Is it just me?

There are a few women around too

Yes, but the "men" were more referring to a creature with about the same shape as you without considering gender. ;D

Been a mod. on a forum... So much for having a huge database with the knowledge of 1000 (or more) men.

Oh, you modded the "Man Forum"? I love that site!

:stuck_out_tongue:

There are a few women around too

i think there is only one around....

Sadly, I do not think a Sticky Note or FAQ will cause a noticeable decrease. It seems that in most cases the extra step of reading a paragraph or two would have eliminated the need to post the question in the first place.

Part of the sticky should be a link imploring people to read ESR's "How to Ask Questions the Smart Way":

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Heck - maybe that should just -be- the sticky...

;D

And here is a clue about good forum behavior.

If a poster does not get the answers they like/need/expected whatever and/or they want to argue about something... please, take it to "personal messages".

Most of us are NOT professionals or experts and our answers and comments can be wrong. Some of us actually DO like to help answer questions though.

I'm finding it harder to want to "post reply" though lately... since just like Mike, i feel we have a sudden glut of bad manners and impatience.

pete

I'm finding it harder to want to "post reply" though lately...

Yeah I have started to ignore many posts that come up on my reader feed unless it's very obvious what they want and something I can obviously help with.

Partially due to the bad style of posting but partially because I am finding that with a lot of work to do now, I do not have the time to look at them all.

Mowcius

How hard can it be?

Over at avrfreaks.net there's a whole lot of sticky posts with essential information.

  • Newbie? - READ THIS FIRST
  • Upload doesn't work? - TRY THIS FIRST
  • ...

Of course all of these posts are moderated and don't just contain somebody's drivel. AND over there they just don't answer posts that don't supply a minimum amount of information. The poster is kindly (well most of the time) referred to a

---+++###:- sticky post -:###+++---

containing information on 'how to correctly ask questions'. If the OP doesn't revise his question, he won't get serviced. End of story.

Well if the people running the forum don't want a sticky then someone should start a thread titled "How to ask a question" and everyone just link to it when someone posts.

Post: "I have a resistor sticking out of my eye. What should I do."

Reply: "Please read this first: We need to know what value it is, what's connected to the other end, etc..."

It's true that :slight_smile: the nature of the beauty.

And another thing why can't people post in the correct forum. Take Software-> Interfacing just under the title it states quite clearly:-

Using Arduino with other software (Processing, Flash, PD, MaxMSP, etc.)

But lately it is full of people trying to interface their arduino with hardware. >:(

And another thing why can't people post in the correct forum. Take Software-> Interfacing just under the title it states quite clearly:-

Using Arduino with other software (Processing, Flash, PD, MaxMSP, etc.)

But lately it is full of people trying to interface their arduino with hardware.

I think the best example is the spammer who posted about a shoe website (I think it was shoes...) in the spam section ;D

Mowcius

Sounds like chitchats in a teacher's lounge. I've never been to one though ;D

We've been working hard to make this forum as good as possible. What annoys me most, besides, all the crying for help, is asking for help without telling the helpers whether the help was useful.

Kids these days are not raised to learn, just trained to be skilled workers and do paperwork. I hope we can teach them a thing or two regarding learning, at least they didn't come here because they had to. They might be willing to learn.

From what I have observed I think the best way to avoid the posts that keep asking the same questions is to organize the wiki in a better way and also make it obvious that the wiki is there.

Personally I find it really hard to find anything in the wiki unless I have seen it before and know exactly where it is.

Also searching the forums can be pretty cumbersome because of the google search that it uses. Google rates material very loosely when it comes to content. They tend to favor number of views and how recent the content is. If I post a question... then try to use the search to find an answer... usually I just get my question. The forum search should be based solely on the forum and not include any other results.

That being said... I think some sort of quiz for new users could help filter out these repetitive questions. If they had to answer questions about what they learned from the wiki then they might learn a little and actually figure out their answer on their own.

I haven't responded to a lot of posts recently because of the repetitiveness. Of if I do I just tell them to search the forum for the particulars. We can only explain a stand alone arduino so many ways... it should come up in any search at this point.

what wiki?

there's the playground where most of it is outdated and a complete vomit of formatting

might as well be a down loadable collection of text files, and good luck

What annoys me most, besides, all the crying for help, is asking for help without telling the helpers whether the help was useful.

What I find most annoying (here, and on other forums, too), is when someone asks for help (and describes the problem in detail), and then someone posts to say they'll help them, then a final post by the OP stating "thank you for the help" or "I got it to work - thank you!" - without ever stating what they did to fix the problem, or what the help is that they received to fix the problem!

I find this scenario often when I am searching for help on a variety of issues - hardware, software, PC/OS configuration, etc. Its so annoying! If they would only take a small amount of time to post what they did to fix the issue, they could help so many more people, and contribute back to this great time waster we call the internet...

:slight_smile:

I find this discussion very interesting. As a newbie to micros and to any forum , I have found myself guilty of a couple of the above.

I have no idea what a sticky is, and how members progress through to Gods or whatever, the help function does not mention these.

Yesterday I added to a post I made a couple of weeks back about software, and my new enquiry was about hardware for the same project.
I instantly spotted my mistake and apologised , then moved to hardware.

I do thank you guys for help I have received, and say what I did to get each project going.

I am amazed that I have managed to get 3 of my 4 first projects running, and it would not have been possible without the help of all you guys. My code is probably a joke , but the satisfaction of seeing my first attempt, a 2 axis cnc machine, running on my own software was unforgettable - I watched it for hours.

I think part of the frustration is the massive growth of the Arduino community itself.
It seems only a week ago we were going to hit 30,000 members, now there are 30738, that's a hundred a day, most of whom will be like kids opening their Christmas presents with this new-found portal to micros.
I for one have raved to all my electronic pals about Arduino, and I am sure they do the same, its a bit like an exponential chain letter I am afraid.

So Mike, its not just you being hit on for your knowledge and experience, as the Captain said in Jaws, " I think we need a bigger boat "

Jeff K was right when he points out that searches are rather confusing.
I have found some very helpful pages in response to a search, but can never find them again, and each "arduino" page is a different colour or style.
Some of the libraries are out of date, and I am not quite sure where to check for the latest update.

Re the "help me, how do I start " posts, for those of us used to soldering irons instead of compilers, a lot of time could be lost by going back to square one, or changing to plan B, when an idea wasn't working.
Later on we realise we can just reload the last working sketch.

A couple of years ago on holiday in Ireland, we stopped at a rural shop to ask directions , and the owner said " You want to go to Cork ? to be sure I wouldn't have started from here ! "

So sometimes we ask for a little pointer to see which road you experienced guys would start out on, instead of starting off on a stupid attempt.

Just my 10 cents worth, thanks again for all the help.

John

there's the playground where most of it is outdated and a complete vomit of formatting

Lets be honest, there has been quite a bit of it that has now been updated with the new design but I have to agree that quite a lot of it still has errors and does need a proper update/re-doing...

Mowcius

Hai
Mike

Our new members tried to twitt..at arduino forum.I guess..just guess.

Jeck