A question for the moderators/owners

[Lumberjack]

I will save the verbage for some other time....

Are threads concerning solar water heating for domestic water and radiant usage acceptable topics?

[thefinis]

First I am not a moderator but from past usage this should be fine as a search would show many postings on this subject from several angles.

TomW (one of the small group that does the web work here) I believe is testing the waters to see how folks would feel about focusing more on wind and less on other subjects here or splitting off a forum just for wind. The amount of traffic here is increasing to the point that our editors are facing a huge challenge to just keep up with new posts and he is looking for ways to help with that problem.

My thanks again to our editors

Finis

[wooferhound]

Well, there is a

Heat topic

http://www.fieldlines.com/section/heat

and a water topic

http://www.fieldlines.com/section/water

If you are trying to use these systems with Renewable Energy, or if you are trying to conserve power then it should be fine. But you would want to ask a well thought out question with lots of background information.

[Lumberjack]

I was asking because I am aware that TomW has expressed a desire for the board to be electric only. I am also aware some of the discussion takes place off board.

If the Mods want to take the board to a more restricted topic I will understand and respect, But It should also be considered that there really is no substitute board that is unbiased and has the experiance readily availible here.

Finally I wonder if the mods have considered splitting up the work into the sub-topics so that TomW could handle modding for wind only and those that have wider interests can deal with the other topics.

[TomW]

jack;

Finally I wonder if the mods have considered splitting up the work into the sub-topics so that TomW could handle modding for wind only and those that have wider interests can deal with the other topics.

I will pass that on to Fink, he does the nuts n bolts parts here.

I would not hold my breathe if I was you. He does not move very fast on forum change requests.

I have all but surrendered to the fact that this board has gone away from its roots and anything goes now in some futile effort to serve even the most lazy of posters.

I say post away. At least its related to RE.

TomW

[Lumberjack]

Perhaps the board has simply grow deeper and longer roots...

Thanks for your input TomW, Your efforts are appreciated.

[feral air]

That's how I like to look at it, well said.

[SparWeb]

Had a funny idea about where certain posts belong - Call it the "funny farm" or "straitjacket" section, or whatever you want to call it.  A section dedicated to the non-RE, non-sense, over-unity, impossible, et cetera, postings that tend to get locked out by the moderator.  No replies allowed.

Then you could re-section a user's posts to the hall of infamy, and that user could soberly re-consider his idea or question, while the rest of us can go on ignoring those posts.

Unless we want a laugh, and deliberately see who's been sent to the "doghouse" lately.   :^)

Maybe done with a tongue-in-cheek, humorous tone, so that not too much offence is taken?

[oztules]

Stephen,

I'm not sure a "smart persons club" is what Danb envisioned when he set up this board. I think all the posts that at this stage appear to be from newbie people should be shifted to the newbie section.

I think that jeering at those who are not yet in possession of adequate knowledge, to form a supposedly "sensible" question should under no circumstances be discouraged from seeking answers... odd that they may be.

Looking at the old board and the earlier stages of this board, the standard of discussion and questions asked by the so called long termers, didn't exactly glisten with rectitude or wisdom either.

As the knowledge of the most sensible configuration was slowly becoming a known quantity, those who evolved with it seem to be becoming less and less tolerant of those who haven't caught up, or are just beginning.

The concept of the moderators becoming the censorship board, and not moderators is very sad and will run the risk of just making an old boys club, where you all know the answers, so there's no need to ask questions...... it will become a stale place. I think the danger of becoming a smart persons club edges ever closer as the newbies are relegated to second class citizenship.

I don't agree with locking posts for incomplete or apparently dumb questions obviously done by wide eyed excited newbies, or any other obstruction to the free flow of ideas and questions.... they can all be answered by someone..... there are 10000 people available to consider them.

If the post breaches the:

"Please be nice. Flame wars and rude comments are NOT tolerated here, and the offending comments will be deleted immediately."

It should be deleted. But there is no place in my mind for the ham fisted attempt at stifling enthusiastic newbies from asking newbie questions.... thats why there is a newbie section.... Tomw shouldn't lock it, just shift it to newbies. Too keep your sanity, just don't look in that section.

It is time to stop complaining about peoples lack of knowledge or difficulties in articulating their questions adequately and do what this board was set up to do... help each other to attain a better understanding of all things RE and remote living.

I note with interest that even Flux takes the time to encourage and help newbies (and has some frustration at times too) where others would/do wipe them off. If this man can see some merit in nurturing the beginners ........

An engineer should understand that most other people don't have your grasp on the physics and maths behind them, but that doesn't/shouldn't stop them doing wonderful things too..... if you give them the tools to do it.... and I think this board is that tool.

Disappointed in your attitude Stephen (and Tomw and other like minded folks)

John M. Tulloch

[commanda]

Tongue-in-cheek often gets lost in translation, especially where english is not a persons first language. Cultural differences and different points of reference also serve to make what you may perceive as funny, to be interpreted completely differently by others.  It's not called the "world-wide-web" for nothing.

The fundamental problem with a newbies section, is you run the risk of having the blind leading the blind.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to solve the problems of the board, any more than anybody else does.

Maybe the wind section needs to have several sub-categories:

the otherpower dual rotor axial flux generator;

motor conversions;

all other wind related postings.

Amanda

[Lumberjack]

Actually a separate section for stator and rotor construction might work better.

Generators:

     stator

          coil design

          coil winding

          Casting

     Rotor

          Magnets

Wind

     Vawt

     Hawt

          Blade design/carving    

Hydro

Steam

Other

Controls

Storage

Remote/RE

     housing

     heat

     light

     water

newbie

Just a few random misfiring synapses.......

[TomW]

oz;

I am devastated that you feel I am "Ham Fisted" for trying to encourage people to calmly ask thought out questions in order to help keep the noise down.

Since there is basically about as much chance of me winning the lottery as there is of changing anything here as far as sections / software goes anyway.

They hired me to be the constable I do my best and I already know I cant please everyone. Oh, and have you ever looked around the site at the static pages? None of them are up to date most are inaccurate some contradict others. Thats totally out of my ability to fix and the one who is responsible doesn't seem to care. I interpret my guidelines based on best assumptions of what is good for the largest cross section of users.

I have about given up trying to keep things on track.

Should this story be left up for comment?

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2008/2/27/145241/937

It is vague, it has been discussed before and, from prior discussion and posts he is not? doing anything RE, despite his adding "wind generator" to the post. He is an OU disciple who uses us to try to solve the issues involved with that.

Ok, what do you say? I lock it because it is vague and it is probably not an honest question. We have dealt with this user on IRC and once we discovered the hidden agenda our helpful attitude evaporated.

So, as you see now, things are not always black and white. Decisions get made based on information and facts I have.

Thanks for the feedback, really.

Good luck getting back into IRC after this. [kidding]

TomW

[oztules]

"The fundamental problem with a newbies section, is you run the risk of having the blind leading the blind"

If you go back to the earlier "halcyon" days of the board that Tomw refers to, it would appear that a good deal of this happened, and a good many non-workable to poorly workable devices were construed and built. Somewhere in this porridge a light switch was found, and the road to the most workable designs were accomplished.

I have a feeling that the "unknown" was the root of the excitement that was generated in this era. To the long-termers this excitement of discovery has evaporated and has led to the feeling of malaise which, which I think Tomw is coming to grips with.

Back then there was always something new that someone was trying, and the hope that this would be the winning combination..... thats all gone now that the axial has been developed to a sophisticated level, and a frustration has set in that there is no longer something new being discussed, that hasn't been discussed before.

Your F&P is from a point in time where it was deemed a very useful wind generating solution, but now we are aware of the shortcomings of iron drag, it is no longer in favour as an efficient use of wind, so I guess in some way, it to was an example of the foibles of the blind leading the blind, but although not perfect, it was worth a try and functional.

Much enthusiasm was generated in trying to sort out the shortcomings of cogging, drag, impedance matching etc etc. But in the end it was not in the race as regards to efficient wind to electricity production, even though it still works ok.

It may be that the newbies will have all the fun, although I have no doubt that at some point in their deliberations, someone would point out the way to the light switch.

Personally, I like the journey of discovery, and am not that enamored with the destination, although I don't need the power to run my house either..... I may see it differently then.

I'm not sure the board is broken.... but then I'm not sure we are responsible for global temperature fluctuations either..... so maybe I'm in denial as Danb would say.

.........oztules

[oztules]

Yes Tomw,

The question is as vague as we wish it to be, and the question of use /misuse of the answer has no bearing on it's legitimacy.

I would answer simply, that wiper motors have magnets and an armature, and if turned by something (wind, another motor, peddle power whatever), some amount of power would be generated in DC form.

Physical constraints of the shaft diameter would make prop size quite small, and probably only make the device a curiosity as cogging would most likely kill start up of a small prop of reasonable tsr. Start up cogging could be overcome with a voltage burst (motor the prop), but all in all for the effort, very little reward is on offer..... better value elsewhere.

This is incomplete and a bit vague as well, but further fleshing out is possible.

There will be other people on this board who have no doubt tried one of these and be able to offer more information if they feel like it.

Just because the poster may be of an ilk that seems distasteful for whatever reason, does not obviate the poingancy of the question...... other not so distasteful beings may be considering the same thing.... we just don't know.

I don't envy your job, but I think it will be simpler on you to allow plenty of noise, (if you were to take that away, not much left really) just keep it "decent" and your moderator job is fulfilled. I think trying to steer a bunch of disparate folk is not possible, while still keeping the air of exploration alive.

This entire post and many like it recently are just noise, and are of no relevance to RE, but it is being had. Some will view it with distain, some amusing, some won't look at all, but the fact we took the time to discuss it makes it real. In a crowded room we tune out the noise we are subjected to, and carry on conversations without a problem. Forums allow for the same thing, we are not all interested in the same thing at the same time, and here we have thousands of agendas being plied.

The other thing about noise is we can tune in to interesting (to each his own) conversations just as easily.

To my tiny mind, censorship ends up always hamfisted, regardless how well intentioned it may have been, because no matter what the guidelines are/were, there will always be so much grey area as to make any ruling questionable in nearly every instance I have seen it applied. (globally, not just this board)

Now, one person out of 10000 people doesn't amount to a hill of beans I know, but you have my admiration for your efforts because you have your heart in the right place, even if I cant agree with you on the need/use for censorship on questions relating in some way to RE and remote living. (this does not include wanting to know where the nearest brothel is to my new hideaway in the sticks type of thing.... instant hanging offence etc.

My conclusion is... it aint broke, so don't lose any sleep trying to fix the noise levels. Some days noise is all we have to read.

Danb's posts from Nicaragua are just noise..... (there goes my membership:(, but they are very interesting all the same.... (oztules gets to keep membership:).

Now, the windscreen wiper motor question, vague as it is, is probably more on topic.... (there goes the membership again:(

By the way what is a static page....

Best of luck with it Tomw

.......oztules

my turn to get back in my cave

[thefinis]

First we crawl, then we stand, then we toddle, then we walk, then we run, then we walk slowly, then we sit and tell stories about when we ran and talk what a poor job the ones just learning are doing.

This is a fine place where some folks have the knowledge, some the place, some the time, some the experience and a few have all of these. Here is a good place to share your talent but sharing isn't always easy or fun and can be taken advantage of.

Finis

[TheCasualTraveler]

(whispering) and in case the wiper motor guy is reading those motors are usually geared down which means you would need a lot of torque to spin it and seperating motor from gears leaves you with a mess.

[SparWeb]

John, (oztules)

Thank you for considering my suggestion so carefully.  Frankly, I had not given it much thought before posting.  Certainly not as much as you have.  

I make a point of visiting and helping out on the Newbie section when I have time, and I give even the unusual ideas some critical thought (eg. the recent Halbach array posting, or the cross-linked battery bank diagram).  I think most ideas or suggestions deserve serious consideration, and that is exactly why I post so often.

Your point about keeping the stage open to new questions, no matter how repetitive or poorly-thought they may be, is well taken.  These questions can challenge the "tried and true" attitude, and re-thinking the obvious can also lead us to finding facts or errors we missed in the past.  Indeed, that's happened to me, personally.  More often that I care to admit.

Amanda's point is also understood.  Language can make the humour hard to grasp.   I'm multilingual, myself, but if it were necessary for me, for example, to compose a question in spanish, only to find some mockery was made of it, I'd be pretty confused, too.  The inverse would be true for others.

I have been in the position of finding things like double-posts and vague questions before TomW has.  I'm happy to be the one to suggest they add detail, or explain site rules.  I've done this at least a dozen times.

What I really don't want to see is a "boot-off" policy, like the one mentioned in a previous rant.  Upon consideration of these things, I doubt a section for "locked-out" postings would be a positive contribution to the board.

Now how many other members out there are willing to say "oops, sorry".

That would be a postive contribution to the board...

[DamonHD]

I think booting people out represents a sad failure and an unnecessary raising of everyone's blood pressure: life is too short.

That is why I think that a better way is to raise the initial barriers to posting, especially a first posting, forcing people to think a little before taking the accumulated wisdom here (not me: I seem to be a taker here rather than a giver in this regard unfortunately) for free for granted.

But the honestly-meant and carefully-thought-out silly questions should be allowed, since some will educate and some will turn out not to be silly at all.

What should be suppressed are greedy, sloppy and lazy questions.

I've had to work very hard to acquire my knowledge, and I think most others here have too.  Newcomers should have to demonstrate that they are serious and on a suitable topic (ie not being greedy/idle/sloppy) --- but almost only those two things IMHO --- to wade in with the questions.

But I have to wonder if I would pass that test myself now or at the start.

Rgds

Damon

[TomW]

DamnoHD;

Well said.

TomW

[oztules]

Tomw,

This will be the last attempt I shall try at presenting a softer approach to Newbies and the ramifications of stringent start up rules.

Here is for your perusal, the moderators statement from a forum which has been experiencing growing pains as well, and has confronted the newbie problem from a slightly different angle than that which you are considering.

I present it in full (was going to use excerpts.... but decided I wanted you to suffer the whole way through...coz I'm  basically evil)

I would like to point out the way they have decided to treat the "silly newcomers", and the armament the moderators have.

Please do me the courtesy of reading it fully and dispassionately.

I'll shut up on this topic now, as I can see no more that I can add to sway your opinion away from creating startup barriers to newbies.

It may help you form ideas for other aspects as well, although I'm sure you have seen it all before.

DIYAUDIO GROWING PAINS

Recently there has been a lot of discussion regarding diyAudio's growing pains. The thrust of the arguments have been twofold:

1. That the quality level of discussions is being watered down by off topic and garbage posts
   
2. That the level of peer respect is being worn down by impolite and inconsiderate users.
   
   

To address these two concerns the rules below have been created to serve the community, and will be enforced by a team of moderators who care deeply about the health and future of diyAudio.

FORUM RULES

1. No personal attacks or bullying. If you disagree with what someone is saying, then present a mature and intelligent case to prove otherwise. Malicious intent will not be tolerated. What you do over private email is one thing, what you do on our forum is another.
   
2. No offensive language. Sure, most of us use four letter words in normal conversation without too much thinking, but this forum is about thinking. Words are the clothes in which thought is dressed. And luckily, these threads are cheap (pun intended) so please choose language that reflects the quality of your ideas.
   
3. No threadjacking. Threadjacking is the practise of stealing another's thread by posting off-topic replies such that the original topic becomes diluted or lost. Off-topic posts, and even more importantly replies to off-topic posts, are welcome, but should also address the original thread topic.
   
   

Some of the greatest discussions have come as a result of off-topic replies. If something interesting does arise that warrants further discussion then continue your discussion privately over email, or even better start a new thread and link to it. This rule will of course be used with discretion.

4. No posting of safety endangering information without an accompanying safety-warning message that adequately explains the risks
   
5. Usage of multiple registrations for the same person and/or same internet access account is not permitted without prior approval of the site, and may result in a permanent ban of the individual and/or account holder.
   
6. Topics unrelated to audio or electronics should be confined to the Off Topic section. Discussions of politics, ethnicity, religion, or other divisive issues are not permitted and will be removed, without notice, at our discretion.
   
   

Violation of forum rules will result in users having their accounts suspended and/or terminated, at the discretion of the moderators.

These 6 rules will be enforced in good faith to keep the discussion quality level and the level of peer respect, high.

MODERATION OF DIYAUDIO.COM

diyAudio.com is a place for all members of the DIY audio community to ask for help and share their knowledge. Several members of the community have been appointed as forum moderators. This is a distinctly separate role from their participation as members in the forum.

It is a moderators role to enforce the forum rules. As such, moderators should lead by example through intelligent posting and polite communication.

It is not a moderators role to ask users to prove the quality of their arguments through empirical evidence, that is the role of the community (and the moderators may of course still participate as members of the community). The moderators will use their best faculties to separate their own personal opinion when analysing whether posts contain worthless or irrelevant information and should be removed.

Any comments in regards to moderator behaviour should be sent privately via email to webmaster@diyaudio.com.

MODERATORS STATEMENT

It has come to our attention that some people are being naughty.

We do not want naughty boys

We may have to give you a serious warning

We may have to put you in the sin bin for a week or two

If you offend several times, we may have to kick you out

Some things we do not like are:

Telling people where to get porn

Being rude to other members

Using F word or C word

Deliberately moving threads off topic

Intimidating new members

Posting non factual information

Omitting safety information if applicable

Being a pest to other members

Posting with caps lock on.

We like good discussion. We have a hands-off policy towards some noise and some chaos and some members being a little bit picky. But not at the expense of making the forum bad news for the majority.

We want members to feel safe walking down the street. We want members to feel they can post without being attacked.

It works like this:

New members should be able to come here without being slapped down the first time they post. Even if it's a stupid question. Even if they cannot spell. Even if they don't know where the caps lock key is on their keyboard. They are new-comers. Treat them right. There is nothing wrong with holding off a few posts and then suggest they put new batteries in their spell checker or consider doing some work for themselves but give them a chance to settle in. You would like that courtesy yourself.

If you feel someone is wrong please don't call them an arsehole or a dipstick or "don't you know any $%$#@^&ing thing".

It's not polite.

You are quite welcome to think all those things to yourself and a few more choice comments, but please engage brain before putting your keyboard to work. This is a DIY group, not an insulting group.

If you feel you have a desperate need to post where to get porn on the internet please do not insult our intelligence because we all know. Those who know, don't need to be told. Those who don't, we are not going to tell them. It is an automatic sin bin offence.

We have an automatic parser, which replaces F word and C word with **. So far since being tightened up it has intercepted 52 F words. We are not prudes, we know guys speak with enthusiasm but sometimes what makes a point in speech looks pretty bad in print. Sorry but those words are out. We don't recommend you try and circumvent our parser because there will be a moderator waiting for you on the other side.

We have 2891 members, 4947 threads, 48221 posts and over a million views. If you put 2891 people in a room and turned off the lights quite a number would end up seriously injured. They would never come back so we loose members. Some of the more experienced members get exasperated with some fellows running around causing mayhem. A lot of new guys come here to learn, not to get pushed around.

We are not trying to spoil your fun, just turning the lights up a bit so we can spot the troublemakers.

There are 8 moderators. All over 7 feet tall. All over 17 stone. All trained athletes with bulging muscles and hair trigger reflexes. Each moderator is equipped with two low slung colt 45's, night vision glasses and armour piercing tracer shells. But they are kindly people. Anyone can call on a moderator to help out. If you have a complaint, email the webmaster. If you have a suggestion to improve the site, email the webmaster. If you want a free diyAudio.com T-shirt email the webmaster. (There are no free T-shirts - Jason .

Respectfully,

The diyAudio Moderators

I particularly like to think of you Tomw with the low slung 45's and night vision glasses...... not to sure if you meet the 7" tall pert though.

.......oztules

[oztules]

Stephen,

I had previously avoided getting involved in this "what to do with silly questions" type of thread that has permeated the rants of late.

However, when a valuable contributor such as yourself starts to add weight to what I see is a retrograde step, I felt it time to balance the argument.

I cannot claim to be right, nor to have all the answers, nor can I claim that you were wrong, they are just differences in perspective.

I am hopeful that Tomw and the other power brokers involved will consider both our arguments before they settle on a course of action.

Your considered response was gratefully recieved.

John M. Tulloch

[SparWeb]

"Your considered response was gratefully recieved."

But now it's out there.  To be read in full by some, or without the subsequent retraction by others who don't get to the end of this thread before moving on to the next.  Oh, well.

There is a democratic feel to this discussion - we are, indeed, free to discuss the future of the board and its policies, and make suggestions as they come to mind.  You can call it "brainstorming".  The products of brainstorming can be accepted or discarded.  We do this at work all the time (I work at an engineering office), and sometimes we discuss doing the wrong thing purely for the sake of hearing the bad side, not necessarily with the goal of finding a way to actually DO THAT.  It is the process of discussion that explores the many consequences of an action.

Having never been in the position of judging a post for deletion vs. acceptance, I don't think my status as a regular contributor should count for much.  I only prefer the community approach where contributors who find a posting that breaks the rules can flag it for attention - otherwise the moderators won't intervene.

In fact, this brings to mind (again) the fact that I needed a period of time to adjust to the style of this forum, at first.  I was a very regular contributor years ago to www.eng-tips.com, particularly in the Aircraft Engineering forum.  That site's structure is very different from this one.  Due to its design, it is more "hands-off", but all members can raise a red flag any time, if they find offensive postings, or postings that break other rules.

I can't advocate that Fieldlines adopts a format like Eng-Tips, because the cost of licensing such fancy software may be prohibitive.  However, the basic structure would be an improvement, even though it, too, lacks some useful elements, too (eg., no "sticky").

TomW:

 I would recommend you log in to Eng-Tips.com and spend some time seeing how the threads are organized, what their rules look like, and how members can police the site for you.  The site is explicitly for technical discussion, yet friendliness breaks out all over the place.  It's a good example.

[SparWeb]

Here's one of my first postings:

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/1/26/204129/500

Fun to go back in time, and see how far I've come!

The people who responded to this 2 years ago are the real esteemed members of this site, IMO.  I really couldn't picture, through wordy discussions alone, how the things worked at the time, so everyone pitched in with diagrams to help out.  That's what won me over to this site.

[hvirtane]

"Back then there was always something new that someone was trying, and the hope that this would be the winning combination..... thats all gone now that the axial has been developed to a sophisticated level, and a frustration has set in that there is no longer something new being discussed, that hasn't been discussed before."

That is more or less my opinion, too.

Instead of being rude toward people who

are starting their journey to do something

similar, why not putting up a separate section,

where to discuss that axial flux generator wind machine

and let other sections to be open

for many kinds of other possible developments?

There is no need to be rude, if somebody doesn't

know as well a generator design as some others.

- Hannu

[finnsawyer]

In the 70s when the energy crunch hit people were willing to try all kinds of new ideas.  Today, not so.  Just look at the response to my alternator design.  No one is willing to build it.  In the 70s people would have jumped all over it just to see what it would do.  Well, as far I know, that's a new idea.  My diary on the Betz Limit also contains a new idea.  No discussion.  Nobody is willing to sit down and apply the model to wind turbine operation.

When Commanda posted the series on circuit design for LEDs one fellow came in with the suggestion of controlling the voltage rather than the current.  He was chased off of the board.  Not exactly a shining moment, as it doesn't matter.  Either way can be made to work.  If the voltage current characteristics of the individual LEDs don't vary too much or can be matched in pairs it is possible to use fairly precise voltage control.  Simply place the LED pairs between the emitter of a NPN junction transistor and circuit ground.  Place a 6.8 volt Zener diode between transistor base and ground.  Connect the transistor collector to the positive battery terminal and bias the Zener through a resistor to the same battery terminal.  The Zener diode typically has a very small change in voltage with current once the Zener voltage is reached so good voltage regulation is achieved and the voltage across the LEDs doesn't change much.  If the temperature characteristics of the Zener diode can be made to track the transistor base and LED temperature changes then a very stable circuit can be made.  The Zener diodes are very good for precise voltage control.  Engineers that deal with circuits should be aware that most problems have more than one solution.  Yet the attitude shown by the comments was that there was only one way to solve the problem.  That attitude seems to permeate most of what passes through here.