Amberwolf disappearance and newbie help requests :(

Totally!
 
FYI, there was a lull in our statistics between the time we noticed AW went missing and i posted the message asking yall to help out with some of the noob questions.

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I'm very happy to see that it's possible we collectively managed to rise the the occasion and fill AW's shoes. I'm proud of us! :es:
 
@neptronix; with regards to the [$300-1500] Amazon/Walmart/etc. bike-in-a-box buyers who post a "Help!!!!!!!" plea - you know the oh-so-informative posts along the lines of, "My bike don't work - what could be wrong with it? Help!!!". How about a boilerplate response that nudges them over to like-minded/like-ability/like-brand forums over on the EBR?

Add to it a boilerplate "please provide the following info" paragraph, and unless they do, well ... Bye.
 
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I'm more apt to agree with that route than catering to prebuilt bikes by making them their own section.

EBR is the home of a big prebuilt bikefluencer and specializes in prebuilts.

It makes more sense to double down on what we're strong at ( DIY ) than try to generalize.

I think we should produce at least some troubleshooting guides to point to when the questions come. We don't know anything about the prebuilt specific bike, but we know a lot of things that are generally useful to ebikes.

I'd like this site to be helpful to the maximum amount of people.. but consumers of prebuilts could easily come here and dwarf the DIYers as a percentage of a forum if we laid out a welcome mat.

If we throw prebuilt ebike consumers a bone, it will be an extremely small one. My best thought is knowledgebase articles RN.
 
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neptronix said:
It makes more sense to double down on what we're strong at ( DIY ) than try to generalize and water down what we're good at.
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neptronix said:
We don't know anything about the prebuilt specific bike, but we know a lot of things that are generally useful to ebikes.
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I have very little experience with ebikes, I've spent about a cumulative total of 10 minutes actually riding them in my life.

What I do know is batteries, the practice of using a motor controller, and how circuits work, both practical experience and the principles of it in general. I like the concept of personal electric drive systems, regardless of their form, and learning about them. As such, I have gotten dozens of requests from friends, neighbors, and two local bike repair places asking for help diagnosing issues with prebuilt, purchased ebikes, and I've been like 80% successful in diagnosing issues and pointing people towards repairs or replacement parts. That's me saying, I agree with @neptronix point, knowing how things are supposed to work in general is sometimes enough to get you started on DIY repairing your ebike, regardless of who made it.
 
neptronix said:
I think we should produce at least some troubleshooting guides to point to when the questions come. We don't know anything about the prebuilt specific bike, but we know a lot of things that are generally useful to ebikes.
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General ebike troubleshooting is likely the level of support that we can offer for prebuilts, but I also feel that prebuilt rebuilds or prebuilt conversions fit within DIY, and could be a category. Not everyone sees the light on DIY right away and go the factory route as a starting point to ebiking. Makes sense, since DIY takes more effort for a non technical rider, and the rider may end up not liking ebiking anyway, The tuition is higher going that route, and while many will stick to their factory rides, a good portion of those riders begin to see the light and start their DIY journey from that starting point. Not to mention that there are fewer and fewer bikes out there that are suitable for DIY conversions.

On the ES ebike sub forums we may embrace DIY e-bikes, but overall ES supports all types of EVs and E technology, Some folks are more focused on the clean energy aspects than others. Fun is my primary goal, and safety a primary focus, while the clean energy aspect is just a bonus. If folks want to have fun with their EVs and want to try out DIY, I’m willing to support them to the extent that I can, even if their starting off point is a factory bike. I already have a lot of discussions with prebuilt owners while out riding, jthat are interested in DIY when they see me on mine anyway.
 
E-HP said:
General ebike troubleshooting is likely the level of support that we can offer for prebuilts, but I also feel that prebuilt rebuilds or prebuilt conversions fit within DIY, and could be a category. Not everyone sees the light on DIY right away and go the factory route as a starting point to ebiking. Makes sense, since DIY takes more effort for a non technical rider, and the rider may end up not liking ebiking anyway, The tuition is higher going that route, and while many will stick to their factory rides, a good portion of those riders begin to see the light and start their DIY journey from that starting point. Not to mention that there are fewer and fewer bikes out there that are suitable for DIY conversions.
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Yes i think offering general support is fine.

I would like to use a knowledgebase system that's easy to browse, contribute to, and organize; and has an appealing interface as well could reduce the tuition cost to ~10% of what it is currently.

We can at least make DIY easy to learn. For me, it took 9 months to understand WTF i was doing when i first started here.

E-HP said:
I already have a lot of discussions with prebuilt owners while out riding, jthat are interested in DIY when they see me on mine anyway.
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Yes, i think for that reason we should lower the learning curve for DIY and at the same time make it very apparent we're a DIY site ( in design and messaging ).

We've always had threads here and there about modifying prebuilt bikes, usually not chinese crap with zero documentation and support though. No way can any forum know the specifics about 10000's of varying makes and models from companies that mostly never stayed in business.

For this reason we should write and promote the best general purpose diagnosis manuals in existence. It's the only hope of actually supporting these rando bikes well. The onus to follow through is on the reader.
 
Sorry i missed that, i agree we could use another international moderator. Thanks portugaline for volunteering :)

So far the list is:

Approved:
99t4

Need to make sure they're not a North Korean spy:
harrisonpatm
portugaline

Will follow through this week or next week.
 
Shoveling coal, yeap, definitely chime in where I can. Still lacking in the advanced stuff and actual implementation of high power stuff.
"I spy with my little eyes....." ;)
 
Whew. It takes a village to do what amberwolf was doing. I see a bunch of folks helping out, but it’s a lot of stuff. Not sure if there are other ways to divide and conquer.
I started a short list for my own reference of members that have provided a lot of expertise in particular areas (Chalo for bike stuff, docw009 for KT controller stuff, stancecoke for torque sensor stuff, tommycat for the motor testing and throttle stuff, etc.), and look at their old posts as part of the search criteria when an issue comes up in those areas. The answers to most question are buried in the posting history, but getting to the right answer isn’t as easy, so the names help to find the right posts.
 
It does, i think we're doing allright though!
I've been doing >90% of the moderation myself since i haven't had time to take on new moderators.

That list you're compiling would be very useful because it's a starting point for the approved contributors list for the knowledgebase ^_^
 
E-HP said:
The answers to most question are buried in the posting history, but getting to the right answer isn’t as easy, so the names help to find the right posts.
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This exactly!
 
neptronix said:
It does, i think we're doing allright though!
I've been doing >90% of the moderation myself since i haven't had time to take on new moderators.

That list you're compiling would be very useful because it's a starting point for the approved contributors list for the knowledgebase ^_^
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I just started making my list when AW went missing, but mainly experts in areas I pay more attention to. Things like small geared hubs aren’t as much on my radar, but I see you providing support on a few threads on them. I just don’t know enough to say your an expert just from my casual observation.

One question on the functionality. Before I retired I noticed that several applications were supporting the @ feature, so if you referenced @neptronix in a post, you would get a ping. That might be a good feature if some ES experts were willing to be lifelines, they could jump in on a thead when requested via that function. Just thinking out loud since I sometimes wish certain folks would see a thread.
 
Another wish list item that may help provide support, mainly for newbies: What I see frequently are duplicate posts or sequential posts where the information required to solve a problem is buried in a duplicate or older posts from the newbie. Currently when you open a thread, there is a somewhat helpful section at the bottom that says "Similar threads". I can see it as being helpful, but I never use it. But I do look at the OPs posting history for missing information. It would be nice to be able to toggle between "Similar threads" and the OP's posting history in that section, to quicky determine if their may be some recent posts with supporting information, without having to leave the thread.
 
E-HP said:
Things like small geared hubs aren’t as much on my radar, but I see you providing support on a few threads on them. I just don’t know enough to say your an expert just from my casual observation.
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I'm more of a generalist! i did write the book on balancing/inspecting/maintaining RC lipo, but nobody really uses that anymore.

E-HP said:
One question on the functionality. Before I retired I noticed that several applications were supporting the @ feature, so if you referenced @neptronix in a post, you would get a ping. That might be a good feature if some ES experts were willing to be lifelines, they could jump in on a thead when requested via that function. Just thinking out loud since I sometimes wish certain folks would see a thread.
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Boy it's a shame that they implemented tagging into Xenforo ( totally a social media feature ), but not notifications about the tagging ( always works that way on social media ). i added this to the wishlist because it's a good idea.
 
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The lipo battery thread helped me loads to be fair, id passed out in electrical engineering and there was very little taught about batterys. I had the fundamental principles down on yhe controllers and motors but my battery knowledge was poor thanks too you guys ive expanded my knowledge endlessly just as the name suggests, obviously we all follow the hobby in some way to have the thirst in the beginning.

Very found memories of some rides that run lipo and his place give me a home for quite some time always pop back like a favourite cafe etc.
 
We need to encourage users to add keywords to the bottom of their posts. It will help when we search for it later. [typo fixed]
 
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Google search is amazing at just finding stuff, and at some point we'll have that as the default search instead of you having to press the button on the right. So i think adding keywords is nice but not necessary in the future.

Ian, glad that article helped you, maybe i should re sticky it!
 
PS, i just accepted 3 moderators, applications are closed for now, thanks!
 
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