Dave;
I am probably guilty of the ranting part. I assure you I only wish we could just take a turn the theorists don't follow.
Since I believe this board is here to further DIY Electricity production, I get kinda put off by posts of steam, oil heaters, Over Unity [we had one this week] and all the academics. The train drivers fall into that category, IMHO.
I always bump "I built this" posts to the FP because thats the whole point.
I came on board here as an editor with the hope of guiding the board that was being overrun with OU types back to its roots. The building of rotating generating machines.
We have gotten so popular that it is a bit overwhelming. We come up top of list on mostly any RE search subject. This leads to a huge influx of folks with the wrong idea that they have some deity enforced right to pollute this resource with redundant questions that have already been well and truly answered.
I feel it is my mandated purpose here to steer this behemoth down the road that helps the most people achieve the goal of creating machines that they can extract electrical power from.
A good 90% of the comments I get personally tell me I am not hard core enough on my editing decisions. A couple percent of the feedback is bitching because I did something they didn't like.
These are usually members with no equity and very low or no post count before they bitch.
I get a good bit of back channel feedback from DanB and members. Dan did not like the "Locked, read this and repost" scheme at first but he seems to think it works at some level.
I can tell it works because very few of them got reposted so they must of either found their information or were just trolling for attention. That seems to be success to me?
As far as the arguing, it is there on most every board I use. The difference is this one here is run by a very laid back and easy going man [DanB] who took over a year to see Johnny Cool Pants for the [expletive deleted] he was. Eventually he got silenced after polluting the board for months. Thats the framework I work within. People get away with crap until they really go bad then things happen.
Personally, I think we need to split the board. One board for "doers" that is invite only to post but readable by all. Another board for all the blowhards, wannabes and academics that has the same bar to membership this board has [none].
Thats not likely to happen but I could get an invite only board up and running in a few hours / a week or something if the interest was there.
All it would take is one simple rule to fix the arguing.
Post a comment that is off the original topic very far and the comment gets killed.
End of problem.
This would be another whiners complaint area who decides and using what criteria? If the post is about coil wiring is a comment about cabling off topic? Some of the best threads here have wandered far from the original post.
Not a lot of black and white here. Lots of grays.
I wish there was an easy solution to serve everyone who is serious about this subject. I see a lot of what I think of as "trolling for attention" postings. People who just want attention and will milk you dry if you let them.
Perhaps, if the users would be a bit more discriminating on answering or responding to those types the board would heal itself in time.
The last argument I was involved in here the "other guy" got pretty nasty with name calling. Most forums I am on that woulda got you gone forever as well as any trace of you. Doesn't happen here.
Anyway, Dave, as a builder I value your opinion because you are the kind of guy we are here for. Any ideas are welcome.
I could go on, but, regardless of what I actually say someone will twist it into something to bitch about. Just watch.
Good post, by the way. Stuff we need to deal with before its too late to salvage the good this board is.
TomW