Some info on posts

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mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
Often to answer a question, five more questions have to be answered first.

Take the guy last week. "Do you need an emergency generator for a tornado shelter?"

Dozens of posts later we find out it's for an occupant load of 275 people.

By the context of this thread, nobody should have responded to his question because not enough information was given in the OP.

Color me confused. Maybe I'm not understanding this thread.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
Color me confused. Maybe I'm not understanding this thread.

You are not and I am not surprised as you are one of the ones that almost always complains there is not enough info. :D

Try this, if it is a newbie and they have not provided the info you feel you need to comfortably answer the question move on to the next post. It really is that simple.

As a moderator I would rather you say nothing to a newbie vs giving them a hard time about what they have not provided.

No one is demanding you answer, the OP has not paid you for an answer.

I am not saying no one can ask a question of the OP, but do so nicely and keep it directly on the OPs topic.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
What I am asking is that we try to stay directly on the OPs question and not expand on it until we hear back from the OP and they ask further questions. Too often I see 20 posts that have great information but are only marginally related to the OPs question before the OP has even returned.

We are asking that if you have info that is not directly related to the OPs question, and you cannot wait for the OP to respond before you must share it with us .... open a new thread.

They are free and that way it is your thread to do with as you want.

That sounds.....logical.

If for some reason I ever get off topic in an untimely fashion, feel free to push me off to a thread of my own. I will understand and not be upset. Probably more embarrassed than upset, actually.

And speaking about embarrassed, one day when I was 17 working at a gas station in the summer, this girl walks in and........:angel:
 
zbang, please do not take the following as aimed at you, you just provided the quotes to work with. :)

No offense taken, they're just ideas to knock around.

I'm not sure how to double-quote so comments have context, so...

Re writing clearly-
Certainly shouldn't be a requirement, nothing would get done :lol:; maybe just part of some new-member suggestions.

And we simply say "I don't understand what you're saying" or "Did you mean bla bla bla?" and then wait for them to answer. Which leads into my entreaty that the OP actually checks back and participates in the topic. Ask-and-run is a recipe for tangents :D.

Maybe we need an equivalent of the reporter's checklist- who, what, when, where, how.

More of a recommendation; it just seems that lots of comments on newer members' posts are because they've left out important details, and it would be better to put them in at the get-go.

Because it's at least somewhat on-topic, I quote part of a poem:

Life Of A Partsman--
I work behind the counter
in an automotive store,
Sometimes I'm a "genius"
Sometimes I'm called much more
[...]
But life would be a pleasure
And I'd grin from ear to ear'
If the customer would only tell me
The Make, Model and Year.
 

jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Often to answer a question, five more questions have to be answered first.
...By the context of this thread, nobody should have responded to his question because not enough information was given in the OP.

Ask all the questions you feel are necessary to answer the OP properly. Of course you can lead them down the path to the correct solution.
Just don't head off onto unimportant areas.

For the tornado shelter. Ask questions, point out the 'it all depends on' issues. However stay away from things like the winding configuration of the generator until those things actually impact the OP.
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
As a premier electrical educational site i can understand the concern for common courtesy to noobs confronted with thread drift.

Perhaps they don't realize they're in front of a millennia of experience , much of which has not only fielded the same queries over and over, they've investigated the details of them.

Ergo, there's nothing malicious throwing the 'line' out for them , it's just a matter of making sure they take the bait...

~RJ~
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
That sounds.....logical.

If for some reason I ever get off topic in an untimely fashion, feel free to push me off to a thread of my own. I will understand and not be upset. Probably more embarrassed than upset, actually.

And speaking about embarrassed, one day when I was 17 working at a gas station in the summer, this girl walks in and........:angel:
Well...what...was she tall...don't drop a leader like that then walk away!
 

__dan

Senior Member
...

What I am asking is that we try to stay directly on the OPs question and not expand on it until we hear back from the OP and they ask further questions. Too often I see 20 posts that have great information but are only marginally related to the OPs question before the OP has even returned.

We are asking that if you have info that is not directly related to the OPs question, and you cannot wait for the OP to respond before you must share it with us .... open a new thread.

...

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Bob

Without reading the whole thread (I would respond to, how to purge air from a hydronic system. Install the circs in vertical runs of pipe, install a Spirovent Jr at a select high point near the boiler, look for and open the air bleeder valves if any at high points on the radiators, let it self purge).

Forum's have the potential to be an extension of one's thought process, an accessory method of information supply and processing. As with any human thought process, you would give it up if you saw how the sausages are made.

Person A's thought process: He does not know or care to. Historically and based on the probabilities, he guesses and has a high probability of guessing the wrong answer. A's Long lifetime of living with this system has caused him to adapt to his own method, for better or worse).

Person B's thought process: Through long professional experience and training, B has a good estimate of what he does and does not know. Things he does not know receive additional research and study so that when a decision or action is necessary, it is achieved by some routine and established process, such as the scientific method. Where guessing is necessary, B's deep professional experience and formal training yield a high probability of guessing the right answer.

Person C's thought process: C has to try drinking from the firehose, something normally inadvisable but C has to make a living and it may be his continued living requires this, trying to drink from the firehose. C's long lifetime of living with this system has caused him to adapt to his own method, with obviously messy and inadvisable consequences.

Person D's thought process. D is unaware of the existence of persons A, B, C, E, F ... but D's numerical superiority allow them to consistently vote their own kind into office or recruit their own kind into their fellow management ranks, making their limited thought process a moot point. D can win most numbers games without trying or any serious professional type work effort. D need only copy the work of another D and hand it in as his own, to make his living.

It is possible that an OP would know of and be able to filter the responses for all the different thought processes, or to choose only one subset of aggregate. Is it possible for the moderators to filter this naturally occurring and technology assisted phenomena.


.....


My own view, I feel I may exercise a control over what I write but I have no control over how it is read or interpreted. Occasionally I may play into this by writing something I know has more than one interpretation or reading. I make a point of not telling the reader how he should interpret or read what I would write. There will be more than one interpretation. Is it possible any reader would know this is my thought process when I would write something.
 

__dan

Senior Member
Forget about the whole thread. Did you even read the post that you quoted in your reply?


Read it yes, understand it no.

Let me guess. There is a perceived problem where newb posters may be scared off by ... here I have to guess ... some exposure to a range or spectrum of ordered and disordered thinking.

To relieve this condition ... let me guess again ... replies should either read the OP's mind and give him what he asked for (not what he may need) or alternatively, if you are not able to foresee what reply will encourage the newb OP, then post your reply in a new thread.

My brother installed a new boiler after extensively reading and posting on Heating Help. This was after I had done similar installs for myself and my other brothers. He ended up installing so much expensive and totally unnecessary crap, hydraulic separator, special PEX flow balancing manifolds. I kept saying stop, there's an easy and inexpensive way to to it, and he kept quoting some internet poster. Cost him at least $2500. in useless extra material.




Better to start with what is true and what is false. It may be false that any newb poster has been scared off by the normal range of replies on MH. Please produce as evidence at least one poster who has some complaint to make.

Certainly there are posters who would read here, recognize they don't have their thoughts ordered in a manner, and do not wish to expose this to others by posting. However that is not cited as the problem which requires some proposed mitigation. Disordered thinking in the posts has not been a problem. I would say it's somewhat expected.
 

jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Let me guess. There is a perceived problem where newb posters may be scared off by ... here I have to guess ... some exposure to a range or spectrum of ordered and disordered thinking.

To relieve this condition ... let me guess again ... replies should either read the OP's mind and give him what he asked for (not what he may need) or alternatively, if you are not able to foresee what reply will encourage the newb OP, then post your reply in a new thread.

This is an ideal example of what we are trying to reduce/prevent. Not being able to find the answer to the OP because the discussion is being steered into different direction.

The is nothing in the OP about new members or inexperienced posters (check out Post #1). Our request was too stay on the OP topic until it has been addressed. No where in this thread, has a moderator said 'do not ask questions of the OP'.

for example: In one case the OP was about a generator for a shelter. A proper answer would require additional questions. An improper answer would be to discuss generator construction for 400hz applications where the only power source available is liquid butane.
 

ActionDave

Chief Moderator
Staff member
Location
Durango, CO, 10 h 20 min from the winged horses.
Occupation
Licensed Electrician
Read it yes, understand it no.

Let me guess. There is a perceived problem where newb posters may be scared off by ... here I have to guess ... some exposure to a range or spectrum of ordered and disordered thinking.

To relieve this condition ... let me guess again ... replies should either read the OP's mind and give him what he asked for (not what he may need) or alternatively, if you are not able to foresee what reply will encourage the newb OP, then post your reply in a new thread.

My brother installed a new boiler after extensively reading and posting on Heating Help. This was after I had done similar installs for myself and my other brothers. He ended up installing so much expensive and totally unnecessary crap, hydraulic separator, special PEX flow balancing manifolds. I kept saying stop, there's an easy and inexpensive way to to it, and he kept quoting some internet poster. Cost him at least $2500. in useless extra material.




Better to start with what is true and what is false. It may be false that any newb poster has been scared off by the normal range of replies on MH. Please produce as evidence at least one poster who has some complaint to make.

Certainly there are posters who would read here, recognize they don't have their thoughts ordered in a manner, and do not wish to expose this to others by posting. However that is not cited as the problem which requires some proposed mitigation. Disordered thinking in the posts has not been a problem. I would say it's somewhat expected.

This time I understood you, last post I didn't.
 

__dan

Senior Member
This time I understood you, last post I didn't.


Certainly my preference or comfort level is for the forum to be occasionally raucous and disordered. The thought process definitely ranges to trying to get a drink from the firehose. I prefer to see the posts that say hook up an oscilloscope and view the inductive kickback off the coil switching (with an eye on suppression methods).

On the job I am quick to call the factory engineer as soon as necessary. I place a high value on getting the expertise and advice I need in the easiest way possible, both communicating with technical experts and doing a lot of reading and searching to find them.

I'm also sure if the board tightened up too much, I would be one of the guys getting the posting ban. If I view reading and posting as an extension of my preferred thought process (I do), personally I already attempt to curtail or avoid thinking about things I do not wish as part of my thought process. I am a news reader (who avoids state and local news for example).
 

jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
I'm also sure if the board tightened up too much, I would be one of the guys getting the posting ban.

We are not trying to tighten up anything. We are not discussing 'bannable' actions.

We are asking for new threads to be started so that more discussions can occur.
 
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