Cross-posting on EnergyPlus_Support

asked 2015-07-14 13:04:25 -0500

updated 2015-07-14 15:39:43 -0500

Over the last several weeks and months I have seen an increase in cross-posting of UnmetHours questions to EnergyPlus_Support@yahoogroups.com. I am not sure about the causal direction of these cross-posts is, i.e., whether people are cross-posting into UnmetHours because they are not finding answers on the Yahoo! group or vice versa. But this practice is sub-optimal (questions can be answered independently and sometimes with conflicting results in both forums, the two forums don't cross-benefit from one another's answers) and somewhat annoying also.

Do people know what is going on? Do people have suggestions for reducing cross-posting?

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answered 2015-07-14 15:40:46 -0500

Neal Kruis

4675 ●9 ●17 http://bigladdersoftware.com/

Cross-posting is one of the easiest ways to find answers quickly. It's hard to blame users from trying. It actually doesn't seem that bad to me as long as people follow up on all of the forums when they find an answer on one of them.

Better yet, people can post a question on Unmet Hours and direct other lists to Unmet Hours so all of the relevant discussion can take place in a single venue.

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Indeed links into the source of the answer are a good solution, but so far we don't have a history of that really happening. It might take some effort on our (unofficial) moderators to make that happen.

Kyle Benne ( 2015-07-14 16:51:18 -0500 )edit

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answered 2015-07-14 14:19:20 -0500

ericringold

10552 ●31 ●8 https://www.nrel.gov/b...

updated 2015-07-14 15:28:43 -0500

My suggestion for reducing cross-posting is to start directing to Unmet Hours from the DOE EnergyPlus User Support page, as well as the EnergyPlus Helpdesk page. I agree that UH is a superior format, but it's currently not as easily found from a google search for 'energyplus help' or 'energyplus support' as the Yahoo group.

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I cross posted recently for this reason. I posted on EnergyPlus Yahoo, then someone posted there (on an unrelated thread) that it was better to post here, so I posted here too. So that's the causal direction. If you encourage migration, there's bound to be some duplication for the transition.