Whats wrong with raschemmel?
Only you can answer that question for yourself. Everyone has their own opinion. It is up to you to find the truth by reading a member's posts.
The forum provides a way for you to do that:
Click on the member's name just above their Avatar.
You will see the following Links:
Send PM
Show Posts
Show Stats
Click on "Show Posts"
You will be taken to a page that shows a numbered list of that member's posts.
At the top of the screen you will see a message in small print that says this:
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
On the left side of the screen you will see a small label that says "Page [1]" , indicating you are on page 1 of a reverse numbered list ("1 being latest (newest) page and the last number being OLDEST page".
The post numbers on the left are also in a chronollogically reverse list with "1" being latest (newest) post and the last number being the oldest post.
When reading a member's post you must follow certain judging rules established by order of priority since there is more there (in the post) than meets the eye. On the face of it , you see a comment , but if you read the content of the comment and think about it, you will see that some comments are addressing the OP's (Original Poster's) behavior and methods, rather than the OP's actions.
For example:
an OP posts for help with an LED. (no schematic is given, no code is posted)
As you read the replies of the members responding to the posts, it becomes evident that the OP is ignoring many replies and not responding to each one in turn. He/she is picking and choosing which replies to respond to. Keep in mind that the member's replying to the post , whether they admit it or not , are competing for the OP's karma clicks .(occasionally it becomes necessary to actual TELL the OP HOW to thank responding members by explaining the karma click mechanism, because some members (one was from Russia) think that the karma click mechanism is a NEGATIVE tool used to indicate you DO NOT LIKE that particular member ("Traditionally, karma is negative" was the explaination for that misunderstanding by the Russian member). The karma click mechanism is a forum tool to THANK a member for being helpful, by clicking on the "Add" button just to the right of that member's karma count. A member's karma count indicates how members have thanked that member for being helpful. Some members (usually ones who don't have a lot of karma), try to play it down as insignificant or irrelevant.
Some member's when challenged by another member will cite their karma count and compare it to the karma count of someone criticizing them with the comment "
"Judging from your karma count , you have been busier criticizing other members than helping other members " or some such comment. The member's responding to a post are competing for karma counts whether they like it or not because in the end, if the OP's issue is resolved by the comments of one particular member, they will click on that member's karma button to "give them karma". This being the case, some member's will be obsequious and flattering to try to win a karma click by being nice. Other , more experienced and older members, will tell the OP whatever they think , whether it is complementary or not , knowing that the OP is best served by knowing the truth. This will be obvious by comments like "You need to stop fumbling around and start being systematic and take notes" or "research your topic on Google before posting" or "You need to be more organized and methodical instead of just poking around and relying on trial and error for everything" or "if you spent more time researching your topic you wouldn't be in the situation you're in now" . All of these comments are critical and can be interpreted by the OP as negative or may actually offend or even anger the OP (prompting the OP to "stiff" them by withholding a karma point ). The older more experienced members don't care whether they get the karma click or not because they believe their mission is to help members, not collect karma clicks. I am one of the oldest (if not THE oldest member on the forum) and I fall into that category. There is one member who I believe is older but I will not say who that is.
Often what the OP needs, is not instructions for how to get a LED working but guidance on how to be more efficient and systematic in their approach. Often the "problem" is NOT that the led doesn't work. That is only a symptom. The problem is often the OP is just plain lazy or careless, and won't take the time to read a datasheet or Google their topic , or read every reply posted on their thread. When you see an OP NOT responding to reples that contain technical detail or instructions, it is often because the OP has no clue what that member just said and is too embarrassed to say so. Sometimes it is necessary to tell the OP that they screwed up or that they are careless or lazy etc because ultimately only then can they change their behavior. Otherwise, the led that doesn't work will only be the first of a long list of posts for things that don't work.
Sometimes it is necessary to ignore the led and focus on the OP who are their own worst enemy. Telling them the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth always comes with the risk of offending the OP. Some members only care about getting the karma click and won't tell the OP what they really need to hear . (I am not one of those. I tell the OP what I think based on what they posted, and how they deal with it is their problem , not mine).As long as what I am telling them is the truth, that's all that matters. I'm not running for office.
I will be the first to admit that I tend to be blunt and occasionally people are offended because they don't like being told they are lazy or careless.
(ie: "if you took 5 seconds to Google "[etc], you would not need to post with this question")
At this point I should mention that 90% of the complaints by "Newbies" about Google not being helpful is due to the fact they have included the word "arduino" at the beginning of their keyword search string.
Google sorts all links about arduino related topics together so if you fail to include the word "arduino" at the beginning of their search string, you will get ALL the links related to the topic and you will have to sift through them to find the arduino related links.
You will notice when reading other members posts that some are always one liners and some are long and detailed. Obviously,the one liners still count as posts and increment their post count so members who typically post one liners will always have a higher post count. Members who post mostly long and detailed posts will tend to have lower post counts. Members with high post counts and high karma counts have either been around a long time or have been very busy and helpful.
You be the judge.
Last but not least, if you want to evaluate another member quickly without spending a lot of time reading their posts, you can click on their name, look at the date they registered, devide their post count by the years elapsed since they registered to obtain their Posts /per year count. Then divide their karma count by the years elapsed since registration to obtain their karma /per year count. You can also divide their karma count by their post count to get their karma per post count (with 1:1 ratio being the highest possible ), which you can then multiply by 100.
xl97: Registered Aug 2009
Posts: 1611
Karma: 89
Years Member: 7
Posts/Year: 230
Karma/Year: 12
Karma/Post *100: 5
pwillard: Register Nov, 2008
Posts: 1999
Karma: 69
Years Member: 8
Posts/Year: 249
Karma/Year: 8.5
Karma/Post *100: 3.45
Note: I added something to Reply#13