letters.

The site “identity” simply needs to be more obvious. It needs to catch the eyes of more “pros” and fewer “ams” to become what the FAQ asserts.

Just IMO.

Tom

Any chance of reverting the new ‘Blogroll’ section on Q/A pages back to the previous list of new blog posts? I used to scan the previous list early in the day and late in the day to catch possible posts of interest. Now, I see nothing that catches my attention.

Tom

It took approximately two minutes for this page to load. Only reason seems to be because the forum is being spammed again. The lack of any apparent action to handle the problem suggests that the site is becoming unusable.

Tom

Of course, some other sites aren’t much better. Try figuring out how to report abuse by a Yahoo! user on the Yahoo! abuse page:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/abuse/spam/

Let me know if you succeed.

Tom

How about making the ‘Edit My Account’ page work? I’m using FF 9.0.1 on this laptop — not absolutely up-to-date, but hardly obsolete. I went in to edit my ITKE account info and ran into this:
Edit
(Let’s see if an image works today.)

As you might see near the top, one of the reported errors is that the “Handle must be at least 1 character”. The image might not be easy to read, but take my word for it — there was no place provided to type in any ‘handle’.

No reason given why a ‘handle’ is required, no explanation how a ‘handle’ is different from the user ID I’ve always gone by, no description of what a ‘handle’ is, and no place to put one if I could figure out what I was typing. I don’t know it is nor why I need it, but I can’t make any other changes without one.

Anyway, the rest of the story –

Before this evening, I never chose to have any ITKE e-mails sent to me. But I realized that I didn’t know what others were saying when they complained about ITKE e-mails they received. Then this evening’s spam flood hit, lasting for at least six hours. It finally struck me that ITKE might essentially be operating as an open relay for spam, so I figured I’d see how to enable some e-mails to me so I could see what was arriving in members’ inboxes.

Perhaps fortunately, I’m not allowed to make any changes to enable any e-mails until my ‘handle’ has at 1 character.

Does anything work around here?

Tom

The Spam guys/gals are 100% in control.
Since you’re unable to protect the site, I think that :
- New ID’s should require approval.
- Questions, answers and discussion need to be screened before they are posted.
- ID should be suspended if posting two items in a minute or 10 in half an hour.

I’d like to see a little more detail on how to find the meaning of account options. At the first of April, I set my account preferences to receive e-mails under all the categories I have any interest in, plus the community newsletter. So far, not a single e-mail other than the notices of account changes and a couple ‘cloud’ and ‘search’ newsletters.

How are “daily” mailings of Q-and-A enabled? Is there an explanation somewhere?

I disabled mailings a couple days ago since nothing was showing up.

Tom