First up, spam. A number of our more active members have brought up the issue of spam posts on the site, and it’s something we’ve noticed, too. We are taking this problem very seriously, and are happy to announce that we’ve instituted a new spam filter on the site that should help us catch those extraneous and/or unintelligible posts that sometimes appear. As with any automated solution, there are going to be some hiccups, and we expect that a few legitimate posts may get caught up in the net from time to time as the system learns what is and isn’t spam. We will be checking regularly to make sure the good stuff gets published to the site quickly. If your post is mistakenly flagged and you don’t see it within a day or so, let us know and we’ll push it through. And if you see spam that does make it through the filter, continue to ‘Vote to Delete’ as necessary.

We’ve made a number of other changes to the site over the past six weeks or so, but the most important one for your experience is an update to the ‘Answer Wiki’ that appears on each question posted to the site. You’ll now see a new avatar next to that box – instead of showing a single answerer, we’re now showing a ‘crowd’ to reflect the multiple contributors to that answer (in true wiki style). Rest assured that if you add or improve an answer, your contributions will still be reflected, both in your points and in the list of contributors below the box. We’re just changing the way the top of the box displays to avoid confusion.

Looking for some reading material? Our IT Bookworm blog has been re-loaded with excerpts from a few new IT books, including titles on SOA, the requirements process and C++. Take a look through, and stay tuned for a chance to win copies of these and other books.

One final note: As you may have noticed, we’re keeping track of major IT events on our Enterprise IT Watch blog. I imagine at least some of you are attending at least some of these shows; if you are, and want to share your experiences, let me know! We’d love to get some inside perspective from the ITKE army (or whatever you’d like to be called).

As always, drop me a line with any questions or concerns.

Ben

Question image via Shutterstock

“Why won’t anybody answer my question?”

That’s something a number of you may have asked yourselves at one time or another – and it’s one question I can help answer.

There are many types of questions on ITKE: “what’s wrong with this code” questions, “have you ever seen this problem before” questions, “what program do I use” questions, and more abstract questions and discussions (I ask a lot of these) that don’t have a “right” answer.

Then, there are what some call “homework” questions. These tend to come from newer members who don’t (yet) work in the IT field, asking for help solving a particular problem that sounds, well, a little too contrived. That’s because it’s not a real-world problem, but one that comes from a book or from a professor’s assignment.

If you’ve asked or come across one of these questions before, you know that they’re unlikely to get answered. In some cases, ITKE members will even vote to delete them from the site. Here’s why: They feel like they’re being taken advantage of, simply used for their expertise and then forgotten about until the next tough assignment comes along (I call it a “drive-by”). No one likes that.

That’s not to say beginners are unwelcome here – or at least, they shouldn’t be. We’re all still learning in one way or another, and ITKE should be a place where everyone can build knowledge and skills at every level. It’s just important to remember that this is a community, not simply a place to get a quick answer. So do some research beforehand, and show that you put some thought into your question (describe why you’re asking the question, what you don’t understand, and what work you’ve done so far), and you’ll likely get a much better response than if you just cut-and-paste your question from an assignment into the submission form.

And hey, non-beginners: If you come across a thoughtful question like this, perhaps you can help out by providing your insight, or by directing the asker to a resource (a book, a website, etc.) that you’ve found particularly helpful. If you don’t feel up to doing this, feel free to pass on by and let someone else try.

What should you do if you encounter a question that doesn’t meet these guidelines? Don’t just delete it. If you can, politely direct the user to this post, or to our FAQ, or to me. That way, we can turn it into a question that adds some value to the community – and gets an answer, of course.

Website maintenance image via Shutterstock

It’s your friendly community manager here with a quick update. We’ve had a busy summer at ITKnowledgeExchange, and I wanted to make sure you’re all up to speed on the improvements and fixes we’ve made to the site.

Our Social Media Profiles

You can now find ITKnowledgeExchange throughout the social web. We’re active on Twitter (@ITKE), Facebook and Google+. The conversations are going strong in our ITKE LinkedIn Group, which is open to all. You can also find our favorite IT videos on our YouTube channel, and a growing list of presentations we like on Slideshare. If you’re also in any of these places, please join us.  If you didn’t notice, you can now access all our social accounts using the handy icons in the “What’s New” box on the homepage and on the Blogs page.

Blogs Are Booming

Have you checked out our Enterprise IT Watch blog recently? We’ve been posting tons of new content there each week, from tech history tidbits to videos to infographics to events – and look out for some great guest posts in the near future. We’ve also launched a new blog, Vendor Tech Talk, where interested IT vendors can contribute their perspectives.

WordPress Upgrade
In June, we upgraded the site to the latest version of WordPress to take advantage of all its new features. We didn’t change how the site looks (that’s coming down the road); it was more for ease of use on the back end. We also made a smaller upgrade more recently.

In possibly related news, we have seen a few bugs on the site of late, and are addressing them on an ongoing basis. Read on for more detail.

Things We’ve Fixed:

• Apostrophes in questions turning to slashes. You may have noticed that when  you submitted a question, any apostrophes in the title/body were changed to slashes. This has been fixed.
• Duplicate questions and spam in the ‘Unanswered’ section. We do our best to keep on top of spammers who try to infiltrate our community, and get rid of those questions as soon as possible. We recently noticed that some spam questions that we’d deleted were still showing up in the Unanswered section, along with duplicate versions of non-spam questions. As of today, this has been fixed.
• Header links. When you click on the ITKnowledgeExchange logo in the header of any site, it will now take you back to the site homepage (for a time it would take you to the index page of whatever sub-directory you were in).
• Login issues. Some users had been unable to log in to the site, especially if they hadn’t logged in for some time. This has been fixed (but let me know if you’re still having trouble!).

Things We’re Working On:

• Answer history issues. A few users have noted an issue with the answer history on certain questions, where a change is falsely attributed or blank changes are shown when comparing versions. We are looking into this problem and hope to have it resolved soon.
• Asker becomes the answerer. In a few cases, the person who approves an answer has been made the ‘answerer’ of a question, at least for some period of time. We have identified the issue and are working to resolve it.
• Points problems. Some users have mentioned that their point and badge accumulations are not reflected accurately. We’re currently trying to resolve this, but rest assured that your points are safe. By the way, we’re in the process of revamping our points/badge system – if you have any suggestions, please drop me a line!

If you’ve read this far, I can tell you’re a committed ITKE member. Thanks! As you can see, we’re always working to make sure it’s in the best shape possible, and would love to hear your feedback. If you’ve noticed an issue that is not addressed here, or have a suggestion or compliment, please let me know (brubenstein@techtarget.com).

Ben

Winners image via Shutterstock

We’re halfway through our August member contest, where our top 10 most active members will win $50 Amazon gift cards for their efforts. A quick look at the leaderboard shows it’s a tight race – TomLiotta has the top spot locked up, but that’s all we can say for sure. Check out the full list:

1. TomLiotta (1230 Knowledge Points)

2. CharlieBrowne (385)

3. carlosdl (265)

4. AndreaF (235)

5. philpl1jb (225)

6. BigKat (165)

7. rechil (150)

8. trfhtrh (145)

9. mrdenny (130)

10. FrankWM (110)

Are you among the top 10? If not, what are you waiting for? There are still two weeks left to earn points by asking, answering and discussing questions, so get on it.

Chat bubble image via Shutterstock

We’ll be hosting a live chat with experts from Aria Systems on August 14 at 2 p.m. ET on SaaS subscription and billing management.

Over the last decade, CEOs, investors, analysts and business advisors have fallen in love with the recurring revenue model. But these new recurring revenue businesses also come with new requirements.

In order to better-understand today’s billing landscape and optimize your unique revenue model, join this complimentary webcast. It will serve as an instructional roadmap for building a recurring revenue model and outlining many of the different monetization strategies available. Access this now to learn how to:

• increase revenue through greater customer acquisition and retention;
• choose the right recurring revenue model;
• and more.

Hope to see you there on Tuesday afternoon.

I hope I have helped make this space a better place for you to come, to learn, and to share. It truly has been a pleasure to serve this community. I wish you nothing but the best for all of your future endeavors — IT-related and otherwise!

Best,

Melanie Yarbrough

Don’t see it? Let me help you…

That’s right! Whether the coding messed up after you hit submit or a member asked for information you forgot to include, you now have the option to edit your own questions. Moderators** also have the ability to edit all questions. That’s not all…

Remember that pesky spam problem we had a little while back? Well, now you have the ability to yank it from the home page. All it takes are two votes from two members of IT Knowledge Exchange, and any question that strikes you as homework/spam/advertising/irrelevant will be removed from the homepage. Our community managers will be monitoring all questions that are voted for removal to ensure that quality questions aren’t removed accidentally.

Thank you for all of your hard work and contributions to this community. Each day you build it to be a little more of what you want it to be, and we hope that these new functionalities will only make that easier. Of course, we can only improve with your feedback, so send it to us! Leave us a comment or send me an email directly at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

**Interested in becoming a community moderator? Here’s the lowdown. Moderators volunteer to:

• Edit or flag inappropriate and irrelevant content for removal
• Approve answers across the site
• Receive a sweet Moderator badge

To ensure our moderators know their way around, we have just a few qualifications:

• Must be an active member for six (6) consecutive months
• Must have upwards of 500 Knowledge Points

If you’re interested and meet these criteria, send me an email at the address listed above!

The Details

• The top 10 knowledge point earners between today, April 25, 2011, and Tuesday, May 31, 2011, will each receive one (1) Amazon.com gift card for $100.
• All answers, discussions, questions, and bounty participation is subject to review of the IT Knowledge Exchange editors, and posting questionable or irrelevant content may result in removal of knowledge points or disqualification from the contest.

Ways to Pull Ahead

• Ask quality questions! Just because an IT obstacle has you stumped, that’s no reason to hang your head in shame. Head over to the forums and ask your IT question! When one of the community members nails your problem on its head, be sure to approve the answer and pay the knowledge forward.
• Answer IT questions! Is work going smoothly? No catastrophic tech-urrences to threaten your data center or, worse, your job? Well, take some of that downtime and build up a bit more tech karma by spreading your IT knowledge around the community. Browse the unanswered questions or ongoing discussions to see where you can lend your expertise.
• Take advantage of bountiful bounties! Despite the horrific puns, bounties can be the fastest – and funnest – way to pull ahead in the competition. Keep an eye on the community newsletter every Tuesday and Thursday, as well as the What’s New? Boxes on the right side of home pages for the latest way to rack up knowledge points.

Questions?

Ask your questions about the contest in the comments section or send me an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Free IT Books? Oh my!

Every Monday, check out IT answers or search the IT books tag for the latest free IT book giveaway. We’ll provide you with a list of five unanswered questions to answer, then once you provide a link to your answer, you’re officially entered into the contest. Books we’ve sent out so far:

Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online – Michael Miller (Winner: Dee101)

VMware VI and vSphere SDK - Steve Jin (Winner: Jinteik)

Networking 2nd Edition (with software) - Jeffrey S. Beasley (Winner: Carlosdl)

The Official Ubuntu Book (Winner: Carlosdl)

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (Winner: Labnuke99)

This week’s giveaway is for The Official Ubuntu Server Book, 2nd Ed. and you still have until tomorrow at noon ET to enter! Remember: Multiple answers means multiple chances to win, so start answering!

Open IT Forum: We want your opinions!

Each Wednesday, check out IT answers for the latest Open IT Forum question. These questions are meant to compile what the enterprise IT community thinks about certain timely topics in IT, from tape storage to the shifting focus of endpoint security. Search through the Open IT Forum tag to get what today’s enterprise IT professionals are saying about the industry’s standards, shortcomings, and future. Looking for the current industry’s climate regarding Windows operating systems? Get the scoop from an active community; these conversations often cover most angles of the debate.

This week’s Open IT Forum question: What brand(s) of routers/switches do you trust the most for your network?

Have an enterprise IT question you want the community to weigh in on? Simply tag your question Open IT Forum and get everyone involved! Remember: The conversation keeps going, so search through the tag page for conversations you may have missed!

Free CCNA Network Simulator!

This one’s a one-time giveaway: CCNA 640-802 Network Simulator. Awesome, huh? All you need to do is tell us why you want or need it, including your best networking story. We want to hear horror stories, great successes or impressive accomplishments in your studies. Share your stories and we’ll share our loot!

Email me directly at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com!

Spread the word and we’ll spread the wealth!

We hope you find IT Knowledge Exchange helpful in answering all of your enterprise IT questions. We’re always looking to get more experts in here to help you and your fellow members figure out even the toughest or acute troubleshooting concerns, and we’re requesting your help to get the word out! If you have a blog or website that covers topics you find on IT Knowledge Exchange, post a link to the ITKE homepage and we’ll give you 100 knowledge points in return! Simply post a link to your blog in the discussion area here or send an email to ENichols@TechTarget.com.

Same old, same old

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions! Send them to me at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.