Do we work for NI now?

[shoneill]

It has occurred to me recently that many people seem to believe that this is a NI-only forum and that people answering here somehow are working for NI.  Given posts like this, I can see why.

What does everyone else think?  If a user posts in this forum, is it fair to think of this as "contacting National Instruments"?

Shane.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I'm sure a large number of posters do think that. The on-line help support topic doesn't state it differently.

In a sense, we are free employees of NI. We work for stars!

Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 11-16-2007 10:11 AM

[altenbach]

Seems logical. 😉

If you go to the support area of this website and click on "Request support from an engineer", the default is "Discussion Forum" with the description tag

• Answered by NI engineers, partners, and users worldwide.

Actually, it says "Answered by NI engineers, partners, and users worldwide", because the text is so small it is is barely readable. 😮 So, Yes, if you are not familiar with the forum system and have other things on your mind (such as solving the problem ;)), you might not even see that description.

Message Edited by altenbach on 11-16-2007 09:11 AM

[smercurio_fc]

Dennis wrote:

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In a sense, we are free employees of NI. We work for stars!

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And tchotckes. Don't forget those clip-on yellow star tchotckes.

[shoneill]

OK, I can understand the misunderstanding (if you know what I mean 😉 ), but doesn't it come accross a bit unfair referring to a post on the forum as "contacting National Instruments"?

I'm not exactly a star-junkie, and I enjoy helping out (and being helped too of course - I've posted enough silly questions in hte past) but I don't like misrepresentations like the one in the post I linked to in my original post.

We (Customers, not employees of NI) answer a significant number of questions (Especially our Knight in shining armour!), so it seems kind of unfair to ignore this by writing that posting a question on the forum is "contacting National Instruments".  Maybe I'm just picky today, I dunno.....

Of course, if the question was originated from some web form on the NI site, and the NI engineers have a database to tell them this was a NI-site-generated question then that would be a clear and logical answer.  But in the absence of such an explanation or data, it just seems cheeky to me.

I'm done,

Shane.

Ps I'm actually not quite done.  This reminds me of a previous controversial entry in the NI terms of use : "User Contributions. Any information or material ("Communications") that you transmit to this Site is considered non-confidential. NI has no obligations with respect to the Communications, and NI is free and you authorize NI to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate, translate and otherwise use the Communications and all related data, images, sound, and text for any and all purposes. NI reserves the right, in its sole discretion on a case by case basis, to remove, reject, or otherwise modify any such Communications or any portion(s) thereof. NI may, but is not obligated to, monitor or review any areas on the Site where users transmit or post Communications, including but not limited to discussion groups, bulletin boards or other user forums, and the content of any such Communications. NI, however, has no liability related to the content of any such Communications, whether or not arising under the laws of copyright, libel, privacy, obscenity, or otherwise"

PPS I sure hope I haven't violated NIs copyright there 😉

[tst]

For what it's worth, that last sentence is also wrong, as can be seen here.

I agree that it would be nice if there was a better way to distinguish user contribution from NI contribution in such a way that would be clear to casual users, but I doubt you can do that without writing next to each user "This user is not an NI employee". Enlarging the text Christian refered to might help.

[TCPlomp]

So in the help they state that they answer anything, (for registered users), and in the terms of use they state that they are not obligated to monitor the forums

But I notice when I post something and don't get an answer in 24 hours (mostly I only post the hard Q's) I get an answer from a dutch support engineer (thanks Karsten and Bas ).
That will probably be because I am a registered user.

Ton

[altenbach]

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tst wrote:

For what it's worth, that last sentence is also wrong, as can be seen here.

---

I would say that the miss ratio is much less than that. Many of these posts are duplicates or are actually part of another thread.

For consistency, we (or whoever) should clean those up with a quick reply pointing to the "master thread". For example I just did so for the following case:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/tracker?user.id=96247 (look for all the sibling threads named "waveform analysis")

As you can see, it got a reply from DFgray nicely within the 24 hour window and the others are just duplicate posts where the duplicate reply was first given in a new thread instead.

Other posts are foreign language

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=277623&jump=true

... or don't need an answer

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=275249&jump=true

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=275597&jump=true

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=268896&jump=true

[smercurio_fc]

Maybe it's just me, but has anyone else noticed an apparent increase in participation on the forums by blue-bars (i.e., NI personnel) lately? Could be my imagination again. Not that this is bad - in fact I think it would be good for NI to participate more in these forums. But I wonder if this would affect the perception for new users, as noted earlier in this thread, especially since many of the replies from NI folks start with "Thank you contact National Instruments". I've seen a number of these lately. True, these boards belong to NI and they can do whatever they want, but I wonder if there's been any recent discussions about having NI personnel be more involved with the forums?

[Laura F.]

Hi All,

I just wanted to let you know that I also think that the forums should not be referred to as "contacting National Instruments".  Obviously, if you post a question here you never know who might answer you!  We'll be taking a closer look to understand why some employees are posting this statement. 

Thanks,
Laura