If we were a bit.. lower with our standards i would know what to say about what could be done about that thing.. guy.. kid.. whatever.
For once it would be great to show him a way of being less annoying instead of being more annoying with every single post.
Come to think of it - we may teach him not to write a new thread for each and every little thought that might come to his mind.
I've been running a relatively large Linux community site here for the last 10 years. I've had my deal of being drawn into senseless talks, later to discover the person is just playing or mentally unstable, then have everyone unleash their hate on him then he plays the victim, then someone with a soft heart decides to find something good in him etc. The game continues.
The most important thing is not to forget the purpose of this community - share specific knowledge. My personal experience shows that such characters are easier to be left alone, them shouting, us - doing our own business. At the end they wear out, and as no energy is received they go on to bother somebody else.
I am pretty sure they have hard time in the real world though, but don't know what to do about that. In every population some are lost to madness.
This thread was not dedicated to who you might think.
Example:
There is a lot of posts that starts like:
Excuse me if this is in the wrong part of the forum
This could easily be omitted by having a sticky called Read this before posting or something, that states simple examples on typical thread titles in each of the sub-forums. (In addition to the rules and general info)
Anyways, in order to fulfill mirchos prophesy; I know for a fact that who you might think is a good kid. He has added me on msn, and I've had a few conversations with him.
I am sure he does not try to 'bother' us.
It might seem so because our set of norms are very different from those existant in forums mostly populated by children.
As of now, we have no way of refering to these norms and one can only learn them by
A) reading a lot of threads (which most of os do, and all should do)
B) getting a lot of angry PMs
I propose:
C) reading a list of rules and expecations in a concise text, written by someone with authority
AlphaBeta, this thread was a good idea. Great job!
Personally, I think that all of the spammers like KevinDuino need to be banned. Not just accounted banned, IP banned.
But macegr's idea about an Arduino specific Captcha is a really great idea. It needs to be something tough, though... like, "How many pins did pre-Diecimilla (sp?) boards have?", or, "What's the recommended serial voltage for an XBee?"
Captcha is a really great idea. It needs to be something tough, though
Two things...
I thought the point of the Arduino was to get the artists, designers, and hobbyists engaged in connecting computers to the physical world. Having a tough "captcha" would certainly eliminate the vast majority of the intended audience.
Having such a "captcha" would have eliminated me. I'll leave it to your judgement to determine if that is a good or bad thing.
In any community there will be loud people, and quiet people. People with a lot of knowledge, people with little knowledge. These will combine themselves in interesting ways. I'd rather leave it up to individuals to decide whom to listen to, and whom to ignore.
Maybe if the forums had a rating system, so we could + / - people we thought were helpful. Those with much knowledge would get brought up by the many people who found their information useful.
Having to answer a quiz like "What's the recommended serial voltage for an XBee?" before you could register for the forums would certainly have driven me away from what I've found to be a really wonderful community.
There's never going to be a perfect signal to noise ratio. So far, the signal here far outstrips the noise.
Right....plus we only have to endure it, what, three more months until school's running again?
and at that age.. let's hope he will find other interests soon enough coughpokemon/girls/bikes/miniaturecarscough
I agree with AlphaBeta in Reply #42.
It is safe to assume that some of the artists, designers, and hobbyists interested in using the Arduino have never participated in a technical forum. It is also safe to assume that some of the intended audience have never connected a computer to the physical world, don't know the terminology, aren't skilled in the nuances of the English language, etcetera.
I've participated in a few online forums for ... let's just say a few years. 
I have some familiarity with programming and microcontrollers.
This is the first technical forum I've found that didn't have some sort of guidelines for the first time user. It took me about an hour to understand where things should go, how replying worked (e.g. replies are not threaded), how to include code, etcetera. I found out about http://arduino.pastebin.com/ purely by accident.
If I had difficulty getting started, imagine how intimidating it would be for someone starting from scratch? I'm afraid the lack of initial guidance turns away talented folks who otherwise would be willing to participate.
I propose:
C) writing a list of rules and expecations in a concise text, written by someone with authority
While I certainly do not claim to be someone with authority, I will propose the first rule...
Code less than or equal to 30 lines should be included in the message
Code more than 30 lines should be saved at http://arduino.pastebin.com/ with a link included in the message
When saving code at http://arduino.pastebin.com/ be sure to select C++ Syntax Highlighting
Be mindful of the retension; if the code is a final working result, it should be saved forever
Brian
As suggestion for some rules i would propose the following:
Replies should not contain less than 10 characters. 'Thanks' and such are ok though. Although 'Thank you for your help' should be doable by everyone ;0)
Code, no matter how it was posted, should always have context. Without knowing whats going on help is very hard to achieve
"Use search/google" Answers should be banned and burned completely. There is nothing more pi**ing someone off than such answers. I know there is always a lot of redundancy in the questions people ask, but for that should be..
... a sticky post in EVERY subforum containing links to some sort of peer generated FAQ as well as Playground/wiki. this FAQ should contain the most asked 100 questions or so...
So some kid goes screaming through our quiet little town and now we talk about making rules.
The rules will be generated based on the most vocal pet peeves that some have. A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.
Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town.
That's why a moderator is needed to ban the idiot before too many of the town folks start chasing after the idiot screaming through our little town!
and at that age.. let's hope he will find other interests soon enough coughpokemon/girls/bikes/miniaturecarscough
pokemon-LAME
girls-get dumped >>
Bikes-BOOOOOOORING >>
minaturecars-they would sit there
im not a normal 11 year old, i never PLAY. I BUILD, CREATE, IMAGINE.
the 3 main things arduino does =D
BroHogan
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Re: Forum Etiquette
Reply #50 - 16.05.2009 at 19:00:01 So some kid goes screaming through our quiet little town and now we talk about making rules.The rules will be generated based on the most vocal pet peeves that some have. A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.
Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town.
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george_graves
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Re: Forum Etiquette
Reply #51 - Yesterday at 02:16:00 That's why a moderator is needed to ban the idiot before too many of the town folks start chasing after the idiot screaming through our little town!
if your talking about me, im not used to being in a adult community, dont flame me cuz im not used to it.
i alrighty got a nub sweraing at me and up my butt, i dont need any more >_>
A list will be compiled that will never go anywhere because there is no one to coordinate it, implement it, and enforce it.
The list is not, or rather; would not be, the problem. The lack of someone who can enforce it is.
Should the rules somehow be implemented, the result will be rules that are never read by people who occasionally come screaming through our quiet little town.
The screamers are not the problem that this thread tries to set a focus on.
It would me much simpler for people to contribute if they could read a summary on the arduino way, and then behave as expected.
...im not used to being in a adult community, dont flame me cuz im not used to it.
I think this is a key fact.
Maybe a 'Read this before posting!' sticy would've 'helped', but then again, maybe not.
Never the less, I really want a set of rules or guidelines. It would make things a lot simpler.
Yes, I agree. By all means, set up some rules of etiquette.
How about a rule that covers unanswered questions. Questions that go unanswerd for days, while others before and after are receiving several replies and discussion. Certainly with all the technical knowledge on this board, no question should go unanswered.
Can't somebody monitor these things. If for some reason the question is unanswerable, or, more likely, nobody wants to, a monitor could just tell the questioner, "Sorry, we can't answer your question", or "Sorry nobody wants to answer your question.", or try to find out why the question remains unanswered.
For example, "SD/MMC from the ground up" received a flurry of interest at first, with many of the arduino 'gurus' (gurus in the midst) asking several questions and adding lots of discussion, indicating that they had it down pat. Later, when someone asked questions about the subject, he received no replies. He was practically begging for help, still, after days, no response. I thought it would be helpful to post a question, in bar sports, as to what happened to the interest in "SD/MMC from ground up", and mentioned that someone was seeking help with the subject. No response to that either.
I advised the person to post a question directly with the author of the subject, and I sent a message to the author as well, asking him to help. Well, the author responded and helped the young person get his system in operation. The young person sent a message to me, thanking me for my help.
'Gurus in the midst', indeed it should be 'gurus in the mist'. I get the impression that the gurus have an inordinate control over this board. Yes, I understand that they have a vast store of technical knowledge, and they are the ones that know the answers, which makes me wonder why they refuse to answer questions sometimes. Its almost as if everyone waits for one of them to answer first, and therefore give the nod that its alright to answer this question. Often what happens is that some upstart newbie will give it a shot, and try to help.
One of the posts put out, sometime back, stated that nobody has to answer a question if he doesn't want to. Fussing and fuming about the bad manners of an 11 year old kid, I consider the refusal to answer a question asked, by someone seeking help, as bad manners.
By the way, I'm a 65 year old upstart, smartbutt newbie, have posted questions (some answered, some not), and have tried to help other newbies when I could. I've also posted statements that apparently annoyed one or more of the oldtimers. (one in particular), so you can put me in the same category as you have placed the 11 year old.
Patrick
@pakrat
For what its worth, anyone thats taken from Arduino .. like me, tries to "put back in" when the opportunity arises. At least, thats what I've observed in my time here.
After you've been here for a while and found your way around the Arduino-jargon, it becomes easier finding answers yourself using the search, provided you know to use the "home page google search", not the forum search.
When I was new, I had trouble knowing "how" to ask the right question without sounding stupid due to my greenness. But the only reason I asked "sometimes", is because I didn't know what to search for, and at the time, the google search hadn't been implemented.
Most people that have been here a while and have something to contribute, will help others time and opportunity permitting. Otherwise, some people swing by for a quick look, help if its possible, then get back to their "real-world" activities. Unfortunately, in between visits, its easy to miss a few hundred posts - because the forum software isn't able to tell a member which posts they haven't viewed yet.
As mentioned by Nachtwind, I also think a very large number of issues would be resolved by upgrading to SMF. Unfortunately there are issues migrating from flat-file Yabb, to mySql SMF, but hopefully an upgrade is a matter of when, rather than "if".
SMF hosts a variety of options that are compatible with many of the suggestions made in this thread, but I'm not sure if this thread is being read by those who are in control of the Yabb software, or even if they've considered an upgrade would be of benefit to the community.
So it might be nice to hear the thoughts of Arduino's present moderators, and if this discussion has the potential to bring about much needed change.
//OFF
You can view the last 25 posts on the forum with this URL:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?action=recent;display=25
Using the link on the front page of the forum you can view only the last 10, and 25 is some limit in the software.
I consider the refusal to answer a question asked, by someone seeking help, as bad manners.
Hmm. Not in a forum context, I think. It would be incredibly worse if everyone who didn't know the answer posted a polite "I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to your question." The sort of "question tracking" you're implying should exist is characteristic of a "customer support" organization with paid employees and a lot of infrastructure. I guess google code and/or Sourceforge has provisions for bug/question tracking, and might be bent into such a purpose, but in my experience you're less likely to to get meaningful responses there than in Arduino forum anyway, even to real bugs.
kevin, I am sorry to say that your ignorance of proper manner in a mature forum such as this is no excuse for your somewhat inappropriate activity on here, and although I am not to fond of pointing specific people out, I must say that those who have admonished some of your behavior probably had the right to do so (and with good intentions, of course)