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  • I have been thinking about how to improve the functionality of the forum.  In that consideration, it occurred to have that I have found maybe 25% of the posts to be useful to me, so I considered the reasons.  The biggest is that the topics discussed fall outside of my technical expertise, here the problem lies with me.  The next reason is that the content is outside my interest area, again I am the problem here.

    I think we can easily address the other two issues.  The first is that some posts are enormous, I look at them and move on from them.  May I ask the community a simple request?  If you make a large post, please put a summary of the post at the top, even something simple like, "I am discussing X.  I will go into detail about A, B & C.  My focus is on B, to prove it, I will be F, G, H & J."  This way all forum readers can quickly determine how much energy to put into the post and if the post addresses topics of interest to them.

    The second issue is about as common as the too-big-post issue, this is the too-small-post issue.  There are multiple posts that either have a sentence followed by a couple links, just a video or a question like this, "Have we eve considered massive technology?"  As you are posting, please consider how to make this useful to other readers.  Why should we explore this technology?  What is a summary of the technology?  Do you have experience with this technology?  What basic things are covered in the videos?  Why are these links useful?  Etc.

    In conclusion, the value of posts to the community will increase, if you put a little extra time into ensuring it is not just an information dump, be it massive or miniscule.
     
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  • I agree, although I'd add that if it comes down to either a 1 liner and a link vs not posting at all, just post the 1 liner. Something is better than nothing. If you can however, obviously give a good summary.
     
  • i believe this is refereed to as "tl;dr"

    or "too long; didn't read"

    im usually only comfortable posting 2 to 8 sentences unless its something special.

    if someone posts something over a paragraph i think twice before i plan on reading it.

    i am guilty of some of the things you describe though :) ill try to be better

    ive seen where people post at the bottom of their post like this :

    tldr some posts are too long or too short
     
  • Except that it is not really fair to ask someone who has already put a ton of time and effort into a long, informative post, to spend even more time because you are too lazy to skim the article.
     
  • @gregor, I will assert rather emphatically that if someone has put 2,000 pounds (~907kg) of time and effort into a post that they will desire it to be useful, an enormous post without clear structure, which includes an introduction, is an indication that sufficient time and energy was not spent.  I will paraphrase Pascal in saying "I would have written less, but I had not the time."  

    Finally, in self-defense, being prudent about my use of time is not laziness.
     
  • I tend to agree with Adam on the length of a post.  Generally, if the post runs to any significant length, then it should probably be posted to the wiki in an appropriate place.  The forum is a place of discussion, not dissertation.  The wiki is very easy to change.  Long articles can be easily broken up into smaller ones, short ones fleshed out with detail etc.  Also, I wouldn't be too concerned with a half-baked idea.  If you have enough material to write a post too long to be easily read, then it's at least on the way to being fully baked - so post it to the wiki.
     
  • @mjn, you bring up a point I have been thinking about (particularly because I am not too wiki-active), how do we encourage people to work on wikis and how do we ensure that half-baked ideas that get tossed up are processed appropriately?
     
  • Process them.  You want it done, you do it.
     
  • @gregor, thanks...
     
  • Welll, really,  in some cases there may be some things that need to be done, are holding up further work, and can only be done by a few people.  In those cases, if nobody gets on their back it will never get done and we would have a problem.

    But for most other stuff, it makes no more sense to say that people who present ideas shoudl implement those ideas than it does to make a rule for yourself that you will always do everything you think of.  We need to pool our brains as well as our hands.  Many hands make light work but with enough eyeballs all problems are shallow.  Much stuff that gets suggested or thought about won't be worth doing in the end but suggesting and talking and even pushing for it is still good.  We can use collective, additive thinking (rather than subtractive groupthink which produces behaviour dumber than any one person) That someone has a good idea does not mean that they personally are in a position to do it, obviously.  Fact, like it or not. Their opinion might be worth *less*, but still something, and not necessarily.

    A culture in which people make the ultimate decision where to spend their own time, instead of where other people decide how other people will spend their time means less unnecessary work.  When you are faced with a couple hours of work you tend to think a little harder about the harsh realities of whether it is really worthwhile.



     

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