{"id":6966,"date":"2014-12-15T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T08:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=6966"},"modified":"2014-12-13T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-13T22:44:20","slug":"ruminations-on-being-a-wizpert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=6966","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations on Being a Wizpert"},"content":{"rendered":"

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!”
\n
\nMark wanted me to be an online expert, someone to whom frustrated users could go and get expert advice. Wizard + Expert = Wizpert.<\/p>\n

I was asked to be the Android expert, but I also opted to be a C programming expert as well.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Figure

Figure 1. The Wizpert prompt, which came in as I was writing this post.<\/p><\/div>\n

Without exception, all my requests have come from students who want me to do their homework.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the assignment was due in 2 hours.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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?”<\/p>\n

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<\/a> as Exercises and Lessons.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started out as something really fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6966"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6976,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966\/revisions\/6976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}