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Student group creating questions in Answers for troubleshooting page

https://www.ifixit.com/Team/Contribution...

I have seen this at least 3 times from this group, so I’m not sure if they don’t know better or if this is how you’re supposed to do it. I’m assuming this is the incorrect way to do it, as I’ve never seen it happen outside of 1 other time on a really old question.

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Hi Nick,

The EDU program used to require students to contribute to Answers, but we discontinued that part of the project a few years ago. However, from time to time stuff like this will pop up. As long as anything isn’t offensive or spammy, we generally just let them do their thing.

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Oh alright. It was not a first but I also wasn't sure.

It was something like a 2016 question when I first seen they do this. I let that go because it was past the time it was really worth getting clarification since it was 2 years too late at the time.

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@kristen - I hope the program hasn't ended all together. I think it was a great idea.

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I have to agree with @danj. I've had a few bad experiences with it in the past (correctable) but that's minor compared to the good it creates. It looks like it's still a thing but less then it used to be to me.

The pages I made years ago (primarily teenage era ones) I abandoned because I didn't want to deal with the mess (I'm gonna be blunt. These are either a complete waste to fix or they need to be reworked from scratch saving the useful parts). These old pages usually get improved so they aren't a nightmare to look at anymore. Yes, I should (probably) clean these messes up myself but at the same time there's too many and the EDU program exists. I'd rather split it - they are more then willing to deal with the ones I have no interest in dealing with (I will make that clear in the edit history if I didn't even try), along with some of my newer pages I may try but have a better shot then me or got the hardware before I did. It's a really good real-world hands-on experience as well. The EDU team probably knows a little too well if they've seen proposals to make my old pages usable.

I'd rather see them get real-world experience, especially on those pages I want nothing to do with the cleanup on. Those pretty much all need help, and even they know it because I've seen them discard 99% of the base content and start over from scratch. I even end up doing the same thing to my OWN content from that period as it's faster to dump it all and restart*. That's how I end up doing well until I get a nasty snag that throws EVERYTHING off. However, unlike the old guide, I can start over from there once I get my path on saving it back into place and have a better shot the 2nd time than the 1st.

*I will either rewrite the bad guide and private the old one (low views) or rework the old ID (high view). It's based on if it makes sense to use the old one (which will need more work to fix) or if I should forget about the past and start over (faster turnaround).

This page is from that era and they made it something I should have done from the beginning. From what I can tell, most of the content was discarded and they did a 99% restart. If a little anger over fringe incidents results in real word experience and usable pages, I'm okay with it happening once in a while since all I need to do is monitor it and make sure.

For years, I've said that real-world experience is better than book learning, and the EDU program is very good for that. A book only goes so far once you need to open the device - you *need* to know how to find common snags in general, especially on an unknown device.

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@danj @nick No need to worry! The EDU program is alive and well. We are actually growing by the year. :)

We re-evaluated the "Support Questions" portion of the project a few years back and determined it wasn't really beneficial to them or the iFixit community at large, so we nixed that assignment. But the program is still running strong!

I'm glad to hear that you're both so supportive of our students—they love the hands-on experience of the project.

If you're ever unsure how to handle any questionable student contributions, always feel free to post here.

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@kristen And the reason for that (at least in my case) is I remember what my school offered through dual enrollment. It wasn't useful for much and pretty covered nonsense with no real-world value (Ex: remaking the WinXP boot .ini file (name escapes me), installing Win98 and repairs I've done before). It wasn't useful for much if anything. It was pretty much "Been there, done that x10" the time I was in there.

While they are still school imposed limitations on what they can do that I've done before, that's not on you - I'm blaming the schools. There may be more tolerance in college, but there's still a few nanny rules that look like high school carryovers.

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@nick - They’re cool!

We can clean up anything later

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Nick will be eternally grateful.