The VideoLAN Forums

"VLC media player for Windows Troubleshooting"

Nice place for questions, but not if you're looking for answers.

Although some questions are being answered, most, including some incredibly simple ones, don't get a single reply. (sometimes the creator bumps it)

Of course it kind of was to be expected from a community of volunteers and hobbyists to not be on the forum helping out silly Windows users every day.
But is there nothing that can be done for these people?

I'm not saying anyone hasn't put in enough effort already, (any effort is more than could be expected), but I am pointing out a problem with the troubleshooting parts of this forum.

How can we motivate people to help out others? (voluntarily)

Most of the time the questions are way too vague to get any answer.

Most of the time no one even tries to help by asking clarification.
"Could you elaborate on ...?" "could you go into more detail about ...?" "Have you tried ... ?" "What version of the OS are you using?" and so on.

I sometimes find it rewarding to solve peoples problems, but I guess it gets old really fast. It looks like most people got tired of spending time on other peoples problems so they don't really try anymore.


Of the few people reading this topic, what still brings you to this forum? Why not the troubleshooting section? (with the exception of a few of you)

It's hard to do support. You receive more insutls than praises, to be honest.

It's hard to do support. You receive more insutls than praises, to be honest.

Same for writing about issues you found. I just spend an hour or more trying to write a comprehendible explanation of an issue I'm having, I just hope at least one person bothers to read it and nod his head in agreement.
I receive more ignorance than praises.


This is what took me an hour or more:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 40#p418640

If you want a thread with a clear example as to why the devs seem so reluctant to help, here : https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=124133 . TBH, if someone acted this way to me (the troll, not JB (who is awesome)), they would be blocked/muted/reported, depending on the site. Considering that there are SEVERAL threads loaded with unfortunate behaviour such as this, directed at the devs, I think that you can understand why they are so reluctant. The "expert users" also tend to get insulted too, because I guess that some people think if you've got three cones or more, you're magically some know-it-all. Which is why the power-users can be so reluctant to help, too. Guess I've been lucky so far with my threads, that no users have tried to turn them into flame wars. I have no fear that the admins would do the same. Also, it's been this way on MANY forums I've visited, so it's not a situation unique to VideoLAN's forums. It's also why this is the ONLY one I have ever and probably will ever join, because I can still find so many threads where people genuinely are helpful. Sorry if this turned into a rant, I just get vein-poppingly furious when people insult the devs and they want free goodies/don't understand what they're talking about/assume the devs are idiots/call the devs names/troll the devs incessantly/this list could just go on and on.

Unfortunately, you're right. I let most of the aggressive content like this around, because you have no idea about the ones I delete/remove
Insults, death threats, calling on cellphone and so on, are common.