Netiquette suggestions for this forum

[bigjonny]

Some thoughts occur to me regarding this forum.

There's the "vibe" going around that its uncool to ask (for the zillionth time) where such-and-such circuit is, etc.  Old-timers are frustrated with spewing out info like a broken record; Newbies cower in fear of getting chastised; Casual visitors just wish everybody would give each other a big ol' Net hug.

I believe there's practical steps we can take to help reduce these problems.  I'm a bit of a net geek, so this sort of stuff seems obvious to me, but I know for many, some net-based things seem like Greek (erm, assuming you're not from Greece).

Anyhow, I hope these suggestions help.  Suggestions #1 and #2 are two sides of the same coin: learn how to search better, and help search results become more useful.

Sugesstion #1 (searching better): learn to use Google's advanced features
Is everybody aware of the site-specific search function at Google?  You can type a query like, site:diystompboxes.com germanium diode, and Google will only search diystompboxes.com for the words "germanium" and "diode".  Also, putting words in quotes at Google is very helpful.  You could type the query with quotes around "germanium diode", like so: site:diystompboxes.com "germanium diode", and Google will only return pages that have the word germanium in front of the word diode. Click on the above links to see what I mean.
So, when someone says (generic example), "Look over at GEO for the article regarding Tube Screamers", you can hop on Google and find it easliy.  Just make sure there is NO spaces between "site:" and the website.  Note that "site:http://example.com" works fine, too.  Google has heaps of options you can play with.  I highly recommend learning them so you are better equipped to scour the Internet for information.

Sugesstion #2 (fruitful results): put a link to what your talking about
While Google is a powerful and helpful tool, I think it is inherently bad form to say something like (for example), "Look over at ROG for the article regarding Tube Reamers".  The assumption, in this example, is that everybody knows "ROG" means "http://www.runoffgroove.com", and in a public forum, this is a bad assumption.  Please do like the academics and cite your source.  Or, to make another fun simile: do like mathematicians and show your work.  Better form would be to say: "Look over at http://runoffgroove.com for the article regarding Tube Reamers", or even better: "Look over at ROG for the article regarding Tube Reamers".  The last example is best because it uses resonably common jargon, but provides a reference for those who aren't aware.  Thus, awareness of what ROG stands for is increased and naive questions reduced!
If a newcomer stumbles upon a linkless thread with the above text, how would they know what people are talking about?  They don't know the jargon, and there's no links, so their only recourse is to post a question (Try searching Google for ROG).  My point is: Better documentation leads to less frequently-asked-questions, because when someone DOES search, they will find a working link to what people are reffering to.  Bear in mind, when you post, you are entering information into the Annals of Aron's Stompbox Forum (a.k.a. the Archives).  Please be mindful of that so that you remember to give context to what you are talking about.  Even if you cannot help chiding someone for their naiveté, please include a link in your rant and know that you are part of the solution.

Sugesstion #3: Search enhancement suggestion for Aron
While the Search function on this site is quite helpful, I find it difficult to wade through a lot of the matches I get.  Aron, is there any way to enable the Search function to only search the Subject(s)?  This way, assuming people post relavant terms in their Subjects, a searcher would be able to better refine their searches.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts: love 'em, leave 'em, or be courteously indifferent.  A big ol' Net hug to all...

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

This is good advice.. but it is worth noting that google isn't guaranteed to find ALL (or even most, or indeed ANY) pages on a particular site. I have failed to find stuff on Geofex usign a google site search. But, it was there!

As for subject searches, by all means have it as an option, but, even if the initial poster did put the exact subject in the heading, because the language is uncontrolled, it is easy to miss stuff. eg a post about using a mix of Si & Ge diodes in a distiortion could be sought by looking for Si, or Ge, or distortion, or fuzz, or silicon, or germanium... :x there is never going to be a foolproof way.
And it is much worse for beginners, because they don't know what words to use in the first place! (I know this, because on nearly every subject except stompboxes, I'm a noob myself..)

[black mariah]

A lot of sites, for whatever reason, don't allow Google or other search engines to search their pages. All you have to do is disallow it in robots.txt. I have no idea why anyone would want to do this, but that's how it's done.

Anytime I answer someone I make it a point to link to any sites I mention. You're right, making the assumption that someone knows what GGG is just isn't helpful.

Something else to remember about search functions is that eventually you're going to have to answer the question again anyway. I've done searches for things where the first 30-40 results are just people telling other people to use the seach function.

Also, a lot of these questions could be sorted out if the FAQ were updated to take care of them. It would be simple enough to add in a quick blurb about high end caps, then toss in a link to the usual 'capacitor sound' pages. Hell, I'll redo the FAQ if nobody else wants to. :lol:

[The Tone God]

A lot of sites, for whatever reason, don't allow Google or other search engines to search their pages. All you have to do is disallow it in robots.txt. I have no idea why anyone would want to do this, but that's how it's done.

It eats up bandwidth and its hard to keep it updated. Threads get posted to, moved around, and deleted all the time at busy forums (in general I mean, not here). To have a search engine fairly up to date with all the changes at a busy forum would take alot of work on the engine's part. Its better to use the forum's search engine.

Something else to remember about search functions is that eventually you're going to have to answer the question again anyway. I've done searches for things where the first 30-40 results are just people telling other people to use the seach function.

Maybe we should make an informal rule that when dealing with a newbie for the first few posts give them a helping hand by including a few thread links and the search criteria of what was used to find those threads when posting  a reponse instead of just leaving them hanging with "do a search" post. Samething with "read the FAQ'. Maybe tell them what section or number to look under. Old posters should know better.

Also, a lot of these questions could be sorted out if the FAQ were updated to take care of them. It would be simple enough to add in a quick blurb about high end caps, then toss in a link to the usual 'capacitor sound' pages. Hell, I'll redo the FAQ if nobody else wants to. :lol:

There has been some noise occassionally about the FAQ being updated. I think it does need a number of additions but I think its getting to big to deal with as a single page. Perhaps break it down into a set of small pages based on various topics like resistors, capacitors, etc. would help with it's maintence.

Just a few thoughs.

Andrew

[black mariah]

There has been some noise occassionally about the FAQ being updated. I think it does need a number of additions but I think its getting to big to deal with as a single page. Perhaps break it down into a set of small pages based on various topics like resistors, capacitors, etc. would help with it's maintence.

Agreed. It's a pain in the ass to find anything. Even just sectioning things off with anchor links would be a major upgrade.

[aron]

How hard is it to load the FAQ and just type ctrl-f and type in "resistor"?

Sure, you will find any entry regarding resistor, but you will learn a ton more about resistors than you may have wanted and also something relevant.

The FAQ is not that long guys.

And for the people complaining, why don't we post suggestions of ADDITIONS to the FAQ. I haven't heard hardly anything in years!

BTW: bigjonny, good suggestions there!

I loaded the FAQ and typed in resistor. It took less than 20 seconds to hit the find again function to go through the entire FAQ.

[javacody]

I agree. If someone had been a jerk to me on my first couple of visits, I wouldn't be back.

Thank god for patient folks like Peter Snowberg, brett, Ansil, gez, Jay Doyle, Aron, RG, Ace and Gary, and everyone else here who got me started on building (especially Peter Snowberg, the man taught me everything I know about JFET buffers! I owe him a big thanks because his patience and sharing went far past the average human level).

I asked so many stupid questions, and you know what, not a single person told me to use the search function. They did suggest that I look at the FAQ though, after they helped me.  

[black mariah]

The FAQ is not that long guys.

Compared to a Tom Clancy book the FAQ isn't long, but for something its size it really needs better oganization. The issue isn't the length for most of us because we've looked through the FAQ a dozen times by now. But for anyone that hasn't, it's pretty tangled up and just searching for a specific word in the entire FAQ isn't the easiest way to do it.

And for the people complaining, why don't we post suggestions of ADDITIONS to the FAQ. I haven't heard hardly anything in years!

Let me know what you think of this. I'll start a thread asking for additions to the FAQ. All posts must contain a question AND the answer, or links to an answer. Then someone could go through and compile the best stuff into the FAQ. I've seen this done on other forums with very good results.

Don't take this as pointless bitching though. I'm willing to step up and do the work to get the FAQ up to speed. I have way the hell too much free time and might as well do something productive with it. :lol:

[aron]

Thanks! I did do something like this before and it's the thread about what matters, what doesn't.

There's a part of me that really wants people to search... The best bet would be a php script that would collate relevant subjects together like a sophisticated find.

The FAQ is not a standard HTML page that is one piece. I enter them in using a front end news program.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=23386&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[black mariah]

There's a part of me that really wants people to search...

And I can completely understand that. You'll never learn if someone's holding your hand all the time. But there's a difference between hand-holding and pointing in the right direction. :wink:

The FAQ is not a standard HTML page that is one piece. I enter them in using a front end news program.

I looked through the source earlier and I was wondering why the hell it looked like mangled noodlescript. :lol: It appears as if new entries are simply appended to the bottom of the page. Is that right? It would be trivial (albeit tedious) to go in and reorder everything by hand. Just create a few different sections (capacitors, transistors, power, etc.) then CTRL-C CTRL-V until your hands fall off. :lol:

[aron]

I could create an addition to the FAQ forum and then simple create new threads that correspond to each type of subject.

I can give you access to that and if you want, you can reorder everything.

After that the standard FAQ would be replaced by the threads in the FAQ forum.

Be aware though that then there would be people complaining that they can't download the entire faq as one page.  I like this idea and there is probably a script that can generate new entries into a single page.

The truth is you can't please everyone. People were complaining about having Frames and Ads when everything else was free.

Aron

[stm]

Now that we are talking about netiquette, I must say that using meaningful Subject Titles is highly recommended, however, using purposedly misleading subject titles is rude and unacceptable (IMHO), like a guy who put a title saying something like " You want Fender, Marshall, Vox sound, you got it!!" just to increase the views to his subject, where he was really asking for help on tracing the schematic of a Laney amplifier he had.

Just my 5 minutes of rant.

Regards,

STM

[Phorhas]

thanx bigjohny - I'm sure many here will find your suggeststions to heloing a great deal

[Mark Hammer]

Large John's suggestions are excellent, and also excellent examples of a fairly common principle with regard to software and the net in general: IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THINGS COULD EVEN *DO* SOMETHING LIKE THAT, YOU TEND NOT TO EVEN SEARCH FOR THAT FEATURE.

I had an incident about 8 years ago when I was working at a college and one of my teaching colleagues had to do something on a Mac in the instructors computer room.   As someone who grew up on text-based interfaces and teletypes, Macs were something that I didn't necessarily disdain, but also never really used either.  Nevertheless, he asked me if I could help him, and I did.  It only took a few moments of mousing around the screen to find what I needed, and I was hard-pressed to explain to him that I had never used that software package before.  The difference between my facility and his lack of it was not at all about THAT software or Macs.  Rather, I knew that the software had to have some capability to do something like that and it would just be a matter of time and clicks until I find out how to do it in this context.

Knowing that there is a tunnel and light at the end of it does remarkable things for tunnel search and tunnel utilization behaviour.  Being reminded what the system is capable of from time to time helps to direct people's attention towards using some of the less used features a little more often.  My guess is that many lurkers who have not used the FAQ link probably have some ill-conceived ideas about what and how much can be found there.  It's HUGE kiddies.  Check it out.  As for me, I learned something new about google searches today, and I think I'll start using it.

[javacody]

You guys ever heard of a Wiki?

Also, on the CVS (an open source version control system for you non-programmers out there, its where you check your code in) site is some kind of FAQ-a-matic software. Might be useful here. I'd be willing to donate some programming time.

The FAQ is a wealth of knowledge, as are many of the links on the front page. I think the real problem is that we have to help folks become self-sufficient. In the US at least, folks are pretty much spoon fed everything (not trying to get political here), so it is worth it to recommend hitting the FAQ, and also maybe a section on searching (watch me stick my foot in my mouth, there probably is already a section on how to search the forum! LOL).

I wonder if we could turn the FAQ into a downloadable help file (many open source software distros have this, and you can download the help as a zipped up set of html docs, broken out by subject or as one large file). What might be cool is a windows help file (how about a UNIX man page too   ).

Like I said, I'd be more than willing to help out in any way I can.

Maybe we need to start a project on sourceforge?  

I just had the perfect idea, we turn the faq into XML and use XSLT stylesheets to render any view you want. Aron, the file would look like a whole bunch of the following:

<FAQ-Item>
    <Question>What is your name?</Question>
    <Answer>My name is Fred.</Answer>
</FAQ-Item>

A couple of the technical folks could then each write a transformation on this and convert it into separate views. You separate the data from the format and then you can present the data in any view you please. I'll have an xml file and basic transformation shortly to demo.

[aron]

It sounds like a great idea but really, frankly I'd rather all of you put your efforts to ADDITIONS rather than reformats to the FAQ.

I've been asking for years.

I guess one way to look at it is if there are no more additions, then I guess we can work at reformatting it.

Probably a better bet is to have some online script running so we can search it and it breaks up into a formatted list.

In the end though, if searching the FAQ file is too much of a burden, then well... Hit the library!

BTW the DIY FAQ is an ADDITION to R.G.'s FAQ which should be the primary document to read first. Hmmm I used to have this right at the top of the FAQ. I need to put it back.

[javacody]

Aron,
  I think the FAQ is extremely useful as is, and frankly its not that hard to use. However, it could be better. I've been looking at the html and there are some issues there (from a technical perspective), I'm surprised it renders at all.

  I can't think of any additions and I also wouldn't want it to be part of the forum, as occasionally, the forum is down, and your site is still up (early this morning for instance).

It's not that much work, and for my job, I've been recently learning xml transformations, but have no use for it at work yet, so I'm itching to put my new knowledge to work. At the very least, it should be easier to maintain, help enforce a consistent format, and at the most, we could offer multiple views of the FAQ and possibly make it easier to search.
We could write server side scripts/applications (I've personally got experience with PHP, Perl, and Java/J2EE/JSP) to handle this, but new browsers (IE and Firefox, not sure about Opera?) handle xml style sheets and apply the transformations on the client side.

At any rate, I've got the FAQ halfway converted to xml. I forgot how big it was.  

Something else that would be nice would be to test it for dead links once in a while, there are some utilities that one could use to automate this.

[aron]

I do much of my programming in REALBasic lately and it can do server side applications as well as read and write XML.

If you can make it so it can render different views AND make it so it is really easy to add and manage news then great.

[zachary vex]

...Sugesstion #1 (searching better): learn to use Google's advanced features
Is everybody aware of the site-specific search function at Google?  You can type a query like, site:diystompboxes.com germanium diode, and Google will only search diystompboxes.com for the words "germanium" and "diode"...

actually, if you do exactly that, you'll notice that the site is searched but the forum is not.

[Paul Marossy]

My only problem with the forum search function is that you can get dozens of pages to have to weed through and then, I don't find what I am looking for...  :evil: