If you're a postgrad student working on a thesis topic, and you can't read some of the forum history asking the exact same question that you posted, then you don't deserve your undergrad degree, let alone the time of people who do this for a living.
/rant-off.
Hear hear.
I don't agree with armresl's propostion though agree that there is an issue which makes navigating an otherwise excellent forum quite tiresome.
The only thing I can think of that would help would be bit of a pain for Jamie to administer disable the ability to post anonymously. People tend think twice before posting when their real name is attached to a post, and it would be evident when people are trying to promote their own product.
armresl
I am using myself in this post because I do post at FF and it is better to refer to what I do rather than have forum members thinking I am making some veiled comments against them or someone else by using "some posters" often do such and such.
One element arising with posts is that the posts can either start out or end in the written form of an adianoeta (or double entrente). This may question the value of posts, even long threads, as to whether they are ambiguous or not. I hope I wouldn't intentionally be guilty of this but it depends if I have and is it picked up and noticed that was happening and can I correct the mistake.
There are posts which have an agenda. I have posted here but for what I believe are genuine reasons to illustrate a matter I have found or want to discuss it because it might be helpful or shown to be unhelpful to procedural or process matters. I often use references to standards or documents in the public domain to assist where I can.
A single line entry post providing a link to a very useful report is something I have done too, but I wouldn't have perceived that to be a problem or designed to intentionally irritate anyone.
I guess the barometer for posting is what amounts to a post's content having value? I am not sure because there are times when I have posted where forum members haven't responded at all and I assumed that was because I didn't make the post interesting enough, it wasn't relevant, perhaps I didn't put the subject matter very well or I didn't clearly state a contribution from readers was necessary?
I have noticed too that there are some forums that do require a minimum of ten posts and some that have an "intro about me" requirement.
Speaking as a forum member who took about 4 years to get to the 10 post level and still isn't that high I think a control as strict as this is unnecessary. I have never been the type of person to make loads of posts on forums of any type. I think it comes down to personality. I am an observer and have spent many an hour reading and absorbing the advice that is offered in this forum and others. I don't always contribute because quite honestly a more experienced and knowledgeable regular poster generally gets there before me.
That said I am happy to contribute where I am confident that I understand the query and also that I can provide a useful and accurate answer. I would never post just to inflate my count and every query that I post is very carefully considered and comes after I have already discussed my issue with colleagues, looked at books and googled multiple permutations. Unfortunately I don't often have the luxury of time to do real research and development to further the CF field except for that which directly relates to my own cases.
I do however agree that there seem to be a large number of newbies posting questions who seem to have done pretty much zero research. I think this is concerning, as a successful and productive investigator should have an extremely inquisitive mind and should be a competent and logical problem solver. There is no-one there to help you in the witness box so I would hate to be the person whose statement is full of first replies from their lazy forum posts.
I think one of the issues/challenges is that we are a fast growing profession with a wide range of backgrounds. Some of you guys who post regularly are not only very experienced but are also respected within our own little community. I am always grateful for your contributions and they add greatly to the value of this forum.
In contrast, we seem to be getting more and more posts from students and "newbies" with questions that should have been answered during the most basic foundation stage training or looking for free inspiration for their research papers. A balance has to be found as, for our profession to thrive and prosper, we need to encourage those who have chosen to go down this career path. However, the good will and time of the more experienced "fathers" of the forum should never be taken for granted.
Perhaps there is room for another specific forum for "newbies" and it's up to us whether we pop into those forums to help out or not.
Just an idea
My thoughts are that an initial post limit is a bad things for a number of reasons.
1. The poster may be experienced and well known elsewhere and we then loose the benefit of their imput
2. Newbies know things too and they should be encouraged to contribute but discouraged from asking obviously inane questions or questions where a bit of research has not been applied first
3. It needs policing - which takes time and effort that I doubt Jamie has.
The idea of a separate forum might help, as might a "read before posting" sticky at the top of reach forum stating the rules.
Or perhaps the forum software could be configured to prompt for a google search before/when you hit submit. One of the support forums I use for my development tools will not allow you to submit a question until you have searched the knowledge base.
I expectthe easy answer is to just leave it as it is as those who appear once and ask for help with a dissertation do themselves a discredit and if their identity becomes known may even harm their future careers - they wouldnt be at the top of my "want to employ list".
All that said I am sure in the past that I have asked the odd inane question and I am equally sure that when I have been short of time I have asked a question that I have not properly researched (although I would verify any answer offered). Is this a case of pot and kettle.
Occasionally I'm not too keen on some of the newby posts, but the main reason for this is because it makes it harder for me to search the older posts and get relevant hits that might help me with any problem I am trying to solve. At the moment when I search I tend to get way too may irrelevant or redundant hits. Often I find it easier just to manually search the topics. The problem with this is that it can be long and I may quite easily miss tangents inside the topics that address my issues. Also as the number of posts increase it becomes less workable.
To be quite honest I think there's perhaps a scalability or "maturity" of CF issue involved here. Lets face it, CF used to be composed of a rather small group of professionals, it covered a somewhat limited domain of knowledge, and there were a relatively small number of training options. Now, because of the ubiquity of digital technology, we are seeing the number of trained CF personnel increase substantially, the specializations explode with the number of new devices and programs out there, and because of this academia, forums, etc. are going to have to scale up. Just look at the evolution of DNA forensics if you need an example of historical development and adaptation.
How can Forensic Focus adapt to this? Perhaps by increasing the number of moderators, by finding some way to sort out the weaker threads (for instance by creating a newbie forum the way some hacking sites have), or by improving searchability. A karma system like digg or reddit employ to get posts to the front page might be another option.
Personally, I would rather encourage new people to post and eventually increase the knowledge base.
My suggestion would be the creation of a newbie forum with some kind of Karma rating built in so that good posts/threads could get promoted out of it - or perhaps the moderators could simply decide which posts get promoted. It could also be made so that individuals with less than say 10 or 20 posts would only be able to post to it.
Anyway, those are my thoughts…
Is it not questions, which further's research?
I don't fault n00b questions. I think it is an a great opportunity. You have someone who might need guidance in their thought process. I feel like it is a community responsibility to call them out (kind, but firm) and point out their mistake in how the question is posed. You have someone who is hopefully willing to learn (benefit of the doubt has to be granted) and receptive to any advice. Why not help to develop the thought process so they can then do the same to the next wave of n00s?
I think there are probably quite a few regular posters who would agree with the issue raised by armresl but not necessarily the suggested solution. I don't have any bright ideas on how to deal with the issue, I tend to follow Tony Patrick's approach of not replying to "do my homework posts" unless along the lines suggested by Douglas Bush whereby you direct the poster to ways of finding the answer themselves.
I do object to the posters who only ask questions but clearly have enough experience to answer some yet don't. There is one particuular UK poster in here and HTCC that I have only ever seen ask questions.
Still that's life, reminds me of what is called the Serenity Prayer, not that I am religious but it seems appropriate at times.
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
H
There seem to be more people on here with very low post counts who ask a question and then don't ever give anything back (and even a large number of people with 10-20 posts but all questions, no help on any other people's topics at all), who knows if they are making money off that post, taking the shortcut to not having to research themselves, etc.
So if I'm a LEO looking for help o some a murder or CP case, I wouldn't get help because I have 0 or low post count?
Wouldn't society benefit, in the end, when LE gets help from any community?
It may be easier to ignore posts you don't want to help with.