Motivation for Active Contributers

Dear Muhannad,
I understand the issue you raise with certain forum posts going unanswered. It’s too bad that others couldn’t respond to help clarify the issue somewhat. But I believe that they may be going unanswered because of either:
a) Poor grammar and sentence structure, such that readers cannot fully understand the question enough to answer.
b) ALL CAPITAL SENTENCES. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING TO A READER AND I, PERSONALLY, IGNORE MESSAGES LIKE THIS BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE THE WRITER IS YELLING AT ME.
c) The question is just too broad. We cannot answer with dissertations on the forum. Please try to keep questions answerable by readers.
Muhannad, do you agree that these points can cause readers to leave messages unanswered?
Sincerely,Tom

Muhannad,
Another reason why some of your postings may go unanswered is the nature of your questions.  For example, I saw your posting for “Histogram as an Effective Quality Tool,” but it seemed like you were trying to get someone else to do a homework problem for you.
I can only speak for myself — I think helping out another person is reward enough for contributing.  We have all been students struggling to find the “right” answers, but there is an old saying:
If you give a man a fish, you feed him for one day.
If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for the rest of his life.
When you make your motivations clear and your purpose is to learn, a lot of people will go out of their way to help mentor and teach you.  When you cloud your motivations — or your purpose is to get an answer without learning how to get the answer — many people will simply not reply.
Regards,
Bonnie Paris

 
MN,
In my opinion, I think folks respond to the questions/topics they have the most interest in.  They are selective to their own preferences.  There are many questions/topics I have introduced to the forum that go unanswered or draw low participation, but I don’t conclude anything negative from it.  Different strokes for different folks.  In other forums, there are moderators that respond to every question.  Personally, I appreciate this as I don’t like to see questions asked go unanswered.
As for the motivation, well, that is different for everyone.  Some seek information and knowledge, others are here for recognition.  Many different reasons again.  For me personally, I am here to learn and share.
On a side note, I would like to remind the group and the respondents to your post here that although learning is an inherent quality, society and systems of education do an all to effective job at destroying this quality.  It shouldn’t surprise any of us that people ask for answers without doing proper research.  Their skills for doing research have been stamped out of them.  I ask that we keep this in mind when an apparently ‘dumb’ question is being asked.  As a case in point, please consider your own educational experiences in school.  Do you recall a question similar to this?
Student: “Are we going to have to know this for the test?” or “Umm, is this going to be on the test?”
Teacher: “Yes.”            
The student forgets about the learning process in trade for a process of memorization (or information regurgitation).  Sadly, this practice follows us into our professional lives.  Look around you: it is everywhere.  What we need are lifelong learners, not memorization experts.
Regards,
Kevin