Small bone to pick with forum.

[JasonD]

I want to start out by saying that I really do like this forum and plan to be a participating member in the foreseeable future. But I am finding that there are some frustrating things that keep cropping up. Right now, I am a "backyard" researcher of electrical phenomenon, mainly for the purpose of discovering a new source of energy. This forum is a great resource in getting the opinions of others with the same goals. Here's my problem. I post a topic I need discussion on and I get a lot of response. This response is great but lacks context. Here's an example: Let's say I post a topic that asks for opinions on the boy-ency of Styrofoam in steel bathtubs(it's a silly topic). Then the responses pour in. Lots of these responses are statements which, for the most part, sound like facts being presented. But really, who is to know that a statement being made is accurate or not. So the next best thing to do is to look up information on the person who has made the statement. Again, for the most part, most people don't have any information listed about themselves. If someone makes a response to my question, and they are a worker at a steel bathtub manufacturing plant, this persons comments have context. If someone else makes a comment and they have listed themselves as a avid studier of the topic but has made no practical experimentation, then the context for this comment has also been made. Comments with context have value. Comments without context lack significance.

I'm going to make a guess that in this forum there are 2 types of people making comments. There are those who perform experiments and post information about experimentation, and there are those who are read about others experiments and come up with theories and post there information about their theories. Both of these types are important to move ahead to find new discoveries, but it would certainly help to know who is doing practical experiment and who is doing theoretical analysis.

It would be nice to look up a members information to see what their context is. I am guilty of not doing this, so I have updated my profile to help out with this information. I post this not to bag on the members but to help out the quality of the forum. It sure is frustrating to have 50 comments on a posted topic not knowing where that information came from in the first place, or from what angle a person is coming from. It would be nice to know a little bit more about the involvement a member has to a topic when reading their comments. Are you just a causal browser giving your two-bits, or are you a 10 year experimental researcher to this given topic?

Just for the record, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I think that this is a valid concern in moving forward to the goal we all share.

[Slider2732]

I see your point and would welcome any thoughts by host Aaron on a points system. I've seen forums where people are say 'Thanked' a number of times or such. The idea would be a builds vote system. Just a little icon with a number, sitting under the name. New members, myself included (here a couple of months or so) could then see straight away what sort of person is making the comments.

Such a system would work very easily and perhaps unexpectedly.
Builds could relate to posts made about some aspect of a persons device. If you like what they have written, you click their name and thumb them up, to use YouTube terminolgy.
So you could thumb up many times about a build over the course of its running and lifetime...but that would signify the contribution you feel the project has made to you or the forum. Quite quickly, big numbers would appear under some peoples Build icon.
What that would do, would be tell you instantly when someone is a builder and when they are not. Just look at the time they have been registered and then the Build icon.

Theorist members are equally valid. Maybe Builds and Theory available icons to thumb up ?

[Neight]

very interesting ideas slider
it is hard at times to tell who is accurate in the sea of opinions and facts floating around forums, in general really...
I think even a "voting" system could be a bit deceiving, since some people (myself included) try to help often, and might gets lots of thumbs up, but don't always know what they are talking about in any given situation. I like to help on the SSG topics, but have been wrong before. so I might have initially gotten a thumbs up for an answer that ultimately turned out to be wrong.
I find that on any forum where anyone can answer a question, right or wrong, it takes fact checking and some research. not only checking that persons profile, but clicking the button that shows all the posts or topics by that person. read through some of them and check the responses they got. you can learn pretty quickly that way if someone gives out good knowledgeable advice, or if they usually just give their best educated guess. It's also a good idea to just troll the forums, read everything you have time for. even if it's not a topic that interests you, you can get a good idea of who is respected for their input and who commonly makes trouble.
any time you are on a largely opinion generated forum like this one, you really never want to just go with the first response you get. wait a day or two before trying any suggestions that you can't independently check with another forum answer or website. people love to be right, and most people love to correct someone who isn't right. if you wait a day or two after an initial response you will often get 2nd and 3rd opinions, find two people that agree with each other, and you will be much more likely to have a correct answer on your hands.
I have followed bad advice before, and while bad advice is usually a great learning tool, it can also be incredibly expensive. best advice in my opinion is to exercise patients, let a few answers or opinions come in before picking any one of them as right and taking action.

and you can always just ask someone what their level of experience is, you may not always get an honest response, but it never hurts to ask
N8

[Slider2732]

Luckily, I did exactly that when joining and do support your view...just nosey around looking at this and that. I do acknowledge that I have a lot more free time than many though.


Another thought, is that this thread may become a case study of all that Jason has grief about

However, let's put things to rights in any way we can and work together - i'm going to update my profile info now

[Aaron]

forum and profiles

I see your point and would welcome any thoughts by host Aaron on a points system. I've seen forums where people are say 'Thanked' a number of times or such. The idea would be a builds vote system. Just a little icon with a number, sitting under the name. New members, myself included (here a couple of months or so) could then see straight away what sort of person is making the comments.

Slider,

That kind of thing is a plugin for vbulletin. It is possible but I don't personally
do the maintenance for the forum programming. You can post any suggestions
here:
http://www.energeticforum.com/forum-help-support/

For looking at people's bio's or whatever, there are the profile pages but
unfortunately, most people don't use them. You can see mine as an example:
http://www.energeticforum.com/z/Aaron/

Just change my name with the member name of any member to see theirs.
I think you can also click on a users name and the top option is to see
their profile.

[Slider2732]

Thanks for your quick reply Aaron.
I'll say what, you certainly ARE here ! and that is one of the best things about this place. We may not all agree, or exactly know what is being discussed, but your involvement is respected.

[mikrovolt]

We often misunderstand someone because we are not in tune with
where they are coming from. The context of what is said has different
meaning when spoken from one field or discipline to another.

You find it helpful to know someones background so that you can better
interpret what exactly is said.

You would like feedback and would like to participate and feel you may be
able to contribute.

Yes that makes sense, get to know people and find things in common.
But expecting a profile may be more so for yourself than others
many of which prefer privacy.

It is true that some will stand back and watch and others jump in and
get it done and in the process there are lots of misunderstandings.
Some are born with recessive genes and some dominant genes
but both need to respect the other.

[JasonD]

I don't expect anyone to do anything. But I don't think it is unreasonable to ask the source of someones opinion when they give it. Especially if they want it taken seriously. I suppose that could be done by questioning a comment at the time the comment is made. As a new comer to the forum I don't really know who knows and who doesn't. In fact I don't even know what areas of study people are working on. I'm assuming that members kinda stick to certain areas. I wish I had more time to research each member by checking all of their posts, but I just don't have the time. Sticking a bit of info in the profile section would speed that up, but I understand privacy.

Oh well....the thumbs up or thumbs down idea sounds interesting.

[dutchdivco]

Free advice

Free advice is worth about what you pay for it; what this means is I am not you, and I'm not in your position.When I give you 'Free advice' I am saying if I were you, and I were in your position, here's what i THINK I would do.
However, I'm NOT you.I don't have to live with the consequences of actually doing it, (following the advice) or NOT doing it; YOU DO.
Therfore, I won't be at all upset if you DON'T follow my advice.On the other hand, if you DO follow my advice, and aren't happy with the outcome, DON'T BLAME ME.You decided to follow the advice, and YOU accept the consequences.After all, advice is just an opinion; Opinions are like a**holes; everyone HAS one, and some people ARE one.

This is the 'speach' my Dad gave me, whenever I asked him for advice, after I turned 18.I wish EVERY Dad gave their kid this speach.I have known people who got very butthurt because i didn't take their advice.I have known people who took my advice, and then blamed ME when they didn't like the outcome.
But then, as I said, "Some people ARE one!", course, all this is just,....
"Free Advice". Jim