Noise is making useful data hard(er) to find - Page 2

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Peppersass
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#11: Post by Peppersass »

ira wrote:...reading those kinds of posts recently and the number of what I would consider inane posts from first time posters is approaching multiple per day.
To the extent these posts are from newbies, let's try to be kind. We were all newbies at one time and I rather doubt any of us completely avoided inane posts. To the extent they have to do with color options or how unfair a lottery is, just ignore them and read the posts that enhance your knowledge of the subject. Plenty of posts here still have that potential.
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ira
Team HB
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#12: Post by ira »

Here is a perfect example:

Does this espresso machine even exist?

Posted in the wrong forum, inane first question and I responded with the results from the first and only Google search I tried and he's happy. Really?

Ira

SJM
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#13: Post by SJM »

And then there is just plain rudeness...

Well, 1st time poster ... from..., I'd think if you were about to start a coffee cart you'd know a little more about what you wanted to do already? Is this one of those threads where you later put in a dubious link?

tracer bullet
Posts: 147
Joined: 5 years ago

#14: Post by tracer bullet replying to SJM »

That was me, sorry. I've admin'd a few forums and the spammers get on your nerves. Kinda like the example just above, I met it with an "are you actually serious" view that day.

I know better, it wont' happen again. Better answer is to not say anything or to report the post and let a mod check the ip address and such.

SJM
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Joined: 17 years ago

#15: Post by SJM »

And that was a very nice apology;
any bad feelings I had about it were dissolved.
I hope that is the same for the OP (if s/he even noticed....)

Haskens
Posts: 154
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#16: Post by Haskens »

AssafL wrote:And with the kind help of egalitarian lottery method: Here is another "waiting for godot" thread to keep us entertained as Vladimir and Estragon contemplate the appropriate color schemes for their grinder win. Or cogitate over the philosophical consequences of having the screws veering off a full mm to the right. Existentialism in screws-ness!

Monolith Flat MAX - Sept-Oct '19 Production Run

(Again - I have no issue with anodization colors. I like brushed aluminum just like everyone else - Just that it should be in a separate location where non-owners are not subject to the whimsy).
I'm an espresso beginner so maybe I'm just not knowledgeable enough to feel the disillusionment you mention, but I don't see what the issue is here - no one needs to read every post or thread on this forum, and you could just use the title to decide whether or not to read it rather than wade through everything. I don't know all that much about espresso, but I do about say woodworking, and on those forums I just ignore any 'best plane for a beginner', 'Lie Nielsen vs Veritas', 'Which sharpening guide to use', 'How to sharpen freehand' etc. etc. unless I have something to contribute.

Another aspect to consider, and I know this to be true for both my espresso and woodworking hobbies, is that for a lot of us these forums are the only place we have like minded individuals to share our newest acquisitions, discoveries or whatever is exciting us at the moment. So I don't see the issue with Vladimir or Estragon deliberating on color schemes - this is likely the only place they can discuss such minutae with other people....I've tried talking about stuff like this with my wife, and she just shakes her head and mutters something like 'ridiculous' under her breath while she visualizes the amount of money I've dropped on hobbies...
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ira
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#17: Post by ira »

Haskens wrote:I'm an espresso beginner so maybe I'm just not knowledgeable enough to feel the disillusionment you mention, but I don't see what the issue is here - no one needs to read every post or thread on this forum, and you could just use the title to decide whether or not to read it rather than wade through everything. I don't know all that much about espresso
Not that long ago I read every thread now it seems like the interesting ones are approaching 1 in 20 or so and it's not that I don't like beginners, but the amount of information here is astonishing, and if most of the beginners tried reading for a few days, most of there questions have already been answered. Forums help the most when the knowledge level goes up. When the noise lever gets too high, the ones like me who've spent 12 years here learning and helping go away and the beginner vs experienced starts to tilt in the way the CG is now.

And yes I know, everything changes and I've watched numerous bulletin boards and forums become non relevant because the influx of beginners asking questions before thinking cause all the people who've been through it all to leave due to boredom.

Also, because people often don't have reasonable subjects you get sucked in to opening something that turns out to be nonsense. Unless you like being a teacher, when you stop learning from your woodworking forums, you'll likely leave and then you knowledge will be lost. It is an essentially impossible problem, finding the perfect balance of people to maintain anything like this moving forward and constantly increasing both the knowledge of the members and the hardest part, the knowledge of the craft. I've been here 12 years, In the beginning the question of what grinder was simple, the same with what espresso machine and pretty much, what coffee, so the question was how do I make better espresso and we learned about process and technique. Now all the questions are what machine and what grinder, the two least important questions.

IMHO, Ira
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HB
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#18: Post by HB »

ira wrote:When the noise lever gets too high, the ones like me who've spent 12 years here learning and helping go away and the beginner vs experienced starts to tilt in the way the CG is now... I've watched numerous bulletin boards and forums become non relevant because the influx of beginners asking questions before thinking cause all the people who've been through it all to leave due to boredom.
I've been wondering how to solve this problem for a long time; I posted What to do about newbie noise in 2009. The number of posts has doubled since then (31K in 2009, 62K in 2018). I assume most of that growth is first-time buyer posts or beginner technique posts, not deep insights from long-time members.

Back in 2009, the Buying Advice forum didn't exist. Creating it was probably the best and worst solution to buying questions that were otherwise spread in every forum: Best because it curtained off the repetitive "What should I buy?" type questions, worst because it encouraged even more "What should I buy?" questions. :?
Moka 1 Cup wrote:This would be probably solved with a sub forum dedicated to less experienced people (like me ), or where anybody can ask very simple questions that require simple answers.
Based on the Buying Advice forum, creating a dedicated forum for "newbies" would help centralize beginner questions and encourage even more beginner questions. At least that's what proven true every time a new top-level forum was created -- the number of topics on the subject increased (long-time HB members may recall this site started out with only one forum for reviews).

I see three possible choices for reducing so-called "noise":
  • Corral - create dedicated forum(s) so those who are/aren't interested can more easily find/ignore said topic(s)
  • Discourage - put mechanisms in place to discourage repetitive questions. For example, on Stack Overflow, moderators aggressively close topics as already answered with a message and link to prior discussion.
  • Filter - put mechanisms in place to simplify filtering topics specific to a reader's interest (e.g., tags like #beginner or #advanced)
Did I miss any options?

The above addresses forum topics; as a long-standing goal, I think content curated from the forum in a more friendly form like a wiki would help "raise the discussion level". Often the reason a question is asked is because the prior answers are buried in a dozen other threads. I proposed it last year for the Summer of Code projects for HB. Now that Nico is back, maybe consider it again?
Dan Kehn

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sweaner
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#19: Post by sweaner »

I really don't see a big problem. True, there are more threads that I don't read, but that is because there are more members posting. It is really not hard to find the topics that you want to read and simply not read the others.

A forum for newbies would not be useful if only newbies read it. How would they get proper advice from the more experienced?
Scott
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HB
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#20: Post by HB »

sweaner wrote:A forum for newbies would not be useful if only newbies read it. How would they get proper advice from the more experienced?
Eh, the same could be said for the Buying Advice forum, but plenty of experienced members respond.
Dan Kehn