Do people even try reading or searching anymore?

Why is it people ask questions via PM, referring to a thread and asking for the same information as is already posted in the thread they are referring to? I've lost count of the times this has happened (and it's just happened again).

I'm about to adopt a "completely ignore all PMs" policy, except from folk I know, I think.
 
icecube57 said:
Again I'm seeing a surge of simple questions being asked on the whole forum in General. Some of them are common sense question. Some are questions that really deserve no response...But we feed the newbs. This forum is repository of info. At my job we were only led so far until our floor support said find it in the knowledge database. I had to make it work lose my job trying.Very basic electronics and common sense goes a long way... Reading simple cues like...Input on the charger... +.....- should tell you where to plug in a PSU. I still find myself going to my manual to figure out how to use my charger. If you are asking questions and are into e bikes in any way period and don't own even the cheapest volt meter you should reconsider where you are at in your e bike walk of life. That should have been tool #1 in you. There are so many people deserving of the Darwin Award its unreal. I'm for the e bike movement but people are pour their hearts out every day asking the same things over and over again. This maybe a pet peeve of me personally but day in and day out I have to play/dumb things down for people on my jobs as a CSR for Comcast. It never ceases to amaze me the lack of basic comprehension some people exhibit. My personality makes me gifted in certain areas but when it comes to passing this information on to others its very difficult. We have gurus on the forum that can speak jargon beyond my understanding. If i want to know what it means i educate myself. Very rare that I ask for something to be spoon fed to me. I still look up old info that is 3-4 years old. Wiring combos and phase combinations. I can read and figure out how to test my own mosfets or know the symptoms of a blown hall or shorted phase. I can find posts on how to check halls and perform input resistor mods. The info is here but people are just lazy. I totally understand second opinions and getting constructive input on your build. That's not what im talking about. Its the blandest most generic questions. My motor doesn't turn. Obviously there was no real minimum troubleshooting effort done.Person probably doesnt own a volt meter. People like this end up being part swappers and keep swapping stuff until something changes indirectly. Then they ask another question and start another thread to continue on with the problem sometimes you have to grasp the overall picture and how things interact on you bike. The easiest well thought out designs in ebike connectivity are great but sometimes basic TS and common sense goes a long way in narrowing the scope of your problem I often find myself copy and pasting previously scripted info just to avoid explaining myself to people again. I know Amberwolf takes the time and uses search and cross post information. Dog man day in and day out explains the facts of ebike life to the virgins out here. We have a wiki would go a long way in explaining some of the basics. I know the search on this forum really does suck but Google does wonders searching through the forum and the net in general. I just find it hard to believe that with the information that's on the forum now that people cant TS, make informed decisions , form their own opinions by reading other users experiences, etc etc. This maybe just venting but I need people to READ PLEASE. Diversify the knowledge in your mind instead of diluting it with the narrow-mindedness of your questions.
Click to expand...

Doesn't anyone use paragraphs anymore? :D
 
Jeremy Harris said:
Why is it people ask questions via PM, referring to a thread and asking for the same information as is already posted in the thread they are referring to? I've lost count of the times this has happened (and it's just happened again).

I'm about to adopt a "completely ignore all PMs" policy, except from folk I know, I think.
Click to expand...

I think I PM'd you a bit too much on one occasion but that was over a separate private dealing as much as anything else.

Word to then newbies: don't PM people off the cuff...wait till you have built up an e-rep, got your own build going, posted some photos, participated.

The learning curve is not so steep. When I came here what I knew was tee-tee...very little. In fact I knew nothing. NOTHING is the word.....

I spend as much time here as I do on any other internet forum but have only a fraction of the posts that I do on the other forums.

Why?

Cos I read much more than I write.

I have printed off entire threads and filo-faxed them, and then read them like a book.

Use the "PRINTER FRIENDLY" option and get going. Bang off entire threads that you are interested. For me, it was the tab-welder thread, the LiPO thread and the A123 thread.

Then I just binded them and can take them out for reading at any time.



This is the greatest and probably most important area of research on the planet right now, outside of perhaps food production. Unless you all want to go back to riding donkeys that is.

I even left home to go to London to get re-educated so I can start to build my own controllers and stuff. Now for some of you that might be beyond the curve a bit but....the point is the information is there, all you have to do is pick it up and use it.
 
No problems at all with PMs from you at all.

There are a fair few people who don't ever post on the forum but send PMs rather than post, though. Apart from anything else, by trying to get a personalised answer they probably don't realise that this means I have to type pretty much the same stuff to lots of different people via PM, when it's be much easier for all if they just posted questions on the forum. Apart from better sharing (and less typing!) this also means stuff can then be found when searching, which may well help others and avoid the need for another round of questions that are similar. The other big advantage is that, as this forum is international (and pretty much spans all the time zones in the world) answers will often be obtained more quickly by posting on the forum.
 
May I say something as probably one of the people, you're all complaining about?

First of all, I would like to apologize in the name of everyone, who gets on your nerves asking stupid questions.
I find that I, too, tend to ask questions, before reading through every bit of information I can find.

I think there are three main reasons:
1. I get overexcited with some "problem" that I can't wrap my head around instantly and interacting with other people and getting them involved with, what I'm doing feels like more fun than solving everything by yourself, when there's no one to share the experience with
2. Sometimes I don't understand the information in other threads (like right now, I have read so much about soldering the shunt of a KU63 controller and icreasing its power, but when it's infront of me, I will still not know exactly what to do and what to look out for)
3. Sometimes I don't find the information and then somebody posts a link to thread and I think to myself: How the hell did I not find that myself.

So, I understand that it is frustrating for you guys that know a lot more than us beginners, but we promise to make an effort, learn and do better in future.
Thank you all, for all the effort you're making in helping us better understand a hobby that we all share and enjoy together. I really appreciate it.
 
Ypedal said:
but, did you know A123 filed for bankrupcy ? :lol:
Click to expand...
DAMN! ...beat me to it. :lol: :lol:
 
AT one point this morning (my time) the first five threads on the "new posts" option were all threads about A123. How the heck people can miss all the other threads on the same topic is beyond me............
 
A123 bankruptcy is a big thing, had to be 6 threads:) OK about that, but if people asking without searching so what? If you aren't forums addict you just skip the stuff which is irrelevant. I think if people don't search, are lazy to search or don't have time to search do no harm to anyone, same as talking about those people on this thread which is already 4 pages of talk about nothing relevant to this forum.
If You don't have time to waist on simple questions, don't. I'm not on any side but i think this place has to be neutral regardless of skin color, nationality, personal behavior, laziness, hiperactiveness , etc, etc..
 
Everyone was a noob at one point or another. I think the community will benefit from more members than less, since a newb today may be a guru next year. No one has any more or less right to start a thread or make a post, as long as it falls into the terms of usage, and not everyone has hours of time to read through all types of posts. If I someone had only 3 minutes a day to look at ES than starting threads is probably the only way to get useful information. One could also ask, what in the hell does this thread have to do with e-bike technical?
 
You buy a kit no instructions A battery with 4 wires one blue al with funky connectors a over amped controller for the battery and all chinesse constrution. E.S. I was blessed and scared when I first found it . We all try and walk thru it all. Doctorbass and LFP still get excited like little boys learning making and breaking things. Thanks E.S. for taking the bumps out of the road. I sure get sad when my bike is down so have 3 motors and two controllers and two batteries. Just for one bike.
 
I hear you there zip.. I ride one of my bikes with 2 controllers mounted.. sensored and sensorless both with the same plugs.

that way i can recover from dead halls or blown fets..
 
Personally I find the technical ref section abysmal.
I went there as a newb expecting to find a lot of answers and while a lot of top blokes have created a lot of top reference there, its ended up sparse, spasmodic and haphazardly organised due to the setup.

I would think as a newb, use to looking for information on a site and not wanting to be dependent, they would think excellent there's a tech ref section i can go to to to get started and not look a total dumbass newb, but :? surprise seriously lacking in structure and depth.
It would probably take a lifetime to extract and collate the ES guts though :shock:. that's why
 
megacycle said:
It would probably take a lifetime to extract and collate the ES guts though :shock:. that's why
Click to expand...
Exactly--that's why I am trying to get everyone who can to copy relevant info into wiki articles
http://endless-sphere.com/w
even if all you do is make an article with links to the relevant posts in a thread, or quote the post in the article, it would be very helpful. Then eventually someone else might have a bit more time, and be able to refine the article.
 
Hey AW, see i didn't know the Wiki was the place to start looking :lol: .
Though yeh that's really 8) and everyone with an area of expertise or experience should be encouraged and aided to collate and post there.

There's probably a good several thousand capable members, shouldnt take long, One wiki each :wink:
Banned if your a slacker and dont do your Wiki duty :wink:
 
There is a mountain of information in here - but the way the search tool works makes it impossible to sift thru it all.

Trying a two word search like flash fail turns up 100 pages.

Break the tech sections down to hardware groups or type.

That's a start.
 
If you see the same question over and over, add it to an FAQ for beginners. I have done that for my off-road motorcycle, the Honda XR400R.

Sometimes I look at "Endless-sphere" and think of "Endless-posts". Not unlike a manual with 10,000 addendum pages, old information never goes into the trash can. It just adds up. Then there are opinions...

Moderators could make a couple "Hot Info" threads. Locked threads for moderator to post links on the best and newest information.

Example. I am buying a geared hub wheel today. The MXUS model is no longer being sold by our trusted vendor. Do I have to search everywhere to see if the Q100 is still the best option? Similarly for the battery I am about to buy.

Thank you,
Kevin
 
KevXR said:
Moderators could make a couple "Hot Info" threads. Locked threads for moderator to post links on the best and newest information.
Click to expand...
It would be better if each user that posts information that might be valuable would create or add to a wiki page for it.

Or if someone that finds a thread valuable would do the same.

Then someone else that needs the info finds it in the wiki, but sees it is not organized well--they can go fix that.

Even if it is just links to the posts and threads on the forum, or quotes of the essential info and a link to the rest, it would be more useful than "hot info" threads. ;)

(because "hot info" will typically be new things that people find and post about, and others reply, so while it is "hot" people will keep bumping the thread by posting, so most "hot" topics can easily be found by simply looking in the "vew active topics" page
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/search.php?search_id=active_topics
which is constantly updated automatically.)


The wiki will grow and become more and more useful with each person that edits it.


Regarding your example, I don't think there's any way the moderators could keep track of all that info by themselves, and keep it posted. At least for me, there's little enough time as it is just to do the usual spam control and other moderation, and still have any time to read the stuff I'd like to keep up on. :(
 
Having been a member of alot of differant forums I hate looking like an idiot when I get into something new, as such I spent a couple weeks trying to find revalent info for my project before posting at all, the search function is pretty poor and I found that I didnt even know the right terminoligy to search,not here or anywhere else on the web.
So I agree that an expanded tech section would be nice, a newbe section with the basics spelled out, I have yet to find info on the basic operation of controllers and what the components are called, what they do and what they look like,this is not for a lack of trying, almost every post I read concerning the subject had the authors assuming the reader was already familier with the components.
yeah, I am a newbe with little electronics background other than working on motorcycles and cars. I also know its alot to ask of other members to spend their time explaining things that to them are simple basics.
I also know first hand how tedious it is to do step by step "how to's" as I have done many on building surfboards ,fabricating carbonfiber parts , painting ect.ect, here is an example >>
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1338248877/6#6 <<I dont know what the answer is but I do know its frustrating to read 44 pages of a thread in hopes of finding some peice of info that will help me move forward, and then do it again and again.
I'm old enough that I didnt grow up in the computer / electronics age , Probably doest help that I cant spell either :oops:
Not complaining really, just whining a bit
 
This forum has helped me a lot in the past month. Especially with all the electronic stuff. Sometimes it embarrasses me to ask for help as i'm sure that the answer is hidden somewhere here in the depths of ES. If searching for it doesent help then this is the only way. The main problem is finding that specific answer in the thousands of threads here. But i do agree that asking the ultra basic like where to find good Lipo, or how to fit the components to the bike just clutters up the forum with even more useless info that makes it harder to find the good and helpful posts. Maybe the admins here should just delete some of the junk to fill ES more with the really vital facts. This could be done in a democratic way by just gathering all the crap and making people vote for what to keep and what to delete. :)
 
How is the wiki administered, i mean if i input info how is it checked?
 
8) Thanks AW.
 
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