December 15, 2014

Ruminations on Being a Wizpert

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

A few months back, a guy named Mark asked if I’d like to be a Wizpert. My immediate thought was, “That’s an incredibly silly name for something!”

Mark wanted me to be an online expert, someone to whom frustrated users could go and get expert advice. Wizard + Expert = Wizpert.

I was asked to be the Android expert, but I also opted to be a C programming expert as well.

So far I’ve gotten only requests for C programming, which tells you how much people are eager for quick Android advice.

For being a Wizpert I’m paid in “coins,” which the person requesting information offers. The initial 3 minutes of chat is to set things up and then the user has to pay to continue. I don’t know how many coins I’ve racked up, but it’s not much. I think I may have made $20 from being a Wizpert. For that money I’ve helped over 22 users, 6 of whom think that my advice was worthy of compensation.

The Wizpert web page is based on Google Hangouts (chat). When a request comes in, I get a pop-up saying, “So-and-so would like help with C/C++ Programming,” similar to what’s shown in Figure. I click the YES link to chat, or NO if not.

Figure 1. The Wizpert prompt, which actually came in as I was writing this post.

Figure 1. The Wizpert prompt, which came in as I was writing this post.

Without exception, all my requests have come from students who want me to do their homework.

Some of them get quite angry when I refuse to just “do the problem!” I try to teach, which is the point of my programming books, but that isn’t good enough for some people. I had one guy who even offered to PayPal me $200 to finish his assignment.

Oh, and the assignment was due in 2 hours.

One gal wanted answers having to deal with Shakespeare, not C Programming. She didn’t care that she was in the wrong forum, she just wanted answers! Fortunately, I know enough about the Bard that I was able to help, but can you imagine?

Recently, this guy was angry that I didn’t know C#. He wrote, “What are you doing here?” I replied that it was a C/C++ programming forum and I do C programming. How I should have replied was to ask, “What are you doing here, other than trying to get someone else to do your homework?”

I truly enjoy helping people, which is why I’m still Wizperting. I’ve learned a bit how programming students think and what they really want to know. I’ve also picked up some great puzzles that I’ve passed along on my C For Dummies blog as Exercises and Lessons.

While all that’s fun, I still decline a lot of Wizpert requests. It’s disappointing to know so many students just want an answer and not how to program. Still, I continue to try. Occasionally I get a great student who really appreciates the advice. That makes it worth it, even if I didn’t earn any Wizpert coins.

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