Just an observation...

[TomW]

I am guilty of it myself [responding to off topic comments in stories].

It just strikes me as crazy that a person can open a story on, say, rectifier wiring and by the time the story fades everything but that topic is posted as comments to that story.

It just seems kind of unfriendly to the original poster. I think we all have participated in it at some level in the past.

I would propose that we investigate ways to fix this issue. Since very few here seem capable of restraining themselves from the practice perhaps the honor system will not work and more positive methods will need to be employed.

This is a request for comments on the issue.

Any deviation from this Diary topic in comments will be removed with prejudice by me.

Tom

[dinges]

Agreed. I notice myself doing it sometimes and not liking it. Rude and inappropriate. Yet at the same time feeling the need to respond to something that's off-topic but urgent enough to comment on.

Peter.

[Reno]

How about a subtle reminder to the one who posts off topic. Keep it polite and suggest a new post be generated if the person would like his issue discussed.

[scottsAI]

To whom it may concern.

Over all people seem to like the forum here.

I keep seeing post from readers, telling how informative this forum is.

If you don't like an off topic comment... NOBODY is making you read it.

Yes, many have responded to off-topic comments or made them.

Since this does happen, it seams to be the way things are.

Why do people always try to fix something NOT broke?

Do we have a lot of control freaks?

Often I learn more from the off topic than on topic.

Just because a person has started a topic does not make them the owner. This is an open forum. I have talked to more than one person that has stopped posting here because of all the negative comments by persons that ASSUME the person posting is an idiot or has not done their home work before posting. The person did, just to keep things simple did not write a whole page explaining what they did.

If poster don't like the replies, then try again later. But then you would see the complaint it's a repeat.

What is with all the complaining??

How about if you "don't have any thing nice to say, then don't say anything?"

Should we all assume a person is a rocket scientist first then find out they are not?

The judged quality posts are on the front page...

Just stick with that if you don't like all the rift raft.

Remember to Have fun,

Scott.

[DanB]

I think it sort of depends on the situation and just how far off topic things are getting.  There are surely 'freindships' developed on a board like this and often times folks find that they're neighbors or have something else in common etc..

I think Tom is just trying to say - keep things within reason, be aware that for the most part comments should remain on topic.  If you want to get into a deep discussion with someone about something else - thats way off topic, perhaps use email.  As an admin - if anyone wants someone elses email thats not displayed feel free to email us - and then we'll forward that to the other party (we don't give out email addresses w/o permission but Im happy to forward stuff along to any user).

Overall it goes pretty well here - I think Tom has a valid point though - it's something for us all to keep in mind.  Any discussion about dogs is obviously always 'on topic'! ;~)

[sandovalch]

I agree with Reno on the issue that if the post is off-topic, the person should post another topic for discussion.

But I also have to agree on that sometimes the off-topic posts have good information and lead to more interesting things.

It depends on the people who post their comment and its their decision if the topic gets "out of hand". I have to agree on the issue that this is a "discussion forum" and that everybodys point of view is appreciated as long as no "rude" language is used.  

Just my opinion. Ch.S.

[SmoggyTurnip]

I don't see why a poster can't say "Hi I am your neighbour" without everyone getting in an uproar.

.

[Bruce S]

I would have to plead guilty to those charges in the past, but if I find they're getting long to take it to my email/IM route

However, would like to say that one of the things that drew me away from other forums was their strict tunnel-visioned rules for usage.

I like the idea of having a forum that is like going fishing or a pizza/beer gathering:A topic comes up  and tangents happen, yet somewhere along the line the topic gets answered and others lessons or information is a value-added plus.

I have also noticed that some of the off-topic items have gotten hateful which is a real big turn off.

IMHO: I would say to try and keep the discussions on topic but if off-topic items creep up, it's okay but try to keep them short a civil, and totally cut out the rude personal slamming.

Just my 1/2 cents worth

Cheers!

Bruce S

 

[harrie]

I take no negative issue with most off topics on my posts, and have at times thought about not posting at all. I dont like nagative sarcasiam about anything.

I do think constructive criticism is a very good learning tool, and I also know that some of you on this site do more than your share to teach us what im sure you feel is basic electronics, and I might add you have done a very good job. I for one cant thank you enough for your help!

Great fun, Harrie

[DanG]

I'd like to comment on loose and easy forum manners - this isn't your house, not your workshop or back yard. I think Fieldlines is a world-class forum for achievable renewable energy and Fieldlines archives' the best year book for DIY'rs available, there are a billion English speaking people who 'could' be watching you while you unwind with a few beers at the keyboard... You blushing already? : )

I am only responding here to the things I myself would be likely to say if I hadn't been online close to twenty years and seen A LOT of people either mellow out or burn out as natural evolution progressed in a medium void of visual cues & clues. The following is just a little contrast and compare critique, no offense meant...

There are many readers here paying 10¢, 20¢ a minute or more to access this fine forum. Common courtesies should be adhered to. If you want to act out, engage in civil disobedience, support a mutual admiration society... do it elsewhere. I value my reader's attention & their effort to be here, there is NO excellence by attendance except in front of a television set. Why make the reader work harder?

I think the person posting the story does own it after a fashion, interrupting a goal-oriented & logical thread just to schmooze or memorialize some tangential stream of consciousness idea by publishing it wherever & whenever is convenient is embarrassing to watch unfold. ADMIN has my vote to sanitize posts when dogs lift their leg in the library so to speak.

No, this is not an anarchy and 'mob rules' do not apply. This is the best Yearbook of DIY Renewable Energy in the World. Best behavior please, the world is watching.

Is there a daily prize for hypocrisy, I think we have a winner : )

Anyhow - ADMIN, how about a dayglo colored font 'message' added when needed inviting the commenter to take a risk and post their idea, situation, or problem as a new post or diary when needed?

Thanks for reading this, y'all.

-

[KEG]

Yes No Maybe So

I for one maybe don't have alot of say in this area but for the last 6 mouths that I have been looking in here find it (1) entertaining with some of the off topic (2) informitive becouse alot of off topic do's have a different aproach or idea Ilike that. (3) The price of rice in China has nothing to do with a stator winding, just an example. Just my 3 cents. Thanks to all for help, ideas, and oppinions.

There are three kinds of people, those that make things happen, those that watch things happen, and those that whonder what happened.

Kevin

[oztules]

I don't agree DanG

What makes this forum "the forum" for RE etc, is its structure. It is mostly civil, it is mostly on topic, it is mostly friendly and from Danb's response it works mostly as he had intended.

To have something as dymanic as this board, with as many differing cultures and skill levels all playing in the same sandpit is a tribute to those participating and those controlling it. It is not one group or the other.

As with all areas of human endeavour, it's the differences that evoke both friction and excellence. Friendly competition pushes the limits of what we can do, logical progression does not.

Sometimes it is the aside comment or off the topic discussion that can lead to the information you hadn't thought to ask for but wanted to know.

It's no use having a Q+A session, if your not sure what question to ask, or if a particular idea hasn't jelled in your mind yet, but something unrelated may just make it click.

If the disemmination of information is all that is called for, then close down the discussion forum.. no discussion.

No forum is required to spread info on RE. A good FAQ and perhaps a question board, where once a day Flux and  Zubbly are wheeled out to answer questions would do the job admirably. The front page showing what the Dans are up to, and your  idea of RE Q+A would be achieved. Much less bandwidth, no administration required, no data base to maintain, easier for everyone.

I have had discussion with even the grumpiest people on the board re:same question over and over.

It gives em something to grumble about i think. If it was really beneath their dignity, then they would not even respond at all.

I don't think that was what was intended with this board.

I can't see people paying 10-20c/min for access. I have probably the worst access on the board (usually less than 1kbs), and yet I want it to continue in its present form. The asides sometimes answer questions you hadn't yet formed.

Sanitising it too much will cause the reason for its successful existance to disappear, like minded people sharing experience on a wide range of topics.

If the price for those thousands of life years worth of experience is some deviation from your idealised perfectly formed discussion occasionally, well small price to pay.

I don't feel that dehumanising the forum experience has any positive side benefit, and would lesson the reason I check with it every day... not so much for the info, but for the fellowship as well..... I'm not alone in this judging from the comments even from Danb.... Dogs are always on topic.  In your world maybe only as huskies, but for me, just for the friendship and for just being dogs.

I would hope that Tomw will see the responses and sabre rattle to keep us in line to some degree, whilst secretly letting it go.   (maybe shooting someone in the foot every now and again just to let us know he's watching)

......................oztules  partime threadjacker

[vawtman]

Tom I Think some postings (mine included)are so vague that things are forced off topic.I dont mind If the comments get a little out there.

I would still be mowing around the 8ft satellite dish instead of now using it has a solar collector.

   Being a vawt guy you get used to it.Deservatly so.Kidding dont reply. Good with the good ,bad with the bad.Lets have fun thats what this all about.

 Isnt it.

[Tom in NH]

I liked the comment that nobody is making you read the off-topic remark. Equally true, and maybe even more important, nobody is making you respond to the off-topic remark. I would hate to have to rely on the topic police to decide whether or not to remove a comment because of it's being off the topic. Self-policing would be better. If nobody responds to off-topic comments, it will go no further than the first one. If you have a hard time doing that, bite your tongue, or sit on your hands or something. --tom

[TomW]

Just what I had hoped for. Ideas. I am kind of busy tonight but after this sits a day or so I will respond to all of the comments.

Just as clarification:

I am more concerned with stories that start on some aspect of construction and end up discussing major rivers, someone's depression, etc and not the ones that end up discussing other aspects of the device under discussion.

The Diaries are the place for the cutesy stuff and pimping your website or activity.

My only real concern here is keeping this resource viable for the long term. As usually, I tend to draw fire like a radioman in combat when I state my concerns and opinions but, like the rest of you I get to state them.

Anyway on with the show.

T

[Reno]

It really only is an issue when the original poster is looking for advise or opinion as that poster is trying to accomplish something. If his post get diluted by off topic posts then there is an issue. I believe this was the thought behind the original post. If it is just someone posting a 'hey look' or 'this is what I think' then yes that is inviting open comment but when some posts for example

'having trouble with pouring my stator, help'

then a reply

'Here is how I did it' along with pic

then a third poster

'Hey nice stator does it have 9 or 12 coils'

The original poster has just been bumped and is left in the dark.

 

[2windy]

Thanks TomW  for bringing this to everyones attention, especially me cause I am always looking for help. Some guys can really make you feel like a jerk.

[Volvo farmer]

Many good comments here already. Probably 80% of my internet time for the last ten years has been reading forums such as this one. If you think this place is wild, go trapse around in the usenet for a while.

I think it's a natural phenomenon for people to hijack threads, it happens on every single forum I've ever visited. In the totality of this board, it does not appear to me that the hijacking of threads has become a problem of any significance.

What seems to be suggested here is a censoring of posts by the Admin or the moderator. That idea makes my skin crawl. There's already a pretty ruthless moderation of subjects on this board. I, myself, have had posts deleted, and didn't like it one bit. I think it would seriously disrupt the natural flow and evolution of topics for someone to come in and pick out the responses in a thread that were deemed "off-topic" by some arbitrary means and remove them.

Censorship is a very slippery slope. That's why I have always liked usenet so much. There's gold nuggets buried in that mountain of $#|+. It's completely uncensored so the task falls upon the guy with the mouse button to find what he wants to read.

Even though this is a private board, and is necessarily run by dicatators, it is also a public forum. When a person's ability to express themselves in public is thwarted by a more powerful entity, I think that is a bad thing. Of course, I realize the need and benefit of the moderation that goes on here. For the most part, it increases the ratio of gold nuggets to manure, and that is a good thing. However, I do think it's entirely possible that a hard-handed approach to this problem could eventually do more harm than good.

[wooferhound]

It never occured to me that there is a problem with off topic comments. In almost every situation where the discussion goes off, the original poster Thanks the other users for showing a side to the problem that they never thought of. I also agree that removal of comments to a post is scary to me. Important discussions may go off course in a positive way, but always return back to the Original Idea before dieing out.

My suggestion: Don't change anything regarding this matter.

[zubbly]

hey Tom!

i for one like it just like it is. its like sitting in a pub having a good discussion with a bunch of fellas and it gets side tracked now and again. but the side track generally is quite interesting, some times gets humorous, sometimes perhaps an off colour comment, but it is all taken in stride.

if i make a post or ask a question and it gets side tracked, personally i don't care. generally the answer i was looking for popped in there some place and often am glad that it did get side tracked a bit as it ended up touching on something quite interesting. any humor or gray matter remarks that get thrown into the stew pot, i rather enjoy, its my nature.

if something is not quite right, gets boring, uninteresting to take part in, it will burn the fuel quickly and just plainly die out. over 5000 members!!!!!  i think this place is as perfect as can get.

and just to side track a bit, i got Flux Spray on special this week for $2.99 a can

lol,

zubbly

[pepa]

put the tools back where they belong, this board is not broken, so it does not need fixing. pepa

[electrondady1]

5000+ members! thats about 300% growth in the two years since i started coming here.

 something must be working !

as long as the original question has been ansered or a misconception cleared up , it's exciting to see a thread "take off".

[whatsnext]

+1 to Oztules. Frankly I don't think I would be qualified to be the final arbiter as to exactly what is and isn't OT. Sooner or later I'd make a mistake and then we'd all lose.

John..

[kuchila]

 As a newbie here I rarely post. I have no idea as to what most of the posts refer to but I read every word. I've never been to collage, am definately NOT a rocket scientest nor an electrical engineer. I'm just a plain ole country boy who likes to tinker with new ideas such as RE. In the short time I've been here I've found that many of the OT posts clear up something that I wasn't aware of, which as stated before is just about everything. Sure, topics do get way out there at times and sometimes I get "bumped and left in the dark" too but there are many times I get "bumped", go offline and think about the thread and all of a sudden it hits me over the head and a light flashes. Maybe the OT posts serve a useful purpose, just my thoughts.

 Bill

[windstuffnow]

  I guess I've noticed more when someone offers up some BS and the entire post turns into a rant which goes entirly off topic and becomes a pee'n contest.   This type of off topic posting is inconsiderate and rude to the original poster who is usually sincere in showing what he/she's done or asking a legit question.  

  I can understand when one goes a bit astray which leads to other possibilities and/or answers to the same question.  Differences in views or opinions is what it's all about.  

  I really don't feel it needs to be regulated, just a little individual self monitoring or simply a reminder that it's going off topic.

.

[behoof]

My 2 Cents,

I've been both lurking, reading and doing a little posting here for quite a long time. I've come to feel right at home here and know many of you by name although I wouldn't know you if I saw you on the street. That doesn't matter to me because I've created my own image of each of you and with all the wonderful information and interaction I've enjoyed here, I for one, would not change a thing.

TomW makes a good point about staying on topic and many of you agree with making change but I for one can see, even in my time here, a bit of a change as time marches on. One of you said something like, " If you don't like it don't read it " well, that's fine and pretty much what I do. Works for me anyway.

Not to digress but without this Forum, I guarantee you that in no way would I be as far along with my mission to go off grid nor would I have had the opportunity to enjoy so many diverse yet "on the same path" people.

Thank you to Admin and those who offer this Forum for us to share ideas and learn from each others successes AND failures.

Kudos founders!!

behoof

Skip Boyle

[Goose]

Zubbly,

You are one of the lucky ones.  The adm. of the board know you so you can post anything you want and won't get it removed.

Seen some pretty rude comments by other people, and they never get removed.(I think we all know who the main rude commenters are)

I had a question on a solenoid one time, it got removed, so I posted again quite rudely, they modified my question and said I didn't post enough information.(Thanks for that TomW).  I had a fun time experimenting with that one.  I did get the solenoid rewound, and it worked, thanks to Flux and some people I work with.  I have successfully rewound a 3 phase motor thanks to Zubbly, and Rosenberg.  Nando acually gave me his email, and we talked via email for awhile.  I have learned more on this board than any other place on the net, but I don't hardly post anything anymore, mainly because I feel they think I am stupid, and am going nowhere with RE.  So I just read it everyday.

Whatever you guys do to the board, I don't care anymore, I do my question posting on another board, unless I have a question for Zubbly, and if Zubbly don't answer it Flux, or Nando usually answer(Thanks Flux, Zubbly, and Nando).

My 2cents

[finnsawyer]

Tom, in order to keep this forum open and maintain the kind of exchanges that are necessary to explore all possible ramifications of a topic or question, I think you have to tolerate people going off topic in general postings.  In the case of diaries It might be useful to allow the owner to edit them.  A general posting can end up like an inverted tree, which in and of itself isn't bad, but there doesn't seem to be a good way to organize the result.  "A" may make a post and later "D" may make a comment off topic.  Along comes "G" and responds to "D", but the result appears right under the original posting of "A", which causes confusion.  If some way existed to clearly show and follow the branching, it might help a lot.  In any case, the bandwidth used by text is minimal.  So, I don't think this issue is critical.    

[MaxT]

How's this: as long as comments remain within the topic we post them on that thread.

When we get something to say that is relevant ( in the loosest interpretation of that term ) to the discussion in the thread, but drifts to off topic ( not directly related )... we start a new thread diary entry with that topic... and post that thread as a link to the original thread...

Like this: " And now this reminds me of importance of honing our skills in decorating our turbines with festive Piñatas... Which i'll discuss further in this diary entry: link here ".

-----

Another way to do this topic separation is this:

* Topic ends, Off topic follows *

" Energy Farming ", I think that's a nice name for DIY renewable energy collection... expecially if there is enough to sell / distribute to others.

[MaxT]

* about that " energy farming " term *

What ? Did you come up with that yourself ? Brilliant... not. Haa haa....

No, seriously, why not ?

* No more about " energyfarming " ... more on subject of "off topic" follows *

And off topic replies could be written like this. Thus, the first line indicates what the subject of the post is generally about, and whether it relates to original thread... or the post that it replies to.

[stop4stuff]

Are there any forum rules?

Or is everyone expected to be sensible enough to have 'netiquette'?

I do agree with some of the other comments, sometimes the OT replies lead to a wealth of understanding.

[John II]

Over all I believe the editors are doing an fantastic job. We must remember that it is a hard job. An often thankless job, takes un-told man hours and pays zero. Without good editors who care about this board.... It would go to pieces in a hand basket faster then you can say "123".

I do think it would help if the editors kept a list of "canned" comments stating as to why a post was deleted and post it. This way a person will know exactly why it got bounced, then they can try again. As a matter of fact it would be polite to include in the canned messages saying... please try your post again.

Anything outside of R.E. construction, R.E. Production or R.E. Loads... basically anything outside of R.E. probably should be considered off topic.

As far as stealing treads go... I don't see this as a serious problem, and it often lends to other fantastic ideas on other items. I wouldn't encourage it... But it often just happens as natural as ripe apples fall off of trees : )

I do wish Diary's were different though. I don't like to see them go off thread. I think the authors should be-able to delete off threads. Or better yet, all comment postings to Diary's would appear as an attached thread, thus leaving the author of the diary to continue their theme.

John II

[WXYZCIENCE]

Just like that the comment is gone. I sure wish that I could delete the posts that some people put on my diary. Well at least it was worth the test. Your observation is correct TomW, but who can live in a box? Joe.