Please ask detailed questions in the forums, not messages

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Lately I have been getting a number of individual private messages from people who have what are general interest questions, usually about how a particular device works. :question::grey_question::interrobang:️:question::exclamation:️:grey_question::question:

For those who don’t know, I am significantly disabled. I rely on text to speech software, and just opening individual messages can be cumbersome.

I am happy to participate in forum discussions where I can, but one of the reasons that people tend to know my name is because I write FAQ posts, but that’s specifically so that I can refer future questioners over to them, which is physically much easier for me. Also, I know that there are many community members who could help in any situation, and it is much less stressful for me.

I know it seems like I’m on the forums a lot, and I enjoy participating here, but it is in short bursts and I also skip a lot of stuff.

Sending me private messages will get you less information and less frequently than just posting the same question to the forum where, again, lots of people can help.

Of course like everyone I have some friends here, and we take our off-topic conversations to private messages occasionally, but those folks understand if I don’t get back to them right away and don’t pressure me to reply.

This is a very active, creative, helpful community. Pretty much any question about the platform that you might have can be answered by many people, so just post publicly and people will be glad to help. :sunglasses:

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Well put. Thanks for all of your help in the forums. You’ve saved me many hours with and greatly increased the Wife Acceptance Factor with your awesome FAQ posts. Cheers!

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JD we are truly blessed to have you in the forum. Your posts are always spot on and very informative. Thanks for all you do to help.

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Right On JD. I hope that you continue to provide this forum with the awesome professionalism that you portray in your post. Always a wealth of knowledge and always willing to help. Most of the time when I am responding to a post, I think to myself, I bet not mess this up because I know that JD is going to be reading it or replying at the same time!

No need to PM general stuff because like you said, there are not only more people that are willing to help but also the person asking the question is more than likely not the only one with the same question.

Easy of enough request for people to follow. :sunglasses:

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Good general advice anyway, JD.
And thanks so much for all you do here. I’ve learned a lot of interesting tidbits from your postings…
:sunglasses:

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As a newbie to smarthings, you have help me tremendously. Thanks for your contribution @JDRoberts

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Yes, I agree with others here. So thankful for your support to the smartthings community. You have been so helpful to many and ask nothing in return. Thank you so much for all of your continued help!!

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Guys, I’m drowning here. :scream: I’m getting tons of private messages, which is physically overwhelming for me.

I understand there’s been a lot of stuff going on in the last month or two, across all aspects of the platform. But I don’t have any answers that aren’t already in the forum.

Please understand:

1) I don’t have any insider knowledge about what’s going on at SmartThings. I’m not an employee. I’m not in any of the beta tests. I’m just another customer who has some relevant technical background.

  1. I don’t want to talk privately to anybody about anything that’s going on because I’m physically dependent on text reader technology and just opening the messages is physically tiring. Right now my housemate is kindly going through the PMs and sending the link to this thread, so I’m not even seeing the content of those messages. But he’s tired of doing it.

  2. I enjoy discussing device specs in the public forums. It makes a good distraction for me, especially when the pain is bad. But I am neither willing or able to help anybody with any individual projects beyond what’s already going on in the public forums.

  3. If you do write me privately and you don’t get any answer, or you get an answer directing you to this thread, that’s all you’re going to get. Don’t send me reminder notes every day that I haven’t answered your questions. I’m not going to answer your questions beyond what is already in the public forums here.

  4. There are many many people in the forums who are happy to help with any questions that anyone might have. Just post your question publicly and you will get the fastest, best answer.

I’m going to go take a nap now. :wink:

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:rofl: I love it. If it wasn’t already crazy enough out here. I wonder if there is a SmartApp for that.

For those private messages:

200w%20(22)

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Reminds me of my pet peeve at work … getting an instant message to tell me they have sent me an email. All that does is put their email to the back of my queue.

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