What to do about members who consistantly give wrong advice?

The person to whom I think you are referring has a karma of 16 right now, which is more than some who post sensible advice. This is why I think karma is a waste of time.

I'm not sure there is a simple solution. Some of the stuff he (she?) says aren't totally correct, but you could say that about a few other posters.

Perhaps if the moderators send a PM when things are clearly incorrect, or at least, not provably correct, just to slow him/her down.

I suspect the subject is an avrfeaks reject, and thought s/he would take it out on the noobs here.

That would be a new low, even for that Nerd Barbecue (nothing but weenies and flamers). As always, I am proud to say that in thirty plus years of forums and websites, I have only been banned from ONE.. avrfreaks.. for the crime of pushing back on a MODERATOR who responded to my FIRST POST (an introduction, in the forum labelled "off topic") with profanity and nasty remarks about how I ought to "go where all the F*&%&^% idiots go, over at the Arduino site". There is a reason that even Atmel has distanced themselves from that "warm spot" in the gene pool...

Is this poster actually giving bad advice intentionally? I would make a point of informing him that it won't be tolerated, and if it continues, take it as an intentional attack and just lock him down for a while.

focalist:
That would be a new low, even for that Nerd Barbecue (nothing but weenies and flamers). As always, I am proud to say that in thirty plus years of forums and websites, I have only been banned from ONE.. avrfreaks.. for the crime of pushing back on a MODERATOR who responded to my FIRST POST (an introduction, in the forum labelled "off topic") with profanity and nasty remarks about how I ought to "go where all the F*&%&^% idiots go, over at the Arduino site". There is a reason that even Atmel has distanced themselves from that "warm spot" in the gene pool...

**Actually there has been a real improvement in user friendliness in recent times on the avrfreaks site. They have really started to apply peer pressure to the members that use to like to flame noobs and almost anything Arduino. They have seen the light and have really cleaned up the behaviour on the site as whole, still an occasional flame but the normal users do a pretty good job on pushing back on such behaviour. I still most just 'read the mail there' and don't often post unless I have a 'real intelligent questions' to ask. :smiley: **

Is this poster actually giving bad advice intentionally? I would make a point of informing him that it won't be tolerated, and if it continues, take it as an intentional attack and just lock him down for a while.

Yeah I think Freaks is OK these days, like Lefty I really just lurk unless an interesting topic comes up but I don't see too much goings on.


Rob

edit: (okay, found out about the karma, no need to answer)

John_S... Gaston? At least here if the code don't run, people will know.

Just what are the implications of forum karma?

None AFAIK. Just some kudos for those with large numbers and an implied inference (is there any other type of inference?) that they have been helpful.

That said some very knowledgeable members can be a bit terse and presumably get fewer karmas even though they are helpful.

As we've said all along, it's not a very useful metric for anything. At least we don't have the minus karma button any more, that was a total farce.


Rob

That said some very knowledgeable members can be a bit terse

What!

That said some very knowledgeable members can be a bit terse

Huh?

You heard me.


Rob

!

That said some very knowledgeable members can be a bit terse

If I understand correctly, this thread is an example. http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,132180.0.html
or this: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,132011.0.html

Well they are both excellent examples of how not to ask a question.
A question has to convey enough information for a reader to understand the situation. Posting without punctuation is one way of making things incomprehensible.

I love this:

i am making a custom code scanner using 2 rows of black and white the bottom row is black white black white etc it is 8 bit so 4 white 4 black
...
dude you do understand my sentences without capitals, like i said.

He wants help, but first, he isn't prepared to use capitals or punctuation, and second, he insults the people he wants help from.

Was that in a thread?

BTW, I made the mistake of wading in on that SPI thread :frowning:


Rob

I said this to him:

I really don't know what you are trying to do. You are doing an SPI.transfer in the middle of the ISR?

You send back data to the master by assigning to SPDR in the interrupt service routine. No other way. What are you thinking?

So what does he do?

 if(c == 0x04)
  {
    digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[0]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[1]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
   
   digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[2]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[3]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
   
   digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[4]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[5]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
 }
 
  else if(c == 0x06)
  {
   digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[6]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[7]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
   
   digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[8]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[9]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
   
   digitalWrite(SS, LOW);
  SPI.transfer(dat[10]);
  SPI.transfer(dat[11]);
   digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
 }

That falls into the category of "another way".

Here's the problem, Rob.

He'll thank you. He'll totally change what you did into something completely different. He'll take a screenshot of the output of his new, incorrect code. And he'll ask what is wrong. He's been doing that since August.

Yeah, I've been watching, which makes me doubly stupid :slight_smile: I'll give him a few responses then bow out if he's not being lucid. Life's too short.


Rob