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Finn Hammer

Sat Jan 24 2009, 10:22PM

Registered Member #205 Joined: Sat Feb 18 2006, 11:59AM
Location: SkÃ¸rping, Denmark
Posts: 741

I read up about the new forum and stumbeled across this:

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The best solution that I've seen is to allow users a "trial period," wherein new users will be able to make an arbitrary number of posts. At that point, the user can't make any more posts unless they have a high enough rating through the site's feedback system. This is the system I want to implement here at 4hv.org.
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What is the proposed feedback system going to be like?
Today, anyone can post *a lot* to all forums and get a long line of stars, but are the posts quality, and are the stars?

Cheers, Finn Hammer

rp181

Sat Jan 24 2009, 10:38PM

Registered Member #1062 Joined: Tue Oct 16 2007, 02:01AM
Location:
Posts: 1529

I think (for most people) that there posts start out poor when they first get started. As they learn more, posts get better and better.

Backyard Skunkworks

Sun Jan 25 2009, 12:36AM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

I also like the idea of some basic test that new members need to pass before they can post, such as finding voltage across a resistor or calculating the energy stored in a capacitor. It should be something that can be googled, but that will forced people to learn enough so they arn't total noobs.

teslacoolguy

Sun Jan 25 2009, 01:20AM

Registered Member #1107 Joined: Thu Nov 08 2007, 10:09PM
Location:
Posts: 792

Thats a good idea skunkworks. Another thing i want to suggest is to add some safety related questions such as "what is the highest voltage that is considered safe" or how many MA through the heart does it take to kill you. Stuff like that i think is pretty necessary because i think some members come in having ho clue what dangers are involved with working with high voltage.

Myke

Sun Jan 25 2009, 01:42AM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

Someone doesn't have to know how much current it takes to kill someone to be safe with working with HV (I don't know the exact current that it takes to kill across the heart but it isn't much). I think that questions should be asked where there is one answer that won't vary depending on the source.

rp181

Sun Jan 25 2009, 02:27AM

Registered Member #1062 Joined: Tue Oct 16 2007, 02:01AM
Location:
Posts: 1529

Im against a test. If someone joins, and does not make good posts, they usually get better, or drop of the forum.

Shaun

Sun Jan 25 2009, 03:19AM

Registered Member #690 Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616

No offense to anyone here, but if I were trying to sign up to a forum like this one and they wanted me to take a test in order to join, I would think they were total assholes. A "trial period" sounds much better, but I'm still not all for it...

What I'm getting to is, high voltage electronics is a different hobby than most. It requires a good amount of knowledge to be successful in it, but unlike most hobbies there is an element of danger. If someone is a noob to, say, model airplane building, they can screw around and experiment and at worst they would glue their fingers together.

However, just looking at Google images and Youtube videos is enough to convince anyone that most of the more impressive things we do are VERY dangerous. If someone doesn't have support from a more experienced person they might be too afraid to get into the hobby, or worse, try something stupid and hurt themselves.

Bottom line here: Humor the noobs, for they will inherit the earth.

Chris Cristini

Sun Jan 25 2009, 03:33AM

Registered Member #1749 Joined: Fri Oct 10 2008, 02:04AM
Location: Claremont New Hampshire
Posts: 497

rp181 wrote ...

I think (for most people) that there posts start out poor when they first get started. As they learn more, posts get better and better.

I agree I started not being good at typing or using punctuations or abbreviations I didn't even know what the red line means when u miss spell a word this is not the first forum I joined but it is the best of all for the subjects here and I received a private message about spelling and I learned from that. It is kind of sad that I can build and over clock computers but yet I cant spell that grate.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sun Jan 25 2009, 05:46AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

1. A test will not help people learn.. aferall why join if you already know.

2. I'm trying to help people who obviously don't know much about safety.. sometimes even experienced people! So if a new person cannot satisfy the new rules how are they supposed to benefit ?

I probably would have been for testing years back when I felt more elitist about EE, but I'm over that. I realized the importance of IEEE and the EE community when a professor pointed out that Engineering is about raising others to higher standards, not suppressing or ostricizing them because they're not engineers.
It's akin to me making a forum where you have to have an EE degree to join, its just silly nonsense.

Keep it open for all, and sort out the fools with their preliminary posts.

Chris Russell

Sun Jan 25 2009, 03:23PM

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

I've seen good arguments for and against a test of some kind. Really, it's a balance between making the sign up process scary enough that the newbs take it the site seriously, but not so bad that good, talented people are likely to be discouraged. How many of you would really be willing to take a ten minute test to post to a forum you just learned about?

The matter is somewhat complicated by the fact that there's more to 4hv than high voltage. Suppose someone is signing up to post about chemistry. Or AVR programming. Asking them an electronics related question isn't really a fair test of what kind of members they may be.

Let us not forget that some of the worst members we've ever had are the sorts of people who would breeze through a test like this as well, or any applications process we could devise.

That's why I feel people should get an initial number of posts for free, at which time they're either reviewed by a moderating team, or handled automatically through some sort of feedback process. Personally, I'd lean toward having some sort of human intervention at that point, as all of the feedback systems I've tested are woefully inadequate, or do not address the possibility of some sort of newb alliance voting one another up. Something like ten posts is enough to get an idea of how a person is doing. If the account is automatically suspended for review at that point, that means we don't have situations where newbs are running wild until the moderators become aware there's a problem. Every single new signup would get a review at the ten post mark, and every single new signup gets a little feedback from the moderating team on how they're doing. They could then either get the go ahead to continue posting, get denied the ability to post in the future, or be conditionally approved -- ie, something along the lines of "you can continue posting if you promise to work on your spelling and formatting."

This is as much your decision as it is mine, though, so I'm open to suggestions. I just don't think a test is likely to help things. We're more apt to run into the sort of situation we had with the applications process: 75% of the newbs are scared off, 90% of the really good people out there are put off, and 0% of the people really determined to bring some sort of agenda to 4hv are turned away.

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