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A request to the community

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Bjørn

Wed Feb 11 2009, 12:41AM

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

Also, what are the duties of a moderator. If this forum could reach the level it once had I would read it quite often like I used to. Perhaps I could be of some help. You mentioned time, are there any other requirements like programming, or specific knowledge of how the site is constructed?

At the moment the duties are mainly making sure that the rules are followed and that things remain under control. The main requirements are common sense; no special skills are needed.

One of the problems we always have had is that the moderators have been strong individuals with little ability to work together as a group (the grumpy old men syndrome). If we are going to succeed in delegating more of the running of the forum to the moderators we need at least some people that can cooperate and get things done.

rp181

Wed Feb 11 2009, 01:11AM

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

I think the main underlying reason for the more threads is more interest (can chris back this up with traffic stats?). Everyone has to start out somewhere, and from there they grow. I bet if most of you looked at your first couple posts, you would wonder. I am not saying it is a excuse though.

I think the best way to go about this is to improve the content and publicity of the hvwiki. The IRC chat would work good, but it all depends on whose on. Say you live in a timezone with very few people. Even if you live in more populated areas, one visit could make people think it is never active.

Another possibility is a project index. When ever there are well documented projects, that can go in there, and provide some useful information. Along with this section, there could be a how to section. Not for specific part lists and such, but the method you go about.

A system like on spudfiles could be used. You are given a certain amount of virtual "cash" for each post depending on the content amount. The posts to content ratio would be a good method of seeing someones actual rating.
A minimum character limit would help too.

Arcstarter

Wed Feb 11 2009, 03:07AM

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

A minimum character limit would help too.

How would this help? Some people have very relevant and useful posts with many thousands of characters.

Dr. Drone

Wed Feb 11 2009, 04:54PM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
Location:
Posts: 1673

KLH

Wed Feb 11 2009, 07:31PM

Registered Member #1819 Joined: Thu Nov 20 2008, 04:05PM
Location:
Posts: 137

Arcstarter wrote ...

A minimum character limit would help too.

How would this help? Some people have very relevant and useful posts with many thousands of characters.

I think that means that the poster needs to have above a certain amount of characters for the post to be allowed.

However, the inverse of what you said may apply: some may have interesting posts with only a few characters.

Chris Russell

Wed Feb 11 2009, 07:46PM

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

killah573 wrote ...

Arcstarter wrote ...

A minimum character limit would help too.

How would this help? Some people have very relevant and useful posts with many thousands of characters.

One interesting solution that I've seen used in an IRC channel is to disallow any post that is the same, word-for-word, as another post. The theory is that if you're repeating something that has been said before, it's unlikely to be of any value. Posts like "me too" and "yeah" get used up quickly, while short, relevant posts like "the Hfe is 14" are unlikely to collide, and won't be clipped by a minimum length. Long posts, of course, are extremely extremely unlikely to have any problems with being identical to another post.

It's by no means an end-all be-all to improving quality, but it might be better than a minimum post length.

Proud Mary

Wed Feb 11 2009, 08:16PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Let's not forget that asking a question may well be some people's way of introducing themselves, and of expressing an interest in a particular topic. People may come here in the hope of meeting others with similar interests to their own - as in a club - just as much as they do to exchange engineering data, so let's not overlook this social aspect of the redundant question when making policies about them.

Tesladownunder

Wed Feb 11 2009, 11:57PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Here's my take on it all.
All good points. I try to have high quality posts and a good number of my new posts have been new projects with photos or more recently significant media exposure.
I am a moderator particularly for the ** Add your Tesla coil here ** which is sadly in need of a re index. I must admit that maintainence of that thread seems a bit pointless if we will lose it again with another shift to operating program. It was a very time consuming task to port it post by post to this forum from the last. However I believe it has a lot of value judging by hit number and it is worthy of a sticky.
I feel my time is best spent in media efforts these days (just received another phone call for international showing during this post, amazingly). Hard to get time for projects and I spent a month not able to get in the shed at all. However, next project has WOW factor and must be done in 3 weeks. More soon.

Chris Cristini

Thu Feb 12 2009, 02:25AM

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

I will be willing to help perhaps someone could send me an email with a task every day or when ever I am needed. As every one knows I may have little to no experience when it comes to this sort of thing. I am still trying to get a job it is hard in Claremont right now because there is nothing for work I can think of this being my job for the time being. I apologize if this is off topic in any way just trying to make a difference in 4HV.

3l3ctrici7y

Sat Feb 14 2009, 03:29AM

Registered Member #1806 Joined: Sun Nov 09 2008, 04:58AM
Location: USA
Posts: 136

Perhaps an additional forum could be added for new members to post in, and also to ask whatever basic questions they wish. Such members could be gently encouraged to make first posts there, either to introduce them selves; where they live, what they do for a job, interesting electrical items they have or projects they have done, how they got into/interested in electronics, what their goals are for future electrical exploits (general hv, mot, iggy, tesla, xray, microwave, etc.), etc.
If they are new and are not certain that it is an advanced question belonging in another forum, it should be posted in the new members forum. This approach is completely voluntary.. I presume it could easily be implemented with usual board configuration modifications.

Alternative 1; new members with zero or only a few posts could be outright asked if the post actually belongs in a forum other than the new member forum (if they're not actually posting in the new member forum), and then carefully reiterate the rules for new members posting.

Alternative 2; they could be forced to post in the new member forum, or have the post verified by moderator before it is actually posted.

As when medicating ones self, one should use the least medication necessary to get the job done; so too in this case. Simply making the forum, and having some prominent text somewhere instructing new members to post in this forum is probably a good place to start. Only move up if new members are not obeying the rules. Furthermore, the proposed rules are not vague; it's pretty easy to determine if the new member is obeying the rules or not.

If, on the one hand, a new member does NOT comply with the instructions; it's a strike against them already.
Now, if on the other hand, they have a really good post and chose NOT to post it in the new member forum, then that's ok. Suppose a new member's first post is to (correctly) answer a question posed in a thread by someone else.. that's fine first post. If the new member is asking some esoteric HV/EE question; not the kind of thing that is beaten to death and/or a quick Google or forum search would answer; again, a perfectly acceptable first post not made in the new members forum.

P.S.; Tesladownunder; if someone with suitable database experience were to whip up a bit of php, it should be possible to pull the post data out of the database for this forum and put it in the database for the new forum. Simply knowing the database schema of each forum should allow a competent php programmer to write a script to do the work. I could possibly do this, but its been a while since I messed around with php/[my|postgre]sql. Obviously both forums would have to be installed and a single script able to access the database and relations (tables) used by BOTH forum softwares at the same time (unless it were to use an intermediary file)

Gah.. that got to be a long post. No wonder I don't post very often ;)

-elec

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