I have been doing embedded systems for a while and have been coming across posts from this forum (typically through a google search) for several years now. My take away from reading threads on here is almost always that I would not want to be part of that community because it appears to discourage people from learning this technology?
Why does it appear that there is a large population of members who's only contribution is pouncing on new members to assert their knowledge of forum etiquette in a condescending tone? Why do so many posts contain a member demanding that the poster provide the full code and schematics then the member never contributes to the original request, even when it is pretty obvious that the entire code and schematics are not necessary to help the poster with their request?
I get it. This is how people act everywhere to some degree. But why does it seem to an outsider like me that this behavior is more prevalent on this site than others similar sites?
Is that truly how this community wants to be portrayed and represented? Is it really in the best interest of this community to treat new members badly because they did not follow rule #142 correctly or something?
As I alluded to before, I get the impression that the goal of this community is to discourage newcomers from learning and adopting the arduino platform. I don't really believe that, but it sure seems that way to an outsider and I can only imagine how it feels to someone who is struggling to learn a new technology and on the brink of giving up when they come here for guidance and community but instead find rude nerds trying to display their dominance in forum rules knowledge.
Many will not return for a second dose of abuse and for those who do join, a precedent has been set that impolite behavior towards new members is tolerated and accepted/expected.
I personally suspect that this community would flourish if the negative and rude attitudes towards new members were reigned in. You have no way of quantifying how many people read those posts from google search results and decide that they are better off without joining forum.arduino.cc.
That is your impression and you are welcome to it. The question you pose is one that you are best situated to answer for yourself.
However, your post is vague, makes unsupported claims, and does not inspire confidence that you have done an impartial analysis and comparison of several forums, in order to arrive at your impression.
If you compare, for example, this forum, run by volunteers, with the Adafruit forum, keep in mind that the Adafruit forum is administered and closely monitored by paid Adafruit professionals, who are required to behave and respond to posts in certain ways, or they lose their jobs.
One (e pluribus) point that is not correct. What is condescending about asking users to follow rules?
There is a new users who does nothing but points-troll and badger other new users to "read the rules" even after a dozen posts have gotten past the initial etiquette faux pas, and on with the hardware/software advice. I don't like that user either. You (username_arduino_forum) can say that about that user without getting banned. That same user stalks me (all activities are easily followed) and flags my posts every chance. This post will probably get flagged by that user and yanked, and I will get the sin bin... again... but those are the rules, and I'm fine with them. So, don't tell the world the problem is just the crusty, old, monoliths. I disagree with you, strongly.
He's not alone. They are not "vague and unsubstantiated", they are real and tangible. Denial of the problem is one of the symptoms.
This endless obsession with categorization and formality is counterproductive. Lack of a mission statement and agreement of adherence to earn promotion is needed.
The forum itself could be more helpful by having separate fields for code, schematic, pictures, and not posting until minimums are met will help vs the current system of only one field and relying on noobs to code tag.
I've told pert this place is a sewer and needs to be cleaned out and got banned for a week over misuse of flagging.
If you cannot offer SOMETHING of help, BE SILENT! Offer "how to post" only AFTER offering at least a WORD of advice, or a leading, pertinate Q. Noobs face a barrage of "you're too stupid for us to help" messaging when faced with those replies. HELP FIRST, then natter about formatting.
This is a society. Society can not function without categorization and formality.
I agree.
How does one take a single person (in a group of thousands) from "I want codes" to void loop() without the formality of command-response.
"I want code"...
"Post your code to get help with code"...
"Just give me code")
(next follow the things you are referencing)
Then what is next @madmark2150 ? I have taught many people many things (outside of this now-fun-hobby). If the requester does not follow a formality and just wants, then the learning machine does not function... not due to me, my attitude, my content, my methods. The recipient must follow established, provable procedures. That's how "we" learn.
Remember, I agree with your "help first" sentiment... but we split on sending the message. I think I understand you, but I totally disagree with the following statement: "It is not what you say, it is how you say it." Content is content. Context is context.
@username_arduino_forum ,
There is some truth in what you say and others have made similar comments. What frustrates me about the people who make these comments is that they make reasonable complaints, but do nothing about it.
Please, if you care about this then participate in the forum and set a good example.
There needs to be a feedback mechanism. Like put in a ratings slider on the "solved" button to rate the help received that ties into a cumulative rating for that user. Better help/more often = better rating.
I can't build that for the site, but you can.
On what do you base your claim that I can build what you suggest? The site, as you know, is an instance of Discourse. Look at Discourse's own website and find out what it can do. Use that knowledge to make suggestions to improve this website.
The response to "I want code" is "we want to help, but need more information".
This is NOT the average user. Average user asks for help and gets barrage of "how to post" messages, like its a contest to see who can post fastest with the least practical help.
Even if the post is clearly a homework demand, doesn't mean you should be snide. It never hurts to be polite in explaining WHY more help isn't being offered.
Signup should require agreement to adherence to a code of conduct to always strive to be both polite and helpful.
You want everyone else to invest time & effort in coding and redesigning and learning. Is there not a site guru that already knows how to build this stuff? What assurance do I have that if I take the time and effort to rewrite the site it'll get used?! If I have to do that I'll just set up my OWN, competing, site -- its the same amount of work.
I'm a friggen end user, NOT an admin. It's not a user responsibility, its an admin's job. Who is responsible for site QA? You got a code review process? What is it? Are the any coding standards? What are they? LOOK IT UP is a typical crap answer on this site.
One of my first q's here I posted a snippet of code and got blasted for not posting the entire 2500 lines. I post the whole thing and then one of the responses was "read the code", NO (expletive deleted), SHERLOCK!
You can handle the time wasters and those of us GIVING OUR FREE TIME TO HELP THOSE WHO WANT TO LEARN by wasting your time coddling the ones who won't do a thing, won't read a thing (type it for me... noooo, do it again or you're a bad person!) and the outright Trolls, please come here and SHOW US ALL how to handle it as perfectly as you expect.
I don't expect that. I just want you to think about what you demand as if you're boss of us all.
You want to put those kind of demands on my time, pay for it.
You expect way too much for FREE HELP, here's something to think about:
I look at threads and only help when I think it's worth it. Most I can't or they are getting plenty of good advice but sometimes I can pour an hour into for nothing -- I would dearly LOVE for YOU to come in and square it all away with smiles all around!
You do know that I am an unpaid volunteer like you don't you? Yes? No? You are asking me to give up more of my time to work on your pet Idea for improving the forum. Guess what? I'm not going to do that. If you don't want to do it, fine, but don't complain when someone else doesn't want to do it either.
@username_arduino_forum Don't be alarmed; it is a long message with hopefully a lot of informative content. I'm also sorry that I couldn't read all of the previous messages because I wrote this one. Hopefully I won't repeat anything here.
We don't want to discourage anyone from learning; the forum is also there to get quick answers, which are then simply not explained, but just work like that (we might need an extra category "Learning by Doing" or something for that. In fact, there are always annoyed users who in the chat they often just let their feelings out, but usually somehow have a reason for it. That may not always have something to do with the topic - many already know each other here, and if you are bad/angry and you notice it in post X ", then you can see that in the next posts (Y, Z) somehow. Because then you have linked the user to something bad. But if you have the feeling that you are being treated badly for no reason, then you should simply report the push button!
In addition, the code is often asked for. They say you don't need it - that may be true. But it's kinda more practical and you see more of the project someone is doing..... Just my opinion though; doesn't have to be right.
But I have to agree with you on the rules. Often it is only written: Read this and that and reformulate your question. It's not good, especially for beginners, to only get a link that you then have to read through for a quarter of an hour and learn that there are no people here who give personalized answers and maybe the answer doesn't help at all. (I actually wanted to start such a topic soon) If I see something wrong with someone (forgetting something), I rewrite every text for each person because it's just nicer and you build a better relationship with people.
Now for the rude nerds: yes, that can happen. But that's also because someone has already posted it umpteen times and it gets boring/annoying at some point. But you do it simply because you hope you're doing something good for the forum - but that doesn't always happen. Therefore: I agree with you: an annoying undertone should not be there.
You've started a discussion here that probably won't end any time soon; probably rightly so. But the longer people write here now; Sooner or later there will be a negative comment.
How do you imagine learning new technologies? What needs to be done differently? What would you like to change to make the forum better?
Here I have another question: on which pages do you not appear that often? Do you have an example? But it can also be because we are simply a community of millions, where a lot happens every day and a fraction of it is nasty messages from nasty/stupid people and most admins and moderators or other users don't want that; they are strictly against it. But with so many messages, you can't ban every single one because it's no use; it's useless as the "bad" people just keep going.
Humans are creatures of habit; and in the first few weeks/months in the forum, active users associate a lot with the username and profile picture: whether you are good/bad, smart/dumb, interested/bored, annoying/nice. No matter how you, as the writer, then try to change something to be nice, the reader, who has already associated something negative with you, will not be quick to shake it off. (My theory)
I hope I was able to give a successful insight into the Arduino forum. Also, I wish you the best of luck in revamping the forum to make it better and more beautiful than it's ever been!
with love,
cloudDev
LOOK IT UP often means I just did using your words and yup, loads of answers I don't have to type...
Why post a question before seeing what is available already?
Why post a question just to wait for a reply asking for details?
Why NOT learn enough to ask informed questions that merit good answers rather than questions that have no good answers but get better educated or start with something easier and work up like WE did.