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“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.

If you’ve been hanging around IT Knowledge Exchange within the past month, chances are you’ve heard about our latest contest. But, what you might not have heard about are all of the ways you can pull ahead faster in the running. Below are some of the knowledge point bounties that we’ve featured in the community including a new one. Get going on these and rack up those points before the contest ends in twelve days! Many of these are networking related, since it’s Networking Month, but there is something for everyone:

• Tell your friends about IT Knowledge Exchange, earn 100 points!
  
• Contest Bounty: Earn 500 knowledge points!
• What to expect in network overhauls
• Suggested networking hardware and software
• Completed IT Knowledge Exchange Profile? Earn points!
• New! Ask/answer questions this weekend, earn 100 points

So get going, and get closer to being one of the ten who’ll get $100 Amazon.com gift cards!

1. CharlieBrowne, TomLiotta, Pdraebel, and Kaisersosa put their heads together to help a member trying to figure out how lines will be calculated in RLU.

2. The gang’s all here: Jinteik, CharlieBrowne, TomLiotta, Rickmcd, HMSSL2K, Splat, Sim400, DanTheDane, WoodEngineer, and TomLiotta all offered suggestions and ideas for a member looking for an iSeries command other than FTP to copy or move a file to another server.

3. Redhot2006 wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing any steps when shutting down an Exchange server, and Jinteik, Sixball, and Saturno gave some pointers.

4. Assa was in search of a subfile loading procedure, and Runelf provided an approval-worthy answer!

5. We’re very excited by all of the feedback we’ve received from the community about the IT Knowledge Exchange Badge Rewards Program.

6. Saturno, Jinteik, Britinga, Sixball, IceCubbe, Yasirirfan, Pjb0222, and Koohiisan gave some compelling responses to a member’s inquiry on running 64-bit editions of Windows 7.

7. CharlieBrowne, Splat, and Slack400 are in the process of helping Christin with an AS/400 printer that won’t stop printing.

8. IceCubbe, CharlieBrowne, Sixball, and Saturno gave Techy1984 some tips on Windows 7 Restoration Features.

9. CharlieBrowne and TomLiotta gave some options for closing or clearing a file in iSeries V5R3.

10. Check out some of the community’s suggestions for uploading savf file from PC to AS/400 without using FTP.

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

But wait, what is the badge system?

We’ll be able to keep better track of how helpful you’ve been around the community and reward you in the way you deserve, giving away prizes based on your badge and knowledge point level. The badges system will also make it simpler for you to find other members who are adding value to the community as well as others in your area of expertise.

From newer members to the familiar faces of the well-seasoned, the badges will reach all levels of ITKE users. You’ll be able to determine, by looking at someone’s profile, whether they blog for IT Knowledge Exchange, moderate the forums, or simply know a whole heck of a lot about SQL Server.

How do I earn them?

There are several kinds of badges. Increase your knowledge points by answering IT questions over at IT answers and earn the Bronze through Platinum Member badges. Become a blogger for IT Knowledge Exchange and earn the Blogger Badge.  Answer a specified number of questions and earn the Nerd, Brainiac or Genius Badge. Get those answers approved by other members and get bumped up to Certified Nerd, Brainiac or Genius.

But don’t just take our word for it. Get your badge questions answered over at the Badge FAQ Page. Still need something cleared up? Shoot us an email at ContactUs@ITKnowledgeExchange.com or post in the discussion section of this question.

Our goal here is to help spread the knowledge, and we’re doing that by giving away free IT books! We’ll be posting an array of questions for you to pick from and answer. Post the link to your answer in the giveaway’s discussion area and the book is yours!

This week’s giveaway is Michael Miller’s Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online.

Check back in IT Answers each Monday for a new IT giveaway.

Congratulations to this week’s winner, Dee101.

To better understand why your question suddenly fell off the edge of our forums, I’ll lay out our process:

ITJoe encounters baffling IT situation.

ITJoe posts his situation on IT Answers.

Your community moderators wade through the questions, including ITJoe’s.

We look through each question that comes into the community; we correct spelling, ask for clarification when needed (for ease of answering), or assign appropriate tags (for ease of search). We also delete questions. But, why? You might ask. The answer’s pretty simple; we delete any question that falls into one of the following categories:

• Homework or exam questions
• Sales pitches
• Basic questions that can easily be answered in a search engine: “What is cloud computing?”, “What does VPN stand for?”
• Consumer questions: “How do I change the ringtones on my BlackBerry?”
• Job postings
• Questions that are not enterprise IT-specific: “How do I format my spreadsheets?”

We do this in your interest, to minimize questions that don’t apply to you, whether it’s in your email topic updates, RSS or your Watchlist, we want to make sure that you’re only receiving what you signed up for. We wade through the junk questions to deliver you the most relevant content.

This is our main objective, anyway, and like it takes a village to raise a child, to run a community you need the help of the community members. See something you don’t think belongs here? Let us know! Flag a question, post a discussion or email me directly. We’ve had some great discussions posted by some of our most active members, so check them out for some great tips on asking and tagging questions, answering questions and general uses of IT Knowledge Exchange.

Want another venue to share your feedback? Here’s your chance: Fill out the 2010 IT Knowledge Exchange member survey and let us know what we’re doing right and where we can improve. (Aside from being an integral part in your community, you’ll get 250 Knowledge Points that can get you ahead in our latest contest.)

Thanks again for being a part of this community and working with us to make it as helpful as possible!

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

Updated July 15, 2010 5:11 PM: Permissions to approve answers must be granted.

Each day, our forums are chock full of new questions. Thanks to each of you, these questions don’t go floating off into the oblivion of the Internet, but rather they get answered, discussed and solved. But much like history, IT-related problems tend to repeat themselves and old questions can continue to help stumped IT pros long after the original inquirer has moved on.

One way to maximize the saving powers of older questions is to approve the answer that worked for you. It’s always great when multiple members get in on a discussion, offering ideas and methods, but this can cause confusion in future readings of the thread. If you’ve asked a question and you’ve received a suggestion that worked for you, approve the answer by clicking the gray check mark next to it! Not only will you pass along community love, you’ll give us a heads up to approve the answer for future users. Plus you get Knowledge Points if your answer is approved! (Knowledge Points can get you all kinds of goodies: Amazon Gift Cards, contest prizes, or good old-fashioned street cred.) Approved answers show up in the Answers Wiki with a big green check mark next to it and, in case that isn’t prominent enough, a large Approved Answer stamp.

If you have any suggestions or questions, send them over! Reach me via email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com, in the comments section or by submitting a question in the forum. Happy answering (and approving)!

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

This is the current—and hastily organized—state of Michael’s desk. Help him out? If you want some sweet IT books, head over to IT Answers and get to answering. See a question tagged Windows 7 in 2010 and know the answer? Give it your best shot then send me an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com or send us a message @ITKE with the link to the question, and you’ll get to take your pick of Michael’s deskmates. We’re giving five away, so get started!

Some titles to get you excited:

A Practical Guide to Fedora and RedHat Enterprise Linux 5th ed. (Full Fedora on DVD)

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors and Shell Programming 2nd ed.

Securing the Borderless Network: Security for the Web 2.0 World

Cisco Unified Computing (UCS)

CCIE Professional Development: Deploying and Troubleshooting Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers

Cloud Computing: Web-based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online

VMware VI and vSphere SDK: Managing the VMware Infrastructure and vSphere

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

Don’t worry, there’s something in it for you, too: You’ll get 50 Knowledge Points if you’re the first (quality) answer to the question! Answer the question, send me an email with the link, and I’ll add it to your score. Great timing, too, since our latest contest is all about Knowledge Points.

Some new and yet-to-be-answered questions:

1. Magoo needs to know how to Upgrade windows server 2003 to windows server 2008 Domain. Can you help him? (Just because RichS provided an answer first doesn’t mean you can’t add your input!)

2. Lmtapia is having trouble setting up a VPN in Windows XP Professional. Throw in your two cents!

3. HoustonITGuy recently started a new position, and he needs help getting ISP and IP information from Exchange Incoming Mail Logs. (Technochic has 50 more points thanks to her simple answer. Do you have any other ideas for HoustonITGuy?)

4. What with the mass exodus to purchase the latest of Jobs’ magic boxes, we were wondering if you think the iPhone is enterprise-ready? Share your thoughts with us about what smartphones you use for your corporate device. (We want to hear what you have to say, so head over and say it! Thanks to Aguacer0 for making a case for the Blackberry in enterprise.)

5. A reader asked, Is there any configuration on Cisco router to enable it to respond to ARP from IP source 0.0.0.0? and we’re still looking for an answer!

6. ODSTech asked a great Storage in 2010 question: How to merge 2 disks on 1 hard drive to create a large storage server for archived data? (Poweredge 2800 and Windows Server 2003) (Thanks, Lonewolfbw!)

Okay, okay, it’s Friday. That’s all we’ll throw at you for now. But if you feel like you’re just getting started, head over to IT Answers for more unanswered questions or help us improve IT Knowledge Exchange and get 250 more Knowledge Points. See? You just wasted time by being productive. You’re welcome. Now back to work.

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

9. How to use command line arguments in VBScript via the Wscript.Arguments Object Jerry Lees explains a helpful VBScript trick.

8. Using VRDP to view VirtualBox virtual machines remotely Rick Vanover discusses how to use DRDP to tackle a tricky virtualization problem.

7. No Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008 R2 – but why? Brendan Cournoyer delves into why the latest Windows 2008 R2 takes a surprising turn in not support Exchange 2007.

6. Email archiving vendor sues Gartner over Magic Quadrant Beth Pariseau writes about the developing drama after one company disagrees with Gartner’s Magic Quadrant enough to go forward with a lawsuit.

5. Success of 64-bit Internet Explorer Depends on Adobe Tony Bradley explains why not everything IE related is in the hands of Microsoft.

4. How to allow the root user to log in to VMware ESX Server with SSH David Davis’ how-to on allowing users into a VMware server via SSH works wonders for the virtualization crowd.

3. Importing VMDK disk files into Sun xVM VirtualBox Rick Vanover provides an illustrated virtualization how-to on importing VMDK into VirtualBox.

2. Standard Server 2003 Migration to SBS 2008 Part 1 Roger Crawford offers some tips based on his experience migrating Server 2003 to a Windows Small Business Server 2008.

1. Cloud Computing Part 3 Roger Crawford dives into some of the dangers cloud computing presents.