Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
It's a mixed bag for me. Some of the new stuff is great because there is new knowledge and a broader perspective. In ther ways it's declined, especially because of the loss of several strong and smart contributors who were banned or hounded out. For me, there is too much commercial stuff going on, the forum is a lot more polluted by people looking to sell stuff, sell themselves, advertise or whatever and its done in ways to avoid breaking the rules. You know who you are! As a result of all of these factors I participate less in some areas. Overall, its still a darn good forum!
Yes, the fourm search should retire, just use Google, that battle was won years ago.
Yes, the fourm search should retire, just use Google, that battle was won years ago.
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Waxes and wanes. I first started "seriously" reading all I could in ham radio magazines (QST, CQ, HR etc.) in the early 1960's -- my love was VHF and most everything was built from scratch.
It would be really interesting, if a bit academic, to look at the top posts and track the number of responses over time. Some of the posts like those from Nelson on the F4 and F5 were absolutely ravenous.
With no doubt whatsover, someone with a bit of soldering skill can build a preamp, amp or speaker which seriously rivals their commercial counterpart at a fraction of retail cost and with much more satisfaction.
It would be really interesting, if a bit academic, to look at the top posts and track the number of responses over time. Some of the posts like those from Nelson on the F4 and F5 were absolutely ravenous.
With no doubt whatsover, someone with a bit of soldering skill can build a preamp, amp or speaker which seriously rivals their commercial counterpart at a fraction of retail cost and with much more satisfaction.
I agree with this. I don't have a problem with commercial interests, but the ones who are really just advertising in an obfuscated way drive me crazy.
Not 100%. Yes, google is better most of the time, but it can't find the older threads that you sometimes need to find.
Help Vampires are one of the problems. Help Vampire
Trolls are another and it's often not easy to categorically say someone is a troll. Extreme differences in oppinion can result in allegations of trolling from both sides.
This is an interesting read on trolls. Trolls Aren't the Problem in Online Communities, So What Is?
Us older members tend to get tired because of help vampire type posts. We get a bit jaded and start seeing trolls everywhere. Having some awareness of the things in the two above linked articles can help us not to be part of the problem!
Oh and for any that don't know. putting site:www.diyaudio.com after the search term in google, will only return (other than ads) search results from diyaudio, as opposed to just putting diyaudo.com as one of the search terms which will return results from unrelated sites.
Tony.
Trolls are another and it's often not easy to categorically say someone is a troll. Extreme differences in oppinion can result in allegations of trolling from both sides.
This is an interesting read on trolls. Trolls Aren't the Problem in Online Communities, So What Is?
Us older members tend to get tired because of help vampire type posts. We get a bit jaded and start seeing trolls everywhere. Having some awareness of the things in the two above linked articles can help us not to be part of the problem!
Oh and for any that don't know. putting site:www.diyaudio.com after the search term in google, will only return (other than ads) search results from diyaudio, as opposed to just putting diyaudo.com as one of the search terms which will return results from unrelated sites.
Tony.
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Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
I personally believe that the search function on this forum could go a lot further in the way of generating useful results. Most if not all of the thread results that I get are unrelated to the topic that I'm searching for.. Its not the search engines fault its the way the threads are titled.
It could also be because I don't know the proper technical terms to be able to use the search feature properly, which I think is why there are so many new threads being made asking questions related to the topic. Therefore you get help vampires and it may not be because the thread search function doesn't work rather that the end user who is doing the search doesn't know the correct terminology or words to use, because they don't understand the topic in the first place (which is why they are asking for help).
I for example do not read audiophile magazines or browse audiophile websites so therefore I don't know the correct terminology or even understand any of the technology involved. Which makes me an assembler, not a designer.
So when I search for something I get a hundred threads detailing the designing (and astonishing engineering) of a circuit and not how to complete or assemble a circuit and I just feel dirty going to any other site (such as Electronic projects circuits) trying to find the basic information that I need. This forum has both the engineering areas and the basic questions all thrown into one place where the search engine is searching across both fields, causing mass confusion for me.
So when I search for "the incredibly stable and clean power supply" I get an endless thread of posts detailing the design stages and I feel utterly confused and bewildered, I just wanted a schematic a basic way to assemble the circuit, no I don't want to buy the project and I'm too dumb to design any circuit, I want to simply assemble it for myself (diy).... But I can't because the thread is endlessly discussing the design of the circuit for thousands and thousands of posts.
The community is great, the friendliest I've ever met. But there needs to be more threads of the high end designs with schematics as the first posts. I don't want to have to wade through hundreds of posts to find a schematic (some of them with dead links even and the further back in time you go the worse this gets and there is a correlation to how basic the question is and how old the thread is.). I would love it if a new thread was made after a design has been completed with the title of "the incredibly stable and clean power supply - schematic". Doing that would save me and others a hell of a lot of headache constantly finding design threads in the search engine which have no place in an assembler's world.
Or even better, move all design threads over to a specific sub forum for it or (an alternative suggestion) make a new sub forum in each main forum as "for schematics only". That way the dum dums like me can live happily amongst the greatest engineers out there by simply limiting my search to that specific subforum.
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I hear you VenusFly and it is a topic that has been discussed quite a bit by the mods. We are hoping that with the replatforming of the site to xenoforo this will be a lot easier to deal with.
We have in the past discussed having build only sub-forums, and design only sub forums, I believe with the replatforming tagging will be available which may be a way of helping.
There are build threads, but a way of easily finding them is missing.
Tony.
We have in the past discussed having build only sub-forums, and design only sub forums, I believe with the replatforming tagging will be available which may be a way of helping.
There are build threads, but a way of easily finding them is missing.
Tony.
The problem with separating 'build' from 'design' is that unless the builder is using a very well-engineered kit (so he is just painting by numbers) he needs to know some design information in order to build and debug it. You cannot build from a circuit diagram alone - unless you know enough to have a go at designing it yourself. The circuit diagram does not contain all the necessary information for a successful build.
"I built it exactly as it says, but it doesn't work" - needs design knowledge to discover what part was not exactly as it should be
"I recapped it, now it doesn't work" - needs design knowledge to fault find
"Will this circuit work?" - only if you build it correctly
"I built it exactly as it says, but it doesn't work" - needs design knowledge to discover what part was not exactly as it should be
"I recapped it, now it doesn't work" - needs design knowledge to fault find
"Will this circuit work?" - only if you build it correctly
DF96, that is true. Perhaps I should clarify (as I see it). The distinction is more one of threads about actually building stuff (which doesn't necessarily exclude some discussion of design) as opposed to totally theoretical threads (which can lead to quite a bit of pontification). 
Charles Darwin, Yes I find it best to click the radio button to show posts as well. The other thing that also often improves the search results is to put the search term in quotes.
eg "MTM lobing" may return very different results to MTM lobing without the " "
I just tried exactly that. and with the quotes I was returned a single post. Without the quotes I got 3118 results...
Tony.
Charles Darwin, Yes I find it best to click the radio button to show posts as well. The other thing that also often improves the search results is to put the search term in quotes.
eg "MTM lobing" may return very different results to MTM lobing without the " "
I just tried exactly that. and with the quotes I was returned a single post. Without the quotes I got 3118 results...
Tony.
like everything else in life , at least regarding ppl , everything goes in circles
we want more members , so we get more of everything ...... and overall quality will fluctuate , of course
board is good exactly as members are
regarding search , say - for answers ...... like in everything else - catch is that you need to invest in both time and learning , to have any success in searching
catch22
we want more members , so we get more of everything ...... and overall quality will fluctuate , of course
board is good exactly as members are
regarding search , say - for answers ...... like in everything else - catch is that you need to invest in both time and learning , to have any success in searching
catch22
You beat me to it!
As Wintermute has said, the signal to noise ratio is something the mod team is well aware of, and would like to improve. I've been pushing very hard (read "griping") for the improvement for quite some time. We hope to at least improve your ability to find good content with the new platform. It won't be perfect, but we think it will go a long way toward separating the wheat from the chaff. I see the S/N ratio as our biggest problem.
There was a lot of noise in this thread Polarity - external 12V AC power supply but also some very interesting information surfaced. All you need is a filter
I hope that Mod intervention is not too much, there are already 3 forums that I followed since 2007 and now they are zombies. Most of them because too many rules of do & dont, or too much intervention from forum staff.You beat me to it!
As Wintermute has said, the signal to noise ratio is something the mod team is well aware of, and would like to improve. I've been pushing very hard (read "griping") for the improvement for quite some time. We hope to at least improve your ability to find good content with the new platform. It won't be perfect, but we think it will go a long way toward separating the wheat from the chaff. I see the S/N ratio as our biggest problem.
i hope that this forum will last for another decades eventhough noise threads are coming like a thunder.
One more thing, maybe I didn't pay too much attention to the following trend in the past... having been more or less off DiyA for a few years and only for couple of past months become more active again having noticed under the Solid State sub forum (largest sub forum by post count) more or less a new post every day which has nothing to do with DIY but rather help with a broken/malfunctioning commercial amp, here's another one freshly in:
Mark Levinson 331 DC on output
I believe the amp category would need a "Service Help" sub forum where people can post for help concerning their commercial stuff in order to keep the clutter out of Soild State, if DiyA is going to cater towards broken commercial stuff at all.
Mark Levinson 331 DC on output
I believe the amp category would need a "Service Help" sub forum where people can post for help concerning their commercial stuff in order to keep the clutter out of Soild State, if DiyA is going to cater towards broken commercial stuff at all.
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How about the mods get more flexibility to move all the fluff into the Lounge under a policy that threads in the forums with focus are for projects, technical discussions, etc. and not for general questions or "Vampire Help" posts where the OP has obviously not done one iota of searching before asking for someone to spell out the answer for them.
Particularly, threads like:
What is the ultimate XXX for YYY?
Threads talking about fixing commercial equipment
Threads where the topic is not audio related
(I am sure there are more like this, just can't come up with them right now)
Also, for members who have donated, how about a way to customize which forums show up in the list of latest post? There are some forum topic that I am just not interested in and posts in those forums clog up the "latest posts" view. It would be nice if the "latest posts" view showed only the ones I wanted to see. Currently I have to open each forum separately to see new posts under that topic.
Particularly, threads like:
What is the ultimate XXX for YYY?
Threads talking about fixing commercial equipment
Threads where the topic is not audio related
(I am sure there are more like this, just can't come up with them right now)
Also, for members who have donated, how about a way to customize which forums show up in the list of latest post? There are some forum topic that I am just not interested in and posts in those forums clog up the "latest posts" view. It would be nice if the "latest posts" view showed only the ones I wanted to see. Currently I have to open each forum separately to see new posts under that topic.
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