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Search[^]
As an example. The first couple are valid. But then going back ... not so much.
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Well, I found a workaround:"www.codeproject.com" AND "zif" - Google Search[^]
So, I won't be starting my sentenced answers with "so" any time too soon.
[EDIT]
Arghh; here's another Search[^]
Now why would the head item in that return list NOT be returning the webpage on which that TITLED post (contains the search term itself) is currently fermenting?
[END EDIT]
modified 4-Sep-23 16:49pm.
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I'm not able to recreate your issue.
Granted, searching for 'zif' forum messages only returns one page but searching for 'zip' forum messages returns 2,379 messages.
It appears that there just weren't may messages about ZIF sockets.
"Mistakes are prevented by Experience. Experience is gained by making mistakes."
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Ok, thanks. "2379" was actually the answer we were looking for!  Cheers!
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It'd be handy to know before answering that the member is a Help Vampire - I'm specifically thinking of this guy: ahmed_sa[^] who Richard Deeming described as "our resident Nosferatu-level help vampire" and is currently running at 475 questions and zero comprehension - he appears to be holding down a job purely by getting us to write code for him, and learns absolutely nothing from it.
If we had a "Help Vampire" icon which appeared on the Home page questions list and the QA list as well we could all save time by just not answering him again, and again, and again ... It'd would probably make the company he's paid by ("working for" is definitely not the right phrase) better off in the long run as well.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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I agree 100% as I also spent teh time in trying to answer a question to the best of my ability only to realize that it is the infamous ahmed_sa! Nowadays I look first and jsut ignore his questions.
It will be great if an icon shows up to alert us before we go through the process of opening, reading, thinking, drinking coffee and then see the name at the post's bottom to just exit the question.
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OriginalGriff wrote: and learns absolutely nothing from it.
Are you sure we don't need a "Help Renfield" icon instead?
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There's a couple of options here.
- If a member is abusing the system, causing grief for everyone, diverting the energy and patience of everyone, or otherwise making life unpleasant, he can be reported.
- If a question is asked that isn't clear, is not something that can be answered, isn't a focused question but rather a "write my code for me" question that isn't actually a question, then close the question and move on.
I'm not a fan of building infrastructure to handle one person, but would rather find a solution that is generally applicable to the core issue.
What would you say is the core issue here? Asking too many questions, or asking questions that aren't actually 'questions', or is it that the person isn't providing acknowledgment, or thanks, or giving back help in turn?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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It's a difficult one to describe ...
In this specific case, I think what annoys me (and probably others) is the way he is using us to keep his job, to get paid without actually learning anything: he posts code with the same problems over and over again. For example, every time he accesses a DB, he uses string concatenation and sometimes that is what causes his problem because a quote is present in the resulting SQL command. And we've told him over and over "don't do that, use parameterised queries" but he never learns, he isn't even trying to learn what he is paid for.
At a guess he grabs code from SO, throws it into his app, hits it with a hammer, and then posts here when it doesn't work. And he's been doing this for eight years! 
No, he doesn't give back help - but that's because he doesn't know what he is doing ... and is probably quite proud of that.
So I stopped answering him because it's pointless doing so. But then I get reminded who it is because I deliberately don't make a habit of looking at the username to avoid any unconscious bias and answer him again.
What he's doing isn't - technically - abuse, hence we haven't tagged him in S&A. But it is annoying, it is frustrating, and I'd like to find a way to avoid him (and the other Help Vampires) because not getting answered by people who do know what they are doing would be good for his personal development: he might start to learn his job. Eventually. Either that or the sudden drop in productivity might be noticed by the company and he loses said job when they realise he's been ripping them off for at least eight years.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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Chris's second point may be the answer. We close his questions and he reposts, we close again. Eventually he may ask why we keep closing his questions and we can get through to him. Or possibly you post the above message as a solution to his next question.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: Or possibly you post the above message as a solution to his next question.
Thats ... not a bad idea. It tells him why it's happening and gives him an opportunity to discuss it instead of just getting more and more annoyed because his questions just "disappear". I'll try it.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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I see 2 questions posted by him again today (still under Unanswered) which I marked as unclear along with someone else...
Quote: Or possibly you post the above message as a solution to his next question.
I will leave this to the higher ranked hierarchy rather than doing it, Paul maybe? 
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Looks like the pound sign is being interpreted as a H1 tag:
<h1>if defined(_WIN64)</h1>
typedef __int64 LONG_PTR;
<h1>else</h1>
typedef long LONG_PTR;
<h1>endif</h1>
modified 23-Aug-23 8:58am.
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The nasty little hack is to put a space before it. I know, it's a bug, but there's a workaround
#if DEBUG
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When I document things, I pretty much always use Markdown now. We have the ability to add markdown in messages, and CP imports readme files from GitHub. It would be good to have the ability to write articles in Markdown as well.
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I have a scrappy test for exactly this in the codebase but never implemented it properly because I couldn't work out (at the time) a neat way to go between Markdown and the WYSIWYG editor. I think at this point it's probably way simpler to just have Markdown editor / Markdown (readonly) Preview rather than Markdown / WYSIWYG.
But I agree: Markdown makes life so much less complicated and I very much want and need to encourage it.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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This question: Click on add and edit radgrid gives error[^] has HTML and C# code - but while the HTML is in pre tags the C# is unformatted.
So I edit it, add the tags and try to save - and get an error message Quote: The content must be between 30 and 50000 characters.
While I agree that 50K is far too much to drop on us in QA (my text editor says it's 52,916 characters) I'm guessing that the HTML block converter is the reason it's so huge: "<" instead of "<" pushing it over the 50K limit.
Perhaps the limit needs a bit more sophisticated checking to allow for the substitutions?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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If we're at the point where we need to worry about < vs < then the question is already a catastrophe.
I would either
- Post a comment (not as an answer) and say "Would love to help, but you need to help us help you. Please edit the question down the the specific problem", or
- close it.
Everyone here works their bottoms off trying to help others, but questions that just suck the life out of someone just take the wind out of everyone's sails. Leaving them up also implicitly says questions like that are acceptable.
The other reason to post a comment is that if a comment is posted and the OP doesn't reply, or doesn't make a change, then they aren't paying attention in the first place, or simply aren't interested in putting in effort to help us help them.
We should help them help themselves, but also be ready to move on.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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One way to do it without the soul destroying wall of text might be to lower the limit? I mean, 50K of code is the equivelant of 10,000+ words (English average word length is 4.7 characters) which is half way to a novella! No bugger is going to read it all anyway 
What if the original max length was a more reasonable 4K? If the "too long" message was changed to suggest relevant code fragments only that could kill two birds with one stone? That's still a 4 page short story or a couple of hundred lines of code?
What does the DB say is the average length of a QA question?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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You're totally right, but I think there was something, somewhere, at sometime, that made me bang my head against and wall, sigh, and then just crank the limit up to 11. or 50,000, as it were.
Yeah - 4K is enough for anyone. To paraphrase someone whose name escapes me 
cheers
Chris Maunder
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OriginalGriff wrote: If the "too long" message was changed to suggest relevant code fragments only that could kill two birds with one stone?
That presupposes that the user will read and understand the message, and not just post a link to download their 100KLoC project from a dodgy file hosting site instead. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Richard Deeming wrote: That presupposes that the user will can read and understand the message, and not just post a link to download their 100KLoC project from a dodgy file hosting site instead.
FTFY ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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The post in question is - Error verify data in database[^]
I tried to edit the question by removing additional pre tag elements and add language tag. When done and I select 'Update question', the text area element shows an error 'The content must be between 30 and 50000 characters' which of course it is.
I tried a few times, no luck. Did I miss something?
I did edit some other questions earlier on and they updated just fine...
modified 10-Aug-23 4:55am.
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After removing the <pre> tags from the "what I have tried" section, the content ("what could cause this error?") is only 28 characters long.
Moving the code block to the "what I have tried" section allows you to post the update.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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 Obvious... Thanks Richard, I never thought of checking the count in the "What I have tried" block, just removed the pre tags.
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