Suggestions needed...

[petemoore]

   It's "Discovery", and the proof is in the pudding.
   If 'it', 'does' something which can be replicated, 'it', for our purposes always will have been a property of nature, that's WHY it can be replicated, a law or laws of nature discovered, if pressed to do 'it', it does it every time, always would have and always will as long as the details discovery is known, and the physical materials are available.
  A law of nature doesn't change because it's been discovered, it was, and always will be there [for the purposes of our discussion, at least].

[gez]

propadog, I note that you only have 14 replies (including the last), so unless you've posted the above under a pseudonym and have many more posts under your belt, isn't it a bit premature to start complaining that you've been ignored/aren't getting any help?  I've had many threads that have 'sunk without trace' over the 3 years I've been here.  It's disheartening, but it might just be that:

a)  I didn't phrase the question very well
b)  What I was asking required too much input from other members - we all have lives outside of this forum and not everyone can spend 15 minutes typing/checking schematics etc.
c)  The people who were using the forum at the time my thread was in existence didn't know the answers to my questions.

I'm sorry you didn't get the help you needed, but it has nothing to do with people being cliquey as one sees examples of newcomers being helped on a daily basis.

Edited for typos

[MikeH]

Aron, I have never had the pleasure of good-natured help from others here. As someone is is frequently frustrated by the pig-headed attitudes of the clique around here who refuse to answer a question for my HOBBY. and seeing someone else being told that becasue the person sending the reply had worked for 25 years to get that information, he wasn't going to answer, you need to look at the other side too.

To be helpful, one must be helped, no? And this place is disgusting in its attitudes.

I honestly have no idea why you have that opinion of this forum.  Since I joined I have gotten all of the help I've ever needed.  I've found that everyone here has been perfectly polite and cordial to me (despite what they say to each other), perhaps it's because I don't have an inflammatory attitude, and I am also polite and cordial to others.  I'm certainly not a part of any "clique" around here.  I've PM'd RG on 3 occasions, and each time he responded to me within a day.  Even though it's not his responsibility to do so.  I'm sorry you've had a problem here but, most people share my view of this forum; that overall it is an agreeable place.  So perhaps the problem is yours.  I apologize if this offends you, I'm just pointing out one likely possibility.

[petemoore]

I need a place that I can go to for a quick understanding of why or how to make x happen
  This is the only 'suggestion' I could sort out from your disclosures, Propa.
  The only fantastically informative suggestions I would have offered have been mentioned and degraded, but probably because of a misunderstanding, there is nothing left for me to suggest for helping X, except try to find alternative sites and operators who don't offend you.
 
 

[petemoore]

  Copy of above, deleted...^ [?]..

[mdh]

My goodness. I hope I'm not just adding fuel to the fire, but here goes. As others have said, there's no magic bullet to the problems we're having in our little social experiment here. In fact, I think most of the suggestions (e.g., exclusive subforums, heavy-handed moderation) are more likely to enhance any latent bad feelings and bring about more dramatic exits of folks in the community. Almost all of it comes down to aron's original suggestion, in fact, aron's original "READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST" thread. We need to be civil and respectful to each other, we need to refrain from name-calling, and when it gets started, we need to try to be mature about it, and not escalate it. I've been offended by things that some folks have said here and in The Lounge, including name-calling attacks that happened to strike me obliquely, even if I wasn't the primary target. I've been tempted to respond with sarcasm, snark, and chest-thumping claims of superiority, but I know it'll just escalate the conflict, so when I feel like that, I walk away.

I know that's not always going to happen. Sometimes someone will be provoked, maybe by someone who practically says, "Hey, look here at this giant chip on my shoulder! You gonna do something about that?" And then the piling on starts up. People start taking sides, which is legitimate, because usually there's some fundamental disagreement at the root of it. It seems to me that most folks around here are pretty civil about disagreements, but there is often a small group of people who are either a bit careless in their posting habits, or maybe just a little too emotionally involved in the disagreement.

The thing is, this problem is not unique to us, nor do I think it's particularly acute here. Try visiting just about any other forum on the internet, reading editorial pages of major newspapers, newsgroups, mailing lists, even the best peer-reviewed journals in many scholarly fields. I know of academics who are so devoted to thumping their chests and throwing their weight around that they've destroyed colleagues' careers by teaming up on them in press. These are not the stakes on the table in our forum. There are a few people here whose livelihoods depend on their particular innovations, so they don't share those things. Those decisions are generally respected, even actively defended by forum members, and I think that's perfectly reasonable.

I'm not saying that we need to be all sunshine and daisies around here, but why spoil the environment over relatively small things? True, sometimes we get snarky replies or no replies to our questions. Sometimes the deficiencies of the medium lead us to believe that a reply was nasty when it wasn't intended that way. Sometimes the revered ones don't have the answers, get busy and miss a thread, or fail to follow up. You know what? That's life. No one is entitled to anything but fair treatment and respect. Sometimes we get a little less of that than we need, but when we start lashing out, we get even less, because that's just the nature of social interaction.

[solarplexus]

I don't know if I'm being clueless, gullable or dumb... but I had a great experience since my 2 years (and so little posts) in this forum and I never really saw a thread with personal attacks or something... I guess I'll have to give it time... 

A suggestion to Aron :

Like everyone seems to say : if you don't want it copied don't post it... so this forum shouldn't be responsible for IP theft.
Personal attacks : what about good old 3 strikes ur out

it's just my suggestions, they may not be good!  But at least I show interest to keep this forum clean and enjoyable.

Thanks Aron for the great forum!

Matt

[aron]

>And this place is disgusting in its attitudes.

OK, thanks for the post. I see how you feel. No matter how much you know, apparently this doesn't translate to manners.

[aron]

The sad truth is no matter how much knowledge or talent or experience a person might have, this apparently doesn't always translate to manners. At this particular time, my fuse is really short - I'm asking for help, not a place for people like that to post obnoxious postings. BTW, mr. propadog, wondergibbon cc'ed sent a totally obnoxious PM to another user. I wish him luck in the future - he's apparently talented, not a young person, has considerable experience (and we may miss him), but you have to act civil.

In his obnoxious post he asked to be banned.

[aron]

I think we are starting to see from this thread that what we have here is special. If it wasn't, no one would give a damn about it. Let's learn from these obnoxious posts how NOT TO BE and also realize that you need to respect the contributions of others.

This means for NEW PEOPLE who don't know anything; when you ask for help, and you get help. It's in the interest of sharing - not making money. Let's say you decide to sell something later based on someone's design - you need to try to compensate that person that did most of the work. Sometimes this means a monetary compensation - yes, YOU are the one trying to sell HIS design.

[choklitlove]

i don't know why this thread is getting nasty.  why?  why are people getting pissed about you asking them for help?  that just makes no sense.  it might have been lost in the shit, so here's my last post to get us back on track with suggestions:

+1 on the member's only idea on certain things. 

what do you guys think about this: a "developer's forum" where you can feel a little safer posting things you're working on.  this sort of goes along the same lines as what i PM'd aron.  to gain access, you have to have a certain # of posts and you have to be a member for so long.  that would probably take care of the majority of people that would take things.  i don't really know.  pros?  cons?

[fixr1984]

I like your idea about a "members only" type of area but I could see that as also being a little discouraging to some people that
are just starting out. If the member area had only the "secret" type stuff or things that someone wanted help from and didnt
want to chance it getting stolen, i could see that. but if that area was for all the layouts and such I could see that as a bad thing.
If a new person came along and wanted to start building but didnt have any type of layout or things like that to get them started it could
cause them to give up or to ask for the layout or schem and get ppl in a hissy that they might be trying to steal it.

Like many others my opinion is to try to keep things the way they are. The only changes I see helpful would be on a personal level with each
member. If you want to share your work, please do so but keep in mind that no matter what someone will use and possibly mis use it.
If you dont want to share your work thats fine too, its yours you worked hard to do it. So i say leave it alone and let each person decide what they
do and dont want to share.

[alextheian-alex]

i don't know why this thread is getting nasty.  why? 

There are just differing opinions and varying levels of ethics at play... and the residual resentment that comes along with that.  I wish that were not the case, but it is.

+1 on the member's only idea on certain things. 

what do you guys think about this: a "developer's forum" where you can feel a little safer posting things you're working on.  this sort of goes along the same lines as what i PM'd aron.  to gain access, you have to have a certain # of posts and you have to be a member for so long.  that would probably take care of the majority of people that would take things.  i don't really know.  pros?  cons?

i think that is a good idea.  it gives us members something to strive for, and when someone has proven that they have enough knowledge and experience to contribute, and have also proven ourselves to be trustworthy, then we would be let in.  There will probably be a bit of resentment of the heirarchy, but it is always nice to have a place where you know that you can offer and recieve advice without fear of theft... OR fear of someone wasting their time building up a tentitive design that probably has a million flaws that are not worked out yet.

i have not posted many schems on this board for just that reason... I don't want them stolen.  i am active on about a dozen electronics boards, and have about 20 megs of schems, texts and html floating around out there for public consumption, but i am scared to death to post on some of the stompbox forums because I, like the other guys, have seen a few fellows base their careers on stolen designs.  So i try to take the "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" approach, and only jump in with tidbits of info when an issue or perspective has not been addressed by someone else... and I don't even know if the advice is even worth a damn and have been shouted down by members on occasion for poking my nose in, but I like to go out on a limb to keep the commumity involvement going dispite the fear of unjust 'keep your oscillascope to yourself DICK' retribution... which is a different issue alltogether and probably off-topic.

[slacker]

I personally don't think this is a good idea for 2 reasons.
1. There's enough subforums here already and most people don't visit them.
2. I don't like the idea of having some sort of hierarchy I think that would cause more problems than it would solve.

I don't think the issue of "theft" is a big enough problem to warrant a solution. Then again I haven't had any of my stuff nicked. 

[jlullo]

i don't think it woud cause any sort of hiearchy... all you'd have to do is register.  it's not hard to do, but it might discourage the lazies who are here just to "steal" stuff.

[BarnabyHooge]

I have a handle full of posts here and know nothing about forums as this is my first as a member, but here is my common sense solution to people who are trying get assistance on unique circuits without getting them ripped off.

If this sounds redicuolous, just ignore me.

Don't post them on the internet. If you want input or idea's from people, just email or PM the members you're comforable with and who know their stuff. If this happens, a naturally occuring sub-group will evolve on it's own in the background. Does it suck that this is the way it has to be? Yes, but thats the nature of the beast.

I haven't contributed to anything here thus far, but I hope to gain enough knowledge to do so in the furture. I hope this place doesn't implode before that can happen.

[slacker]

i don't think it woud cause any sort of hiearchy... all you'd have to do is register. 

The original suggestion was that you'd need a certain number of posts or have been a member for a certain amount of time before being able to access the "developers" forum. As soon as you do that you've created a hierarchy whether you meant to or not. Don't forget that to be a member here you don't ever have to post anything, you're free to lurk and pick up as much info as you like, there's nothing in the rules that says you have to participate in the community to be a member. For that matter there's no compulsion to even register if you don't want to, you're free to use the forum however you like so long as you obey the rules. Why should these people or innocent newbies be penalised by not having access to parts of the forum. Yeah I know unregistered people cant' see the lounge but that's a separate issue.

If you want input or idea's from people, just email or PM the members you're comforable with and who know their stuff. If this happens, a naturally occuring sub-group will evolve on it's own in the background.

I think that kind of thing pretty much happens already, and often the end results are then made available to the wider world. I think there's probably a lot of PM activity going on behind the scenes either people sharing ideas or helping each other. I don't contribute anywhere near as much as some people and I've had quite a bit of PM correspondence with people.

I think we're getting a bit side tracked with the wholesale "theft" issue. If you read Jay's post his main concern was with people using the good nature of people here to do there R&D for them rather than people "stealing" whole designs and selling them as their own.

[The Tone God]

I don't like the idea of a member area for a number of reasons.

First of is the decision of how access is gained. Arbitrarily deciding based on time and/or post count seems like a safe democratic way to gain membership but I don't think either measurement is representative of a member's standing. There are members with lots of post of little substance (I'll hold my head in shame) and others with very few posts but great information. It is quality over quantity that decides the stand of a member in the forum.

With a voted membership system politics comes into play. Who makes the decisions ? What is the criteria ? What happens to people when they are turned down ? It won't encourage them to come back help further. I believe definite sense of class will probably occur which would not be healthy for the forum. "Hey why should I join and waste a bunch of time hoping to get access to this magical area with the good stuff. Screw you snobs!" will be many newcomer's attitudes. I think the treating of everyone as equal helps encourage new members as they mingle with older ones.

Secondly if a member forum was to be created there still is the possibility of something being leaked as complete security could not be assured. While the relationships in the member's area would be more personal when such a leak occurs, and it will, the negativity is bound to be just as personal and more intense. It could get real ugly, real quick with more members retreating which would spill out damaging both the member and open areas.

I figure if someone wants to protect their work but still share with selected people they can create a non-public site and control who they want to see the information. If they want to discuss the information they shared with selected others they can do it through private means like email. They can take security measures of their own choosing thus taking responabilty for their own information security with no blame cast upon anyone else. If there is a leak they can deal with it as they see fit.

As for the concern that this forum is used as R&D I say that is a bad model just for the fact that any information they squeeze out of us is also available to the public. They are taking their chances as all it takes is one post to unravel any special work they accumulated from here.

I still think the forum is fine.

Andrew

[cheeb]

Over the last few weeks as this drama has unfolded, I have asked myself: If the designs that are displayed here are so coveted and the market so lucrative, and everyone is worried about the Bootweekers making $100k off their designs, why do the designers not sell pedals?

Just a question, respectfully asked by a new dude who sucks at building pedals.

--C

P.S.
I agree that this is a special place, *usually* free of hostility and ill will, unlike 80-90% of other forums on the web. I love it here. Let's just be buds.

[petemoore]

  Perhaps posting schematics of FB's on the internet, texting any documentation of testing, then, trying to make the point publicly that somehow 'everyone' is responsible for the retracting posts, or seeing that a design is rewarded is an excellent business strategy, but not something I'd choose to want as part of a platform to build a business presentation on, the comments can't be 'taken off' the blackboard any more than the diagrams can, that is if anyone in class was actually paying attention.
  Posting schems and texts on the internet, then 'pulling them and expecting 'us' to retrieve or somehow sort out the what's of whatever it is that was expected of the designs, business wise, is an interesting type of request, so many words, so little time.