In some ways it suggest partitioning 'the clever stuff' from the basic and mundane but I'm not sure that will really work.
I agree. If there's a beginner forum and an "advanced" forum, it's just another forum for people to look at. The beginners won't get the benefit of seeing and learning from the advanced posts and some "advanced" users might not visit the beginner's forum to help out.
If the Propeller forum is getting too busy, it should be split up on the basis of application, not level of expertise. I'm sure there's an intelligent way of splitting it up, but I can't think of it at the moment. Someone more organized than I might have to step in.
BTW Howdy neighbor, did you ever get that project done you told me about?
No, work and life have kept me too busy (in a good way) to do any serious Propeller projects. Except one: I was able to do a proof of concept at work of making a Propeller-based function generator (just sine waves) with an AD9833. My boss was skeptical about the possibility, so he was impressed when I had a working system complete with keyboard and VGA monitor within a day. It had frequencies accurate to +/- .005 Hz in the 100kHz range. That was fun.
Thanks to everybody for the replies and thoughts on the issue.
I'll do my best to make sure that all newcomers are comfortable. I can probably pave the way with some really helpless questions all by myself. My own team will throw the book at me if I ask questions that are already in the manual.
I concur about the various points on this subject -- whether or not a beginner's forum would help, that most of us do our best already to answer, and that people should also be able to demonstrate effort to obtain answers.
Nobody in particular has been pointed out to me even though jazzed is willing to take the blame all by himself. I agree with John Raffy that some thick skin is also necessary, too.
The Propeller opened us up to a very skilled customer base with a lot of experience. There's some real talent on this forum and perhaps that's enough to make a newbie feel intimidated.
Thanks to everybody for being considerate. We couldn't ask for more!
I too agree with Phil that the Forum could use some additional stickies, not just for novices, but newcomers as well.
It really is amazing how quickly you can get great answers around here. The fact that there are so many skilled, and creative minds on these forums makes it an invaluable resource for any skill level, especially if you're sincere about understanding the answers to your questions.
I must confess, I usually avoid trying to give answers even to the things I do know, as I feel that many of the other members would provide significantly better response than what I would be able to come up with.
Thanks for the support, Walter. Keep your sense of humor and can-do approach. Others will benefit from what you can offer too as a newcomer to the Propeller.
The Propeller opened us up to a very skilled customer base with a lot of experience. There's some real talent on this forum and perhaps that's enough to make a newbie feel intimidated.
You're not kidding about real talent. I write software for a living and I'm completely awed and humbled by some of the projects people post on the Propeller forum. I can't imagine writing a large memory model C compiler or a cross-platform IDE/compiler/loader or a few dozen of the other projects that people offer up around here. So fear not, newbies, you are not alone in feeling intimidated!
Looking at pics of UPENE and the folks in the forums is why I tried the Prop. I didn't think I was good enough to learn such an amazing chip. But, I love it now!!
...
I want to mention that UPENE-09 is also what got me interested in the Prop. I have over 35 years of experience in computers and (according to my mother) have been working in electronics since before I was 2 (both of her brothers and two of her brothers-in-law are EEs and she got me started EARLY), so am not a real newbie. I had seen the Prop, but never paid much attention to it. Then I saw an announcement about the Expo and started looking into it. I've been to UPENE-09 and UPEC-10 and am heading to UPENE-10 and now have one or two Prop products in development. I have been on many forums in the past many years, but have never seen one that is this active or this willing to help others. Most of the time that I see a RTFM it is more like, "here is where you can find it in the manual, take a look and if there is something that you have trouble with (rare, thanks Andy and others!) then we will try to help you."
Thanks OBC, Parallax and Forum members!
I will make a greater effort to answer newbies questions also.
...when I first arrived here I felt intimidated. Not by the members but by the expertise and knowledge of those users, their far greater experience with the Propeller than me.
I've been around on the forums for almost 2 decades now ... before the BS2 was even released and it was normal to receive 30 or more E-mails a day. There were no web based forums at all it was strictly E-mail. One thing to remember is that we were ALL new at this once upon a time, and there is always something that comes up that ANY of us can at ANY time learn from. I welcome anyone with a question that they don't understand ... lets all learn together!
Just brainstorming here so if this does not resonate, just move on.
If this were a physical club meeting instead of a forum and we had problems with new attendees not returning for whatever reason, one solution that we might employee is to have a few regulars who are tasked to reach out and make a personal connection with newbies. They could help with the acronyms and privately answer some of the very basic questions while a newbie is getting their "Sea Legs".
I wonder if there is an equivalent process that we could employee at a forum level?
I do feel that some people get landed on for asking a question that is obvious to some others and wish it did not happen as often. On the other hand, people ARE very helpful around here and are willing to really go out of their way to help. This is a fun forum.
As a less experienced person, I find reading the posts here most educational.
If you were to do a beginner forum, it should be a 'general' beginner for all subjects and not just prop. I think having 2 prop forums would dilute it out too much.
Just brainstorming here so if this does not resonate, just move on.
If this were a physical club meeting instead of a forum and we had problems with new attendees not returning for whatever reason, one solution that we might employee is to have a few regulars who are tasked to reach out and make a personal connection with newbies. They could help with the acronyms and privately answer some of the very basic questions while a newbie is getting their "Sea Legs".
I wonder if there is an equivalent process that we could employee at a forum level?
Great idea. At church, we call those people "greeters." Their job is to look over the people coming into the church and find people that they do not recognize and make them feel welcome. Unfortunately, it is easier to look over the people streaming into a building than the people logging on to a forum. Thus lurkers.
If we can find a way, we can have greeters meet the newbies/visitors (maybe in PM, or a private chat room??? just thinking out loud) and offer to help out with the new stuff. Any ideas? I would be willing to be a greeter at times, if we can find a way to identify those who are new (maybe just a note in a sticky telling newbies to post a "Hello, my name is..." message so our greeters can assist you, then the greeter could post a reply saying that he is contacting the newbie so we don't overrun the person and drive them away.)
...
I find my self reading and re-reading even a simple post (sometimes even deleting a post/response entirely) for fear that it will come off as ignorant to individuals with far more experience/expertise....
As many of the gurus here on the forum know, being clueless never stopped me from trying to answer a question. I figure it this way: if somebody's question has gone unanswered for too long and it starts creeping toward the bottom of the screen, the least I can do is bump it back up toward the top where my ignorant answer will get corrected by somebody who really knows what he or she is talking about.
Besides, trying to answer questions sometimes is a great way to force yourself to really learn something you kinda, sorta know.
Wow, a lot of activity here overnight. A few suggestions...
I think a sticky at the top of this thread welcoming new members and a list of links where some items can be located. I know when I first came here I actually came via a Google link and did not see the Parallax home site. So the links are manuals, wiki, schematics, Obex, etc. Perhaps it should even have a link to this thread as I think it shows the crowd on here to dispell some perceived intimidation to posting.
The list of links is along the lines of the Indexes that a few of us have created along the way. Last time I looked these links were still broken and I hope that they can be restored as the migration continues.
So, perhaps we could have a "New members - Please introduce yourselves here" thread as an unlocked sticky thread. It seems the forum highlights those unread threads, so we can all notice when a new member posts.
It does seem that we need to split a new Propeller forum (just like the Hydra forum) for the really advanced stuff like LMM, XMM, Retro/emulations. How to do this is really not clear to me without fragmenting it.
If you were to do a beginner forum, it should be a 'general' beginner for all subjects and not just prop.
A "Getting Started" forum that consisted of FAQs and sticky threads for all topics would be a great help. It could even be read-only and still answer a lot of questions.
It does seem that we need to split a new Propeller forum (just like the Hydra forum) for the really advanced stuff like LMM, XMM, Retro/emulations. How to do this is really not clear to me without fragmenting it.
You can fragment the discussions without fragmenting the community. The natural point of separation is whatever is officially supported by Parallax. Just make it clear what is official and what's unofficial so people know where to post.
At this point I feel that I must finally break cover.
Hello, my name is Alan. I am a secret poster. The mission I undertook has been to pretend to "miss the point entirely" and constently ask lots of dumb questions, often more than once.
I thought I better take the time to welcome two newbies to the forum. So, we would like to welcome heater and bhenning to our great forum LOL
PS In case anyone new reads this, Parallax has just migrated to new forum software and heater and bhenning logged in as new members and so lost their standing on the forum.
Since the changeover I have updated the email address on my old "heater" account to my current email address. But of course the "heater" account here now has the old email address so I'm stuck.
I tried dropping a note off to the "webmaster" here some days back to get this fixed but haven't chased it up again as I guess they have been a bit busy. I'll try again.
Interesting that most of the comments in this thread are from experienced folks. But not many from "newbies". So I'll try to hold up that end.
Most of the comments have been very helpful, even when "pointed". Don't mind being told to read the manual if it's followed by an explanation as to what I am reading for. The generic "it's in there" is of no real value. Technique matters.
It's not as simple as it looks. Experience is knowing whats important. Most you you know whats important, we don't. When your 3yr old goes to the elephant section of a zoo and points to a squirrel and says "wow", you realize that "knowledge" and knowing whats "important" are only loosely coupled.
Explanations are common. Good explanations are targetted to the receiver and a lot less common. I do think a mentoring program is a better idea. You notice that beginners latch on to people who answer like ducks to their mother. Might be less exhausting to the "mother" if that were organized. And yes, I'd pay a fee to have someone read my code and comment without causing me embarrassment. I have maybe 6 hours a week to devote to this. You can wander a lot and not get much done in 6.
But I also would not split the forum now that the search engine is improved. I do learn a lot from the posts. Takes some time to figure out what I just learned but that isn't abnormal.
Love the program on RFID. Would you consider something, even more modest, for problem areas ? If you look through the questions, could you give out a $20 credit for the person who has the best "demo" for a topic. My person bugaboo right now (strings), my next one (TV), the 1-wire, all could use more extensive demos.
Looked at the people who don't post lately ? You should. Go back and find out what they did. It might be educational. From the Forum size, I would guess that you have about 35% active members. Wonder what the rest are doing ? Maybe casual users (may be ardino) but you should know.
The classic "RTFM" response to newbie questions is pretty dumb in many cases.
For example someone new to programming realises they need to be able to set or clear some bits in a word. So they come here asking what command does that. The "RTFM" is not helpful. Perhaps they don't even have the experience to recognize that AND, OR and XOR operators might be very useful for that kind of thing.
Replies should be made with some consideration of where the question is coming from.
Problem is, those with lots of experience start to take what they know for granted and tend to forget how it was when they started out.
If anybody felt intimidated by my style of writing please let me know. I want to share the blame with jazzed. ;-)
Maybe it makes sense to add a sticky called "basic newbee questions and the polite way how the forum answers them."
Let's say it contains a set of 10-20 original basic questions anonymisised or with permission of the thread's author and original answers to make the newbees see which friendly and patient way the forum answers.
To be honest @Ken:
I'm REALLY interested in what kind of things made newbees felt intimidated.
Of course there are general forum rules the "netiquette". But I think over that, if you explain which words made somebody feel intimidated and what kind of words makes newbees feel at home write it to us.
If you think this should not be discussed publicly please send me a PM.
best regards
Stefan
something to add:
maybe the subtitle of the sticky therad could be:
please newbees with 0 to 10 postings make the 11-12 posting newbees happy by asking
very basic questions that could be asnwered by newbees.
I find it a great mistake to be referred to as a senior member. My first posts where questions about whether or not the prop was good for me to learn as a first microcontroller.
I had played with pics, and the stamp a little but was a complete newcomer to micro's in general.
I don't answer a lot of questions because I am not confident leading others as astray as I am myself. I got my phylosophy on learning from an old pilot who once took notice of me. He said I was full of ideas, but didn't have any experience because I was afraid to make a MISTAKE. He said "Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong." As a hobbyist I adopted this and begin to learn more than ever, because asking for help on these forums became a lot easier knowing I had a thicker skin to handle the answers I got. But overall I can only remember once having to rely on thick skin to get an answer. I love this forum and thanks to all who make it what it is.
Disclaimer:
(I don't recommend my phylosophy for use by XMOS controlled thermite experimenters or nuclear engineers)
True, we forget how hard it was when we first began an so take it for granted. It is also hard to gauge how much knowledge the new members have, so it is also hard to know just how to answer some questions particularly if not phrased well. Even us older members phrase questions badly at times - we know what we are asking but does anyone else?
So for any newcomers reading this, if you don't get the answer you are looking for, please ask again (on the same thread) and give some more detail of what you are seeking in case we do not understand properly.
bdickens: eric ball wrote the first 1pin TV and I wrote the next one (and 1pin Keyboard). Mine is in the Obex under Debugging or Tools and there is a link to the thread (probably broken come to think of it???). Post any questions there. I think it is documented fairly well with timing explanations. Beware though, because we are actually using VGA mode and not TV (NTSC/PAL) mode in the video counter. There is a very simple demo there too. Don't hesitate to ask if you don't understand something.
Comments
If the Propeller forum is getting too busy, it should be split up on the basis of application, not level of expertise. I'm sure there's an intelligent way of splitting it up, but I can't think of it at the moment. Someone more organized than I might have to step in.
No, work and life have kept me too busy (in a good way) to do any serious Propeller projects. Except one: I was able to do a proof of concept at work of making a Propeller-based function generator (just sine waves) with an AD9833. My boss was skeptical about the possibility, so he was impressed when I had a working system complete with keyboard and VGA monitor within a day. It had frequencies accurate to +/- .005 Hz in the 100kHz range. That was fun.
I'll do my best to make sure that all newcomers are comfortable. I can probably pave the way with some really helpless questions all by myself. My own team will throw the book at me if I ask questions that are already in the manual.
I concur about the various points on this subject -- whether or not a beginner's forum would help, that most of us do our best already to answer, and that people should also be able to demonstrate effort to obtain answers.
Nobody in particular has been pointed out to me even though jazzed is willing to take the blame all by himself. I agree with John Raffy that some thick skin is also necessary, too.
The Propeller opened us up to a very skilled customer base with a lot of experience. There's some real talent on this forum and perhaps that's enough to make a newbie feel intimidated.
Thanks to everybody for being considerate. We couldn't ask for more!
It really is amazing how quickly you can get great answers around here. The fact that there are so many skilled, and creative minds on these forums makes it an invaluable resource for any skill level, especially if you're sincere about understanding the answers to your questions.
I must confess, I usually avoid trying to give answers even to the things I do know, as I feel that many of the other members would provide significantly better response than what I would be able to come up with.
Will Do!!!!!
I want to mention that UPENE-09 is also what got me interested in the Prop. I have over 35 years of experience in computers and (according to my mother) have been working in electronics since before I was 2 (both of her brothers and two of her brothers-in-law are EEs and she got me started EARLY), so am not a real newbie. I had seen the Prop, but never paid much attention to it. Then I saw an announcement about the Expo and started looking into it. I've been to UPENE-09 and UPEC-10 and am heading to UPENE-10 and now have one or two Prop products in development. I have been on many forums in the past many years, but have never seen one that is this active or this willing to help others. Most of the time that I see a RTFM it is more like, "here is where you can find it in the manual, take a look and if there is something that you have trouble with (rare, thanks Andy and others!) then we will try to help you."
Thanks OBC, Parallax and Forum members!
I will make a greater effort to answer newbies questions also.
Art
As an aside, I've heard rumours there might be an experienced member posing as a newbie on this forum. So we must all be especially nice to newbies!
If this were a physical club meeting instead of a forum and we had problems with new attendees not returning for whatever reason, one solution that we might employee is to have a few regulars who are tasked to reach out and make a personal connection with newbies. They could help with the acronyms and privately answer some of the very basic questions while a newbie is getting their "Sea Legs".
I wonder if there is an equivalent process that we could employee at a forum level?
I do feel that some people get landed on for asking a question that is obvious to some others and wish it did not happen as often. On the other hand, people ARE very helpful around here and are willing to really go out of their way to help. This is a fun forum.
As a less experienced person, I find reading the posts here most educational.
If you were to do a beginner forum, it should be a 'general' beginner for all subjects and not just prop. I think having 2 prop forums would dilute it out too much.
Great idea. At church, we call those people "greeters." Their job is to look over the people coming into the church and find people that they do not recognize and make them feel welcome. Unfortunately, it is easier to look over the people streaming into a building than the people logging on to a forum. Thus lurkers.
If we can find a way, we can have greeters meet the newbies/visitors (maybe in PM, or a private chat room??? just thinking out loud) and offer to help out with the new stuff. Any ideas? I would be willing to be a greeter at times, if we can find a way to identify those who are new (maybe just a note in a sticky telling newbies to post a "Hello, my name is..." message so our greeters can assist you, then the greeter could post a reply saying that he is contacting the newbie so we don't overrun the person and drive them away.)
As many of the gurus here on the forum know, being clueless never stopped me from trying to answer a question. I figure it this way: if somebody's question has gone unanswered for too long and it starts creeping toward the bottom of the screen, the least I can do is bump it back up toward the top where my ignorant answer will get corrected by somebody who really knows what he or she is talking about.
Besides, trying to answer questions sometimes is a great way to force yourself to really learn something you kinda, sorta know.
I think a sticky at the top of this thread welcoming new members and a list of links where some items can be located. I know when I first came here I actually came via a Google link and did not see the Parallax home site. So the links are manuals, wiki, schematics, Obex, etc. Perhaps it should even have a link to this thread as I think it shows the crowd on here to dispell some perceived intimidation to posting.
The list of links is along the lines of the Indexes that a few of us have created along the way. Last time I looked these links were still broken and I hope that they can be restored as the migration continues.
So, perhaps we could have a "New members - Please introduce yourselves here" thread as an unlocked sticky thread. It seems the forum highlights those unread threads, so we can all notice when a new member posts.
It does seem that we need to split a new Propeller forum (just like the Hydra forum) for the really advanced stuff like LMM, XMM, Retro/emulations. How to do this is really not clear to me without fragmenting it.
A "Getting Started" forum that consisted of FAQs and sticky threads for all topics would be a great help. It could even be read-only and still answer a lot of questions.
You can fragment the discussions without fragmenting the community. The natural point of separation is whatever is officially supported by Parallax. Just make it clear what is official and what's unofficial so people know where to post.
Smile, and the world smiles with you. Crab, and you break the monotony.
- Lucy van Pelt
Hello, my name is Alan. I am a secret poster. The mission I undertook has been to pretend to "miss the point entirely" and constently ask lots of dumb questions, often more than once.
I am told that I have been very successful.
I thought I better take the time to welcome two newbies to the forum. So, we would like to welcome heater and bhenning to our great forum LOL
PS In case anyone new reads this, Parallax has just migrated to new forum software and heater and bhenning logged in as new members and so lost their standing on the forum.
You have to be there for so many days, and so many nights.
So that will be a few weeks more then.
Since the changeover I have updated the email address on my old "heater" account to my current email address. But of course the "heater" account here now has the old email address so I'm stuck.
I tried dropping a note off to the "webmaster" here some days back to get this fixed but haven't chased it up again as I guess they have been a bit busy. I'll try again.
Most of the comments have been very helpful, even when "pointed". Don't mind being told to read the manual if it's followed by an explanation as to what I am reading for. The generic "it's in there" is of no real value. Technique matters.
It's not as simple as it looks. Experience is knowing whats important. Most you you know whats important, we don't. When your 3yr old goes to the elephant section of a zoo and points to a squirrel and says "wow", you realize that "knowledge" and knowing whats "important" are only loosely coupled.
Explanations are common. Good explanations are targetted to the receiver and a lot less common. I do think a mentoring program is a better idea. You notice that beginners latch on to people who answer like ducks to their mother. Might be less exhausting to the "mother" if that were organized. And yes, I'd pay a fee to have someone read my code and comment without causing me embarrassment. I have maybe 6 hours a week to devote to this. You can wander a lot and not get much done in 6.
But I also would not split the forum now that the search engine is improved. I do learn a lot from the posts. Takes some time to figure out what I just learned but that isn't abnormal.
Love the program on RFID. Would you consider something, even more modest, for problem areas ? If you look through the questions, could you give out a $20 credit for the person who has the best "demo" for a topic. My person bugaboo right now (strings), my next one (TV), the 1-wire, all could use more extensive demos.
Looked at the people who don't post lately ? You should. Go back and find out what they did. It might be educational. From the Forum size, I would guess that you have about 35% active members. Wonder what the rest are doing ? Maybe casual users (may be ardino) but you should know.
Just some thoughts.
The classic "RTFM" response to newbie questions is pretty dumb in many cases.
For example someone new to programming realises they need to be able to set or clear some bits in a word. So they come here asking what command does that. The "RTFM" is not helpful. Perhaps they don't even have the experience to recognize that AND, OR and XOR operators might be very useful for that kind of thing.
Replies should be made with some consideration of where the question is coming from.
Problem is, those with lots of experience start to take what they know for granted and tend to forget how it was when they started out.
Maybe it makes sense to add a sticky called "basic newbee questions and the polite way how the forum answers them."
Let's say it contains a set of 10-20 original basic questions anonymisised or with permission of the thread's author and original answers to make the newbees see which friendly and patient way the forum answers.
To be honest @Ken:
I'm REALLY interested in what kind of things made newbees felt intimidated.
Of course there are general forum rules the "netiquette". But I think over that, if you explain which words made somebody feel intimidated and what kind of words makes newbees feel at home write it to us.
If you think this should not be discussed publicly please send me a PM.
best regards
Stefan
something to add:
maybe the subtitle of the sticky therad could be:
please newbees with 0 to 10 postings make the 11-12 posting newbees happy by asking
very basic questions that could be asnwered by newbees.
I had played with pics, and the stamp a little but was a complete newcomer to micro's in general.
I don't answer a lot of questions because I am not confident leading others as astray as I am myself. I got my phylosophy on learning from an old pilot who once took notice of me. He said I was full of ideas, but didn't have any experience because I was afraid to make a MISTAKE. He said "Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong." As a hobbyist I adopted this and begin to learn more than ever, because asking for help on these forums became a lot easier knowing I had a thicker skin to handle the answers I got. But overall I can only remember once having to rely on thick skin to get an answer. I love this forum and thanks to all who make it what it is.
Disclaimer:
(I don't recommend my phylosophy for use by XMOS controlled thermite experimenters or nuclear engineers)
So for any newcomers reading this, if you don't get the answer you are looking for, please ask again (on the same thread) and give some more detail of what you are seeking in case we do not understand properly.
bdickens: eric ball wrote the first 1pin TV and I wrote the next one (and 1pin Keyboard). Mine is in the Obex under Debugging or Tools and there is a link to the thread (probably broken come to think of it???). Post any questions there. I think it is documented fairly well with timing explanations. Beware though, because we are actually using VGA mode and not TV (NTSC/PAL) mode in the video counter. There is a very simple demo there too. Don't hesitate to ask if you don't understand something.