There are, of course, the usual ways: Asking IT questions, answering IT questions, and getting your IT answers approved! Then there are more fun, interactive ways to earn points, namely: Open IT Forum questions. These questions are usually based on the monthly theme or a timely tech topic, and are usually general enough for anyone in the IT community to offer an opinion on. For all of your chances to join discussions and earn knowledge points, check out the newest IT Answers tag Knowledge Point Bounty for the ever-growing list.

Good luck in the contest, and keep racking up those points!

This is one of the most frequent questions we receive in our mailbox — member logs in, member asks question, member comes back later to check on question, question has mysteriously disappeared. So why the mystery? Are these questions not going through? Does IT Knowledge Exchange harbor magicians?

Sadly, no, it isn’t magicians. If it was, I’d put them straight to work on my taxes this year. The real story has to do with the questions themselves…

When a member posts a question to IT Knowledge Exchange, we see the new activity and read it. Yes, your friendly neighborhood moderators take a look at every question that comes into the site. If the question needs additional tags or title clarification, we make the appropriate changes. However, if we come across a question from one of the following categories, it is swiftly deleted:

• Homework and exam questions
• Advertising-based messages
• Basic “what is” questions that can easily be answered in a search engine: “What is networking?”, “What does VoIP stand for?”
• Consumer questions: “How do I change the ringtones on my BlackBerry?” “What antivirus should I install on my personal laptop?”
• Job postings
• Questions that are not enterprise IT-specific: “How do I format my spreadsheets?”

“So why the heavy-handedness? Can’t we all just get along?”

Think of it this way: you’re an enterprise IT professional. Maybe you’re a network administrator or a systems engineer. When you visit the site, you only want to see content that is relevant to you. Perhaps you sign up for specific topic updates by e-mail or RSS, or add questions to your Watchlist to make sure you’re seeing what you need to. What would happen if you started to receive “junk questions” in addition to the valuable content?

Our goal as moderators is to keep the conversation as specific to enterprise IT as we can, because that’s what the community is all about. Of course, we can’t always catch 100% of it — we need your feedback to do that! If you see a question or answer you think doesn’t belong in the community (homework questions, sales pitches), please speak up! Flag the question, post something in the discussion or send us an e-mail. We also have a couple of site feedback discussions open where you can contribute your thoughts. This community is meant for your benefit — help us keep it clean!

Thanks,

Community Manager

I’ve previously detailed how to increase your chances of getting an answer but I’m seeing quite a few tags that look more like run-on sentences or a series of keywords than a actual tag.

For example, this is not a tag – it’s a question:
what cisco certification is best or should i go for mcse?

Nor is a series of keywords a proper tag:
Certifications Cisco certifications CCNA MCSE

Instead, you should break these terms into individual tags, like this:
Certifications, Cisco certifications, CCNA, MCSE

This will ensure that your question appears in the proper categories so that members browsing those categories will see it. Just be sure that the tags you use are applicable to your question. You should never use a tag that is not related to your question.

Community Manager

So when you have a burning developer-related question, be sure to visit our new Development tag and ask for a helping hand. And if you possess the developer mojo, then please stop by and share your developer expertise with fellow members. This is what makes IT Knowledge Exchange a great place. You may need to ask for help in one area but provide help to others in another.

While I love developers as much as the next guy, admittedly, I cannot ‘bust a move’ like Steve Ballmer. So without further ado, here is a music video of Steve that you may enjoy. No developers were harmed in the making of this film.[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/KMU0tzLwhbE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Those of you involved in Microsoft development are probably familiar with SearchWinDevelopment.com (formerly SearchVB.com). If you’re not, then be sure to drop by the site today and see what Brian Eastwood and his team have to offer Windows developers. And be sure to visit our ITKE member blogs by fellow developers: Windows Presentation Foundation and Custom Application Development.

Community Manager

Step 1: Think!
Stop, take a deep breath and think before posting your question. This isn’t a speed contest. You want an answer quickly but posting a poorly worded question will result in decreasing your chances of getting an answer. Think and word your question carefully.

Step 2: The Question Title
The title you use is important. You want your title to be clear and concise so that other members will click to read your full question. Using HELP!!! or I need an answer is not helpful for the members searching or browsing for questions to answer. Please do not use all caps or excessive exclamation points.

Step 3: The Question
Some questions can be written in a sentence or two while others may require more details. For example, someone attempting to answer your question may need to know the operating system you’re using, the software version, etc. Provide enough details so other members can help you. And remember, a well-written question using proper grammar is much easier to read. ITKE isn’t a cell phone; so feel free to spell out the entire word.

Step 4: The Tags
Tags are the backbone of IT Knowledge Exchange. The tags place your question in specific categories. So using a tag of “Exchange 2003″ will put your question in that category. Other members wishing to answer questions about Exchange 2003 would visit that tag. But using a tag of “Help me” or other meaningless phrase, would not put your question where other members can find it. Think – and use common sense when tagging your questions.

See that new tab in the navigation bar? The one labeled Tags? That’s the tab to click whenever you wish to browse this much larger cloud.

As you know, tag clouds are just a list of keywords that are weighed based on their popularity. Sean has already covered why it’s important to properly tag your questions on IT Knowledge Exchange. The bottom line is to think carefully and use tags that best categorize your question so that others can find your question easily.

And now, back to that big ol’ tag cloud. This honker can be sorted in a couple of ways. The default view is …Cloud View. Duh. But you can also sort by List View if you prefer a simple list format to the tag cloud format. And lastly, you can also sort using Alphabetical or Most Popular.

That’s about the long and short of it. So if you’ve been pining away for a big honking Tag Cloud to browse, your wish has come true. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Community Manager

Tags can best be described as 1 or 2 keyword descriptors that best reflect the topic or topics of the question you are asking. Keep in mind you should add as many tags as you feel are needed for your question(We suggest 3 tags). The better you tag the question the easier it is for people to find and the sooner it may get answered.

To help with your tag selection we have pre populated the auto suggest feature with over 8,000 tags. So when you begin typing in your tag you will notice that suggestions will appear below the text box. You can either continue typing what you want or choose one that is being suggested.

Most importantly you tag you content what you want to be tagged with.

 Keep tagging!

Sean