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4HV and the future

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Arcstarter

Mon Jan 03 2011, 11:11PM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

803 wrote ...

I rarely come here anymore, but I see one problem

You see, if someone asks a "stupid" question, they are yelled at.

If someone does something "stupid"
They are yelled at.

If someone doesn't have a high school usderstanding of science, they are yelleed at

If someone says something that the veteran member think is wrong.

The veterans yell at them and call them idiots.

I think that people should be more

KIND

dan dan dannnnn

that will be all

Paul

Well a 'stupid' question might mean a question that could be answered using google that really does not need a full thread. If you do something stupid, you should be yelled at. Electricity is dangerous.

I am homeschooled so i really don't know what public schools expect from students, but from what i can tell (according to my science books), it's not much. If you don't know what resistance is or capacitance, you will likely ask questions that can be solved using google.

"If someone says something that the veteran member think is wrong. The veterans yell at them and call them idiots."

Well, when you've been here awhile you see just how many threads that are completely unnecessary, you kind of get tired of seeing it. Afterall, all the above things you've listed have been covered in the rule area, and most of them are pretty well against it.

edit: Anders beat me

Coronafix

Tue Jan 04 2011, 02:57AM

Registered Member #160 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 02:07AM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 938

Steve McConner wrote ...

First of all, I agree. The e107 search function has all the speed and efficiency of Philip Morris looking for the cause of lung cancer.

I whipped together a quick Google custom search for you to try:

Just enter whatever you want in the search box, and it'll search the current forum, the two sets of archives and the wiki. Sorry about the ads, you have my word that I'm not making any money from them - yet

If Chris finds this acceptable (which I doubt on account of the ads) he might consider permalinking it.

Nice one Steve!! It even finds 3 letter words!! Until the new forum comes, this may be a great way to search old posts.

As far as yelling at people goes, I'm pretty sure I've never seen that happen here, you just get harsh arrogant attitude
and told to go google before posting.
Here's one to add to your list Bjorn,
*A great community to be a part of.

Avi

Tue Jan 04 2011, 03:30PM

Registered Member #580 Joined: Mon Mar 12 2007, 03:17PM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 410

This is an excellent question. In the ham radio community, there are "Elmers" that take newcomers under a wing, and get a joy out of teaching the hobby. I've seen very similar behavior here from some of our members. To my mind, this is something to be encouraged.

Personally I find 1 to 1 realtime chats much more productive and efficient than using a forum for this kind of thing, i realise it doesn't really help anyone else but at least you know you've taught some people some things, those of you who I've helped know who you are.

To be fair, e107's search function doesn't allow anyone to find much of anything. There's a lot of good threads here on the current incarnation that just can't be found.

If "stupid question" means question that can be answered by spending 5 minutes on Google, or question that has already been answered 20 times in the last year, then yeah, you will be told to do some more research.

The problem is with search technology in general, it is not intelligent and barley can understand beyond a word for word match, it has no idea about concepts. So although the content may be here, or the wiki, or in a search engine, if it takes someone more than page 1 or 2 to find anything relevant, or something specific enough, they are not going to spend the whole 5 or more minutes looking. Instead spend the 1 minute looking, and find it more efficient to use the next 20 seconds to place a post here. Searching and being mislead is frustrating, asking is read by human and usually results in something better than any search engine could come up with. (yes there are also cases where it works perfectly fine, I'm not denying that, just pointing something out).
Also, it is not always easy to know the words or phrases you should be using in a search, especially if you are new. So it may seem a person did not search, but really was not sure whats 'out there' for what to look for, you don't look for things you've never heard of existing.

Wolfram

Tue Jan 04 2011, 03:58PM

Registered Member #33 Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 01:31PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 971

Avi wrote ...

If "stupid question" means question that can be answered by spending 5 minutes on Google, or question that has already been answered 20 times in the last year, then yeah, you will be told to do some more research.

I'm not talking about cases where the answer is tricky, but possible to find on google, people don't usually get yelled at when that happens. I'm talking about cases where the answer can be found as the first hit on google just by searching for the thread subject, and cases where the answer can be found by just looking on the first page of threads in the sub-forum.

Steve Conner

Tue Jan 04 2011, 07:09PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

What Avi says has an element of truth to it. The forum and archives have a huge amount of valuable information, but it's completely unorganised, and I don't see any way of organising it without also solving the consciousness problem in AI.

Since Google are probably pretty close to doing that, I thought it might be interesting to make the custom search. I tried typing in things like "flyback driver won't work" and "tesla coil design help" and was pleasantly surprised by the results. For instance, "ultimate flyback driver" brought up a "Flyback Arc Contest" from the archives, with plenty of discussion about what circuit would make the biggest arcs. It also brought up the HVWiki page with schematics for half of them. What more could you want?

I see 4hv as filling essentially the same role as "Elmering" did in ham radio. The trouble is that there are too many elmees (if that's even a word) and not enough Elmers. "803" above was complaining that we should be more kind to him. No. It's triage. There are an infinite number of monkeys out there and not enough time to hold all of their hands, so we (you?) have to pick the most promising ones.

I'd be interested to hear from Chris Russell what his personal vision is for 4hv, it could well be totally different to my impression. Not the small stuff like which forum software it's going to run, but the big picture.

Arcstarter

Wed Jan 05 2011, 08:03AM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

Anders M. wrote ...

I'm not talking about cases where the answer is tricky, but possible to find on google, people don't usually get yelled at when that happens. I'm talking about cases where the answer can be found as the first hit on google just by searching for the thread subject, and cases where the answer can be found by just looking on the first page of threads in the sub-forum.

Be that as it may, there is a very fine line between the two. I guess in a sense there is some validity to both sides of the conversation.

Adam Munich

Wed Jan 05 2011, 08:08AM

Registered Member #2893 Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242

One reason the wiki failed is because registrations are closed...

Bjørn

Wed Jan 05 2011, 09:10AM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

I don't know if it has improved but often Google would not find things that I knew were in the archives, sometimes Bing found it, but often neither of them did. When I found the pages I tried to copy and paste things to see if the page was indexed at all and it newer was.

The problem with the Wiki started long before it was closed, it was filling up with spam because no one cared enough to delete it. So registration was closed to fix the problem. The main idea with the Wiki was to organise the large amount of useful information we have collected so it would not go to waste deep in the archives.

The wiki as it is now has failed but it is not dead yet, there will be at least one more heroic push.

If someone says something that the veteran member think is wrong.
The veterans yell at them and call them idiots.
I think that people should be more
KIND

I think I know where this is coming from and there might be some truth in it. What is important to remember is that some of the veterans have spent a lifetime learning things the hard way. So not showing suitable respect for all their hard work can be taken as an insult. If a carefree newcomer appears lacking in respect and is wrong at the same time the reply might be a bit sharp. These veterans have earned their position through hard work. They are not immune from critisism and correction, it is just that there is a wrong way and a right way to go about it.

Steve Conner

Wed Jan 05 2011, 10:03AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

I also noticed that, and I think Google fails to find things because of its search algorithm. Google rates pages based on how many other pages link to them. If no other pages link the thing in the archive that you're looking for, Google can't see it at all. There are links to it, otherwise it couldn't be accessed. But not hyperlinks, just in our heads and the forum database, neither of which Google can see into. (yet.)

Bjorn is right, before the Internet existed we just had to blow up lots of stuff and figure things out for ourselves. Nowadays the first thing to do is go to a forum and bleat for help. Then you ask the guy some troubleshooting questions, and the reply is "Uh, I don't have the circuit in front of me right now." I usually give up at that point. If you're asking me for help with some circuit, I assume you have it on the bench in front of you, along with basic test equipment such as a scope and DMM.

Chris Russell

Thu Jan 06 2011, 06:19AM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

Steve McConner wrote ...

I see 4hv as filling essentially the same role as "Elmering" did in ham radio. The trouble is that there are too many elmees (if that's even a word) and not enough Elmers. "803" above was complaining that we should be more kind to him. No. It's triage. There are an infinite number of monkeys out there and not enough time to hold all of their hands, so we (you?) have to pick the most promising ones.

I'd be interested to hear from Chris Russell what his personal vision is for 4hv, it could well be totally different to my impression. Not the small stuff like which forum software it's going to run, but the big picture.

I think that 4hv.org's Elmering of newcomers to the hobby is definitely a very important part of 4hv.org. For those that have been around since the beginning, it's important to remember that one of the driving forces that led to 4hv.org's creation was the lack of newbie-friendly resources. Without newbies, this hobby will quickly come to a very sad end.

However, I don't think that's all 4hv.org is. I've been really really thrilled to see some incredible advancements to the hobby taking place right here on the forum, often times as a result of several experienced members being able to put their heads together. I think it's important to keep focus not just on education, but also on advancement. Otherwise, we don't really have any reason for the more experienced members to stay around (unless they're willing to stay around just for the joy of teaching the hobby).

I have a lot of other dreams for 4hv.org: I'd love to be able to put together a 4hv.org scholarship program someday, it'd be really neat if we gained sufficient momentum to put together a massive official 4hv.org teslathon/meetup, and I'd also love for 4hv.org to gain sufficient clout to have an impact on how young people think about the role of math, science, and engineering. Ultimately, though, those are just my (admittedly ambitious) goals. Other people will see a different potential for 4hv.org. I don't really see my input as to 4hv.org's direction as being more weighty or more important; I just see myself as part of the general membership in this regard. If we all put our heads together, some of those things may happen, or some unrelated but equally amazing things may happen instead. Together, we'll all figure out where 4hv.org is headed next.

Grenadier wrote ...

One reason the wiki failed is because registrations are closed...

Registrations had to be closed, unfortunately, because there were not enough active users to combat spambots. Spambots were signing up and modifying pages faster than the few active wiki editors could repair. It became very tiring very quickly. That's the problem with using fairly off-the-shelf software. This won't be an issue in the new software -- everyone will have a wiki account.

Steve McConner wrote ...

I also noticed that, and I think Google fails to find things because of its search algorithm. Google rates pages based on how many other pages link to them. If no other pages link the thing in the archive that you're looking for, Google can't see it at all. There are links to it, otherwise it couldn't be accessed. But not hyperlinks, just in our heads and the forum database, neither of which Google can see into. (yet.)

Yes, the archives are in desperate need of some search engine optimization. My plan at this stage is to reduce the archives to a series of static pages in a simple directory structure. That will be something that Google, Bing, and others can index more readily, and should improve search engine results considerably. Then it's no big deal to put a search box on every page that makes use of a custom Google search to scour the archives.

The new site will feature some good built-in search engine optimization, so even though the new software will offer improved search capabilities, the current version of the site will be readily searchable via Google, Bing, etc.

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