rebalgray wrote:Pete, I for one think the members here should treat new Spuders with a little more respect. What may be a stupid question to you people that have been at this for a while isn't to a new guy. Wouldn't it be just as easy to answer the question than to jump all over him. I had the same thing happen to me last week. I asked where I could find 1\4" neoprene. A guy came back with have you even looked. I may be new at spud guns but I've been looking things up on the net for years. Isn't this forum here to help people? If it isn't close my account. I belong to other sites that are glad to answer questions.
Martin
Rebal,
I've debated this same topic before, and you make some valid points.
There are a few inherent problems with forums like this. This forum particularly is targeted towards home-made cannons, so, unsurprisingly, it attracts a lot of young (frequently immature) members.
The biggest challenge of the moderating staff here is to keep the forum clean; removing argumentative and unproductive bickering type posts, posted spam, pranksters, and last, what we've refered to as "dumb questions". My point is that, the mods have a lot to do already without the newbie members.
However, you're absolutely right, something that's second-nature to a long-time member will be a new concept to a newcomer.
That's why we've provided extensive Wikipedia and How-To sections that would answer 90% of the so-called dumb questions, if only members would take five minutes to look/search.
This is why I (and some other forum patrons) get irritated by such simple questions. We just don't like to spoonfeed people when the information they want is right at their fingertips.
I try to be curious and politely ask the new member to search before posting next time on his/her "first offense". However, in this instance, CannonCreater had gone on a short (12-post) posting spree which required at least 5-6 minutes of my time to clean up after. I had asked him to stop in other threads, and PM'ed him also. I hope that explains my "harsh reaction". I've since talked to him via PM, and I think we're on the same page now.
As for your last question, of course this forum is here to help people. If you look around, it's actually quite productive at that; people sharing designs and ideas, exchanging opinions, showing off their finished works. There are also rough spots, like this thread.
It's difficult to try to maintain the atmosphere of an open, idea-sharing, engineering-community type forum while also dealing with large numbers of frequently immature members. I hope this doesn't discourage you from participating in our forum.
Peace,
Pete Zaria.
