Why your question is NOT "urgent" or an "emergency"!
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Recently, many posters have indicated that their Questions are "Urgent" or "Urgent, Help Immediately", or even an "Emergency". This frustrates the volunteers immensely. The volunteers do the best they can in the time they have available, and it is emotionally overloading to be asked to "jump" on to problems at the expense of their personal lives and other duties. It is also not fair to the other people asking questions when people try to push in to line ahead of them.
I, for one, am getting positively cranky about the constant demands for "urgent" help. I am overwhelmed by the "urgent" requests, and I am not being polite about them.
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The below is a collection of some of the responses people have made on the topic of "urgent" or "emergency" questions:
"urgent adjective
1. compelling or requiring immediate action or attention; imperative; pressing: an urgent matter."
So basically you are saying that this is sufficiently important that I should cancel my appointment that I have been waiting a month for, and pay the $150 cancellation penalty, because it requires IMMEDIATE action? Is there an international crisis in automated ball detection in cricket that YOU personally were chosen to solve on a day's notice? Will there be riots in some countries if you are unable to solve it in time?
- Urgent is when the nuclear reactor containment system is about to collapse. Or when I've run out of chocolate.
- This is not a resource for HELP NEEDED URGENTLY. If you need help urgently, then you should be hiring a consultant, such as http://www.mathworks.com/services/consulting/
Note: I am not a consultant, and I am not employed or contracted by MathWorks or any related company or organization in any capacity.
Disclaimer: I did receive a baseball-style hat from MathWorks once.
- I like the questions with emergency, urgent and help as subjects. It makes me want to see how ridiculous the question is. It decreases the quality of my answer.
- Urgent matters like this should probably be raised as support cases.
- Urgency does not make the impossible possible.
- My parents told me when I was able to speak: "Never shout "help" if it is not urgent. Urgent means: The sox your are wearing are burning and severe harm is imminent. If you do not wear the sox currently, it is not urgent, such that there is enough time to shout "my sox are burning in the cupboard" instead of "help"."
- If your government has not asked the Canadian Embassy to contact me, then this isn't an emergency.
- If you post that something is an "emergency" then you should be able to document that there was a literal and immediate risk of loss of life, or at least of serious and literal risk of damage to health (e.g., a broken leg.) If emergency officials such as ambulance or fire department or police or doctors did not get involved, then it was probably NOT an emergency.
![](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/images/broken_image.png)
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Every day, I receive numerous email messages marked as "Urgent". If you would like your Question to be treated with more respect than I treat these, then marking your posted question as "Urgent" is strongly advised against.
For example, the below message was quickly sent to the Great Recycle Bin In The Sky:
Hurry now and claim your fund from the Central Bank of Nigeria or your fund will be confiscated by the wicked officials of the CBN. [...]
댓글 수: 22
divya reddy
2020년 11월 6일
HEYY Mr. Roberson I TRIED TO contact consulting but not getting a reply since 24 hrs ...i need some audio compression code explanation
답변 (12개)
James Tursa
2012년 3월 1일
Is there a way for TMW to make this post PERMANENTLY appear as the very first post? Or for TMW to scan all new posts for the words "urgent" etc. and redirect them to this post before allowing the new "urgent" post to go through? Just wishing ...
댓글 수: 0
Melissa
2012년 3월 9일
First off, I wish to thank all of the volunteers who help those of us who really need it. I also would like to apologize for those who feel that their procrastination or superior complex makes the need for "urgent" postings.
댓글 수: 0
Jan
2012년 3월 31일
I'm using a limited urgency scale:
Level 1: Somebody should polish the silver.
...
Level 10: My socks are burning.
Imagine I'm working on the computer and my wife plays with the kids. One kid has performed something really bad, e.g. plugged her head between the posts of the steel handrail. Shouting out loud: "Jan, come, it's urgent" would increase the panic level of the child with the known unwanted side-effects. A friendly and calm: "Jan, visit us in the staircase, urgency level 7" will be much more target-aimed to catch my attention.
Here in this forum the situation is different for me. Whenever somebody uses the term "urgent", I'm convinced that he or she does not want a fast answer from me, but most likely from Walter.
댓글 수: 2
Bjorn Gustavsson
2021년 1월 27일
Jan, what are levels 2-6, 8 and 9?
(I don't know if this is an urgency-level 0, 1 or 2...)
Sean de Wolski
2012년 2월 22일
Just a thought: you could come into Answers with the -urgent tag searched:
Walter Roberson
2012년 2월 28일
댓글 수: 7
DGM
2022년 11월 13일
I'm placing my vote for changing all instances to "aieeee", preserving the original case and any following punctuation.
Corentin OGER
2020년 10월 21일
This reminds me of University years ago. The guy in charge of ordering bits and pieces for lab projects had a sign on his desk saying "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine".
댓글 수: 0
Andrew Newell
2012년 2월 22일
Just for curiosity, has anyone seen a genuinely urgent question?
댓글 수: 2
John D'Errico
2017년 3월 7일
There are some circumstances where criticality is important. A hospital waiting room must be able to distinguish between those with a critical need, and those who are hurting, but can be temporarily bypassed. Answers is not a hospital though, in the sense that nobody will die if their question is not answered immediately.
If you will fail your assignment if someone does not snap to attention though, this is NOT a factor at all. That merely makes this a learning opportunity for the next assignment. Time management is something that all students must learn, and some will only learn it by rueful experience.
It simply is not a bad thing if a student fails to complete an assignment. If that also causes them to fail a course, were they that close to the edge that a missed assignment pushed them over, then something else would have done the same next week.
John D'Errico
2017년 3월 7일
Nobody ever posts a question where they really don't care when it gets an answer. So, from the point of view of a person going to answer a question, every question is equally urgent. The person who insists their question is terribly important and must be answered immediately in front of all others is therefore the equivalent of the person who cuts into a ticket or food line, ahead of hundreds of others who waited patiently for their turn.
Good time management is an important skill, one well worth learning. Start your project as early as possible, and you will find time to finish it.
댓글 수: 0
Matteo Niccoli
2012년 3월 12일
편집: Walter Roberson
2017년 3월 7일
Emergency: please urgently read my tweet about this at: https://twitter.com/#!/My_Carta/status/179213958543183872
(a.k.a. I really like you posted this Robert, good reminder in addition to an entertaining read). I will post it on all my social media
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