Newbies

[Andre Carvalho]

Alright. Another very active forum member just brought to my attention the number of new threads being started in the last day or two, by people who just have become members here on AUGI, and most of them asking the same basic questions over and over. I'm sure we encourage new people signing up for AUGI, but we also encourage them to run a search in our topics before posting or starting a new thread, to see if the questions they have weren't already answered and discussed by somebody else (in most cases they were).

And here's a little fun video tutorial showing newbies how to post in a forum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9q2jNjOPdk

Have fun! :mrgreen:


By the way, I'm posting it right here instead of the "Out There", so newbies can notice it.

Andre Carvalho

[mwiggins121466]

Andre,

Great video! Can you post to MEP. It's much needed.

[Munkholm]

Great post, which allready needs a Bump ;-)

[twiceroadsfool]

Annnnnnnnd another. At the rate were going this thread will make page 3 by the end of business. :)

[AlanMcKee]

Hi All

Unfortunately there are about 20 new users (including myself) who are learning Revit at university. We have been specifically asked to make 5 questions on the board relating to problems with our models. We are being marked on this, so it is important that we make these new threads to receive the marks awarded.

As for the same questions being asked, there are only so many problems that we can find within the level of modelling that we have learnt so far, and are on a deadline to produce these questions.

Please be patient with us, as the module is nearly over (2 days max).

Thanks

Alan

[cdatechguy]

I'd like the teachers name, school and e-mail address....so that we can ask the same question over and over to him/her as well so that he/she can understand how irritating it is to get so many generic questions asked that someone would learn from the help or their first day of Revit training.... ;)

[Munkholm]

At the very least, use the Revit - Student Support (http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22) Forum :beer:

And yes - Please post the details on that specific (/&#()/&#¤&/ teacher ;-)

[ron.sanpedro]

Hi All

Unfortunately there are about 20 new users (including myself) who are learning Revit at university. We have been specifically asked to make 5 questions on the board relating to problems with our models. We are being marked on this, so it is important that we make these new threads to receive the marks awarded.

As for the same questions being asked, there are only so many problems that we can find within the level of modelling that we have learnt so far, and are on a deadline to produce these questions.

Please be patient with us, as the module is nearly over (2 days max).

Thanks

Alan

Alan,
if nothing else you might find that posts to Revit - Student Support will be handled with much more patience. I think your Professor is doing you a disservice, but at least posting to the right forum will help.

By the way, requirments for grade aside, you will likely all learn a LOT more about Revit if you get together as a group and discuss issues, then post here with those things that the group can't answer for itself. And perhaps the professor will note the consternation the assignment protocol has created and find a better way to address the assignment next time.

Gordon

[cdatechguy]

Can a moderator please at the least merge all these generic questions? :banghead:

[AlanMcKee]

Thanks for your comments

I agree with what you have said, but we WILL lose marks for not making the threads, and being the final year of the course, we need all the marks we can get.

As far as I am aware though, it was not specified that all the questions had to be asked on Revit General sub-forum, so thank you for the Revit student support suggestion.

I am sure the task was given with good intentions, I believe it is a learning experience all round :D

Peace Out

[twiceroadsfool]

Wow. No offense to your professor, but thats busy work for busy works sake. At least one positive is: Theyre teaching Revit at your school. Hahahaha... :)

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Alan and the rest of the newbies,
we've all been there so don't take offense. I think you will find that everyone here is more than willing to help and we certainly don't want to discourage users from posting legitimate questions. (I'm also secretly self satisfied that I figured out that this was a class assignment http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=111874 :lol:)
I think the issue is more one of the instructor not thinking it through and using a public forum like this as a 'teaching aid'. Hopefully you and the others will go back to the instructor and let him/her know that maybe a screen shot of you signed in under your user name and the fact that you actually found AUGI should be enough to satisfy the 'assignment'. Maybe a screen capture showing how you used the powerful AUGI search function to discover answers to the questions without the help of others. 8)
Just knowing that the forums are here as a resource should serve you well well you enter the workforce and start using Revit to work on a real project.
Good luck in your final term, keep learning and keep checking on AUGI.

[joe.198711]

if you and your class keep this up, this semester and future ones, you're going to ruin this place! nobody is going to come here to help and learn from each other. it's irritating to see a bunch of junk on the forums. i do enjoy coming to these forums to learn from others but find it very distracting when i can't find the serious threads. it is hard to see the questions and posts that really need help and can be helpful to learn from.

[AlanMcKee]

Thanks again all

As I said, this is probably a learning experience all round, so I doubt that next year's class will be asked to do the same thing.

Wouldn't be a bad idea if a moderator would move all those basic questions into the Revit student-support sub forum?

[STHRevit]

Newbies,

It doesn't bother me at all that basic questions are asked, that's fine, we all need help from time to time and this is a great place to get help from. No question.

What does concern me however is this. Once you are a part of the forum, you can see all of the questions being asked, so, why ask the same question?????

How about looking a bit further into your model to find something a little left of field.
This is far better on a number of fronts
Firstly, this way you will learn much more about Revit and certainly what it can and can't do.
Secondly, the other users on the forum only need to see the question once.
Thirdly, it shows that you are paying attention to what is going on around you.

I have the pleasure of implementing Revit to all of our staff and IMHO I would much rather see a person display the use of initiative and investigate Revit's abilities than simply carry out a task verbatim.

Perhaps your professor needs to look at the outcome desired and not necessarily the means to getting there?

I like the group idea. Get together and work some issues out, if you can't, then post them, once :)

And we all lived happily ever after

[Munkholm]

STUDENT SUPORT FORUM !!

[iru69]

You guys are being too kind... it's an egregious misuse of the forums. The "students" asking the questions aren't interested in either the questions they're asking or the answers they're receiving. Delete the threads and delete the user accounts.

It not only undermines those actually looking for help, it undermines those looking to help. And it's going to suck six months from now when you do a forum search for a real issue and pull up a bunch of junk. I know I'm in the minority, but I actually use the forum search all the time for trouble-shooting.

To the "students" - the lesson is: don't be sheep. "Just following an assignment" doesn't cut it.

Seems more like a social experiment to see how gullible people will be wasting their time trying to help... and then how riled up they'll get when they find out it was a ruse.

Are there actual Moderators on AUGI anymore?

[patricks]

(I'm also secretly self satisfied that I figured out that this was a class assignment http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=111874 :lol:)


lol I personally thought it was a whole office that suddenly went Revit with everyone in the office trying to learn it at the same time. :mrgreen:

iru man, a tad harsh, BUT..... I kinda-sorta-wanna agree with ya. :shock:

[ron.sanpedro]

lol I personally thought it was a whole office that suddenly went Revit with everyone in the office trying to learn it at the same time. :mrgreen:

iru man, a tad harsh, BUT..... I kinda-sorta-wanna agree with ya. :shock:

I have to agree with IRU's sentament, but I think it is misdirected. You have a professor who wants to give grades by doing nothing more than counting the crank calls his students have made. Seemingly no effort to actually grade any LEARNING, just effort or lack thereof. Kinda like those Architecture professors who grade by the number of all nighters pulled, not the quality of the work. Not to mention the total lack of effort on the professor's part in actually understanding the impact of what he is asking the students to do. For all we know they where also asked to call five architects at random and ask five random questions, and the firms in town under A in the phone book are also ******. ;)

As for a firm going Revit all at once, with no BIM Manager or any kind of coordination, I would want to call their Principals and thank them. Chance of success operating that way, zilch. Glad to be competing with them. ;)

Gordon

[William Troeak]

Let me start by saying that these are not my students....they are not even from my school.

Not only did this get out of hand but it looks like it mad a few mad...

Now I too give an AUGI assignment in my class, but I have my students sign up for an account and start reading the post. Because I am not available at 2 in the morning when they decide to do there homework.

So to the instructor that gave the assignment, please change the assignment. To grade someone based on the number of post on AUGI is not the best idea.

The best thing to do as an instructor is to introduce to the students what resources exist out there to further there knowledge of Revit, but please have them search for and read the post and not ask blind questions.

Just my 2 cents....

[twiceroadsfool]

I agree wholeheartedly with iru69. I dont mind helping students of they really want help, but you can tell from the tone and the general questions that were posted that it isnt the case. I KNOW, if were all being *PC* we cant actually *say* they dont want help, but im not much for being PC, and it is what it is.

I have a few issues with it, and i *sincerely* hope the professor comes across the thread while hes checking his students posts. But more or less, ive made it a point to not visit AUGI at all for the last 24 hours, since we were told this was- in fact- a mandated class assignment thats going on. It makes it so there is almost no point to being here while thats occuring, since you know you have to filter the top two or three entire pages of posts to find anything substantial.

Its also a little presumptious (sp?), as if to say that "its okay to flood this place with two hundred simple questions, because thats what everyone is doing posting here." I mean, it *is* true, but if we ARE spending time here helping one another, i would just assume help someone who really justifiably wants and needs it, and not answering a post about "How do i draw a wall, thanks." (By the way, if youre the professor, and those questions count towards the viability of this assignment, i think your class is in trouble. LOL :)

[William Troeak]

So I want to know what school this is coming from.....

If you don't want to let everone know send me a private message.

Let get this thing cleaned up!

[cdatechguy]

Bummer :cry:
Was hoping if I ignored someone, I wouldn't see their posts in the thread list either. It only shows I ignored them when I click on the subject.

[stuntmonkee]

I wish I could teach a class and then have a forum do all the work for me! hehe.

Maybe this is a case of someone overselling themselves to get a job?

Boss:
Do you know Revit

Interviewee:
Yes, yes I know what Ribit is

Boss:
Revit?

Interviewee:
Yes, Rebit

Boss:
It's pronounced rEVit

Interviewee:
Yes. . .I will work for min wage & 20 hours a week.

[STHRevit]

The "students" asking the questions aren't interested in either the questions they're asking or the answers they're receiving. Delete the threads and delete the user accounts.?

This is a bold statement to make. Do you know all of these students individually? :)

Seriously, think back to when you were first learning Revit I am pretty sure you would have been asking some questions that now seem simple, but to delete threads and accounts is a little over the top.

Yes, most of the questions can be answered by looking in the help menu or doing the tutorials, no question, but perhaps this comes down to being lazy and not thinking past what they have been asked to do (see my previous post). It does not necessarily mean they are not interested in the responses they get.

Isn't this a public forum? Sure there is a problem with the same question being asked by different people and that should be minimized, perhaps with the group scenario as previously suggested.

I am curious though, what is your answer to the people who, rather than use the search function, will post a question that was already asked previously, say a week, two weeks , six months or a year ago? Delete their posts and account as well? :)

[patricks]

I am curious though, what is your answer to the people who, rather than use the search function, will post a question that was already asked previously, say a week, two weeks , six months or a year ago? Delete their posts and account as well? :)

If they are asking specific questions, then no. I just took a peek at some of my first questions posted on this forum from back in 2004. They were pretty specific questions, not just some broad one-line question like we've seen in the past couple of days.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9167
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9680
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9739

I didn't need to ask those basic questions, because I went through the tutorials and knew how to do most of the basic operations. It was generally only when I had an apparent problem that I would post a question here.

*edit* also I just noticed that in 5 years, the number of threads on AUGI went from under 10,000 to over 100,000 threads! WOW!

[Steve_Stafford]

I'll have to look at cleaning things up by moving posts into the Student Forum. Please point out any that I miss.

Dear Professor,

Next time around have your students search the AUGI forums for solutions and provide the evidence they found them at AUGI instead of creating new threads for information readily available with a few minutes searching. We are happy to have new members and that AUGI is being promoted as a resource but please keep in mind that there is over six years of data already here. No need to have your students do busy work at AUGI.

Thanks!

[STHRevit]

I didn't need to ask those basic questions, because I went through the tutorials and knew how to do most of the basic operations. It was generally only when I had an apparent problem that I would post a question here.!

I think I may have been misunderstood. I totally agree that the questions need to be more detailed and pointed. No doubt the tutorials would have answered these questions. Perhaps they didn't have time to use them or even have them to use, who knows? This is where I see the group collaboration working. The questions would be more in depth and only appear once

My main point is the general sweeping statement that they shouldn't be helped at all. We are all here trying to learn and overcome certain issues and obstacles and we are all at different levels.

Again, I think the professor needs to review the process and the desired outcome from that process.

[robert768019]

You guys are being too kind... it's an egregious misuse of the forums. The "students" asking the questions aren't interested in either the questions they're asking or the answers they're receiving. Delete the threads and delete the user accounts.

It not only undermines those actually looking for help, it undermines those looking to help. And it's going to suck six months from now when you do a forum search for a real issue and pull up a bunch of junk. I know I'm in the minority, but I actually use the forum search all the time for trouble-shooting.

To the "students" - the lesson is: don't be sheep. "Just following an assignment" doesn't cut it.

Seems more like a social experiment to see how gullible people will be wasting their time trying to help... and then how riled up they'll get when they find out it was a ruse.

Are there actual Moderators on AUGI anymore?

What a load of elitist c@ap.

[iru69]

What a load of elitist c@ap.

Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. But, I don't know... in the 5+ years I've been an AUGI member, I'd say over a thousand of my 1,300+ posts are selflessly and patiently helping people out, answering questions, and offering advice. Yes, I've voiced some complaints and had some disagreements, etc., but with all I've contributed to this forum, I think I'm entitled. And I'm not one to make personal attacks and I've never held a grudge against anyone here... I've been just as quick to offer help, thanks and praise to the few I've scuffled with.

In the eight months you've been here, how many users have you helped out? What's been your contribution? Calling people's posts "elitist c@ap"?

BTW, it's "cr@p"... the "@" fills in for the "a". Next time you want to write someone that they're full of cr@p, you'll know how to properly do it. See, I helped you out because I'm a nice person and I don't hold a grudge. ;)

'nuff said.

:beer:

[patricks]

same here... I've probably created only about 500-600 threads in the past 5 1/2 years, yet have nearly 5K posts. Most of it is trying to help people out, or point them in the direction where they can find the info they need.

[DaveP]

Just had an idea for our wayward professor.
How about, for your next class you have your students find the ANSWER to five questions instead of ASKING the questions. Maybe said professor could even spend a few moment searching on AUGI him(or her)self and seed a couple of answers to see in the students find them.
That way the forums wouldn't clog up with "make-work" questions, the students would be able to practice searching skills, and everyone just might learn something.

[Steve_Stafford]

That's essentially what I suggested last night.


...Just had an idea for our wayward professor...

[DaveP]

Guess I should have read a little more thoroughly :Oops:
I should have known you'd be a step ahead of me, Steve.