Forum Moderation

[Siwastaja]

That's not too surprising.  Once a toxic thread kicks off, the number of post increase dramatically.

But we are supposedly in the middle of one right now. Yet it does not show on total flow of posts.

The "dramatic" post count of a toxic bullshit thread is like 100 posts during a course of 2-4 weeks or something like that. Completely negligible in the big picture. It is only a problem if you actually do enter these threads. The solution is simple: refer to the good old "doctor it hurts".

You are free to conduct your own study with larger sample size.

[tggzzz]

About SNR:

I went through 37 latest posts (attached) and only ONE ("Re: YouTube's new anti-adblocker measures") is political off-topic. Remaining 36 are all on-topic for this forum, and not only that, quite evenly spread across different fields: computing, repair, test equipment, analog/power electronic design. The "Re: How can we compete with China?" has potential of being political off-topic, but the messages I clicked are not - they discuss on-topic questions like sourcing of components.

Thus, my conclusion is that the current SNR of the forum is 36/37 = 97.3%. It is impossible that it was significantly better in the past, because it is close to 100% at the moment.

Traditional point: it always possible to use statistics as a drunkard uses a lamp post: for support rather than illumination. In order to avoid that possibility...

Who defined off or on topic? That ad-blocker thread is technical, and of interest to many or most of the forum's members.

Why only look at 37 threads? Surely it would be a better representation to look at threads with posts in the past week?

It might well be that excessively off-topic posts haven't had many additions recently.

[Siwastaja]

Who defined off or on topic?

Dave defined in forum rules and section names. It's quite easy to do pretty objectively: try it yourself and you will see! (With larger sample size you could encounter replies which contain a technical part on-topic for forum, plus a political remark. That would make classification of the message more difficult. Maybe you could count that as 0.5.)

That ad-blocker thread is technical, and of interest to many or most of the forum's members.

I was looking at individual posts, not threads. The thread could have been technical, but Zero999's post was political OT.

Surely it would be a better representation to look at threads with posts in the past week?

By all means, feel free to do that.

[bdunham7]

Why only look at 37 threads? Surely it would be a better representation to look at threads with posts in the past week?

Everyone here will have their own experience depending on how they choose to interact with the forum.  Not counting this post, 12 of my last 20 posts have been answers or questions regarding technical issues with some sort of electronics equipment, device or system.  Some people might be 20 for 20 as they avoid all other topics.  Perhaps check your own participation type and level and adjust it to be what you think it should be.

[PlainName]

Currently there are 5297 Guests, 270 Users.   I typically use guest to see what is going with a quick slide to the bottom of the page to read recent posts.  If that is filled with off-topic posts, I may not even notice that one golden nugget and I tend to stay away as I find nothing of interest.

Maybe check the 'unread posts since last visit' link  which actually shows thread rather than posts. So a single toxic thread being posted to every 10 seconds has only one entry, as opposed to every slot in the 'recent posts' list.

Edit: picture worth many words, etc. A bonus is the unread posts shows stuff you haven't already seen, whereas the recent posts may be full of posts you have seen.

[joeqsmith]

Currently there are 5297 Guests, 270 Users.   I typically use guest to see what is going with a quick slide to the bottom of the page to read recent posts.  If that is filled with off-topic posts, I may not even notice that one golden nugget and I tend to stay away as I find nothing of interest.

Maybe check the 'unread posts since last visit' link  which actually shows thread rather than posts. So a single toxic thread being posted to every 10 seconds has only one entry, as opposed to every slot in the 'recent posts' list.

Edit: picture worth many words, etc. A bonus is the unread posts shows stuff you haven't already seen, whereas the recent posts may be full of posts you have seen.

Obviously if logged in, you have a lot more options.   The vast majority like myself seem to use guest.

I had thought if a separate area were added for toxic threads, maybe this area could be blocked from the most recent posts listing.  It sounds like that is off the table.   Seems there is no point of focusing on such a topic as BD139 has done.  Make your choice to use the site or not and get on with it.   

[PlainName]

Obviously if logged in, you have a lot more options.   The vast majority like myself seem to use guest.

Sure. The only reason I opened an account originally was to preserve my read pointers. After that, it's not a problem to just allow the appropriate cookie to auto-login every visit. I can't remember the last time I had to manually do it, or even click an auto-filled box or anything. Just put eevblog in the address bar and it's done.

I appreciate why someone might not want to register, but once you have why not just use that to make life simpler and nicer? If you don't want to that's fine, but it's then a bit off to complain about the lack of stuff that is there for your taking simply because you can't be arsed to use it.

[tggzzz]

Currently there are 5297 Guests, 270 Users.   I typically use guest to see what is going with a quick slide to the bottom of the page to read recent posts.  If that is filled with off-topic posts, I may not even notice that one golden nugget and I tend to stay away as I find nothing of interest.

Maybe check the 'unread posts since last visit' link  which actually shows thread rather than posts. So a single toxic thread being posted to every 10 seconds has only one entry, as opposed to every slot in the 'recent posts' list.

Edit: picture worth many words, etc. A bonus is the unread posts shows stuff you haven't already seen, whereas the recent posts may be full of posts you have seen.

Obviously if logged in, you have a lot more options.   The vast majority like myself seem to use guest.

I had thought if a separate area were added for toxic threads, maybe this area could be blocked from the most recent posts listing.  It sounds like that is off the table.   Seems there is no point of focusing on such a topic as BD139 has done.  Make your choice to use the site or not and get on with it.

Being able to ignore things you've already assessed is absolutely critical when using the web in general. That's true with most websites, and that's why RSS/ATOM feeds were invented and are so useful.

Hence I interact almost exclusively via the "unread replies" (showing new things that have interested me in the past) and "unread posts" (showing new things that have a (small) chance of being interesting).

If a site has neither RSS feeds nor "what's new since you last visited", then I look at the site rarely and infrequently - usually when I'm bored. One example of that is the ACMQueue site, which I might visit a couple of times a month.

[tszaboo]

But then they make everything about politics. I used to watch TV, play video games or go to forums online. It was all fine enjoyable. Then they turned everything into their loudspeaker to tell me "the message". Suddenly video game characters were telling me their pronouns and Hollywood has its nervous breakdown. And when sales stop they double and triple down on this bullshit. I cannot watch a joghurt ad now, without political bullshit.
And then you are surprised that people bring it up, with every topic? We cannot talk about solar panels because some idiot at fox had the contrarian standpoint that they are somehow evil. Also EVs are bad because they will just take the default contrarian position. And the other side is just batshit crazy, who would loose their mind if you ask a technical question about a "male" connector.
Common sense, people 

[brucehoult]

Obviously if logged in, you have a lot more options.   The vast majority like myself seem to use guest.

Someone with 12000 posts uses "guest"?

I had thought if a separate area were added for toxic threads, maybe this area could be blocked from the most recent posts listing. 

Just add any such toxic -- or even merely uninteresting -- threads to your "ignore topics" list and you'll never see it again ... or at least not for a few months until it gets aged off the list.

My routine is to click on "Show new replies to your posts." and check those, then click it again to see if anything got added while I was reading/replying. Then click "Show unread posts since last visit." hit the "Select all" checkbox and then selectively unselect maybe 10% of new threads, and then hit "Ignore Topics" and (usually) never see them again.

[jpanhalt]

Someone with 12000 posts uses "guest"?

Maybe the user's browser doesn't show "Show unread posts since last visit?"

[nctnico]

But then they make everything about politics. I used to watch TV, play video games or go to forums online. It was all fine enjoyable. Then they turned everything into their loudspeaker to tell me "the message". Suddenly video game characters were telling me their pronouns and Hollywood has its nervous breakdown. And when sales stop they double and triple down on this bullshit. I cannot watch a joghurt ad now, without political bullshit.
And then you are surprised that people bring it up, with every topic? We cannot talk about solar panels because some idiot at fox had the contrarian standpoint that they are somehow evil. Also EVs are bad because they will just take the default contrarian position. And the other side is just batshit crazy, who would loose their mind if you ask a technical question about a "male" connector.
Common sense, people 

And you forgot about how the words 'master' and 'slave' have been cancelled as well. Nowadays you see all kinds of crappy substitutes in equipment and manuals leaving the user guessing WTF they are on about.

[tszaboo]

But then they make everything about politics. I used to watch TV, play video games or go to forums online. It was all fine enjoyable. Then they turned everything into their loudspeaker to tell me "the message". Suddenly video game characters were telling me their pronouns and Hollywood has its nervous breakdown. And when sales stop they double and triple down on this bullshit. I cannot watch a joghurt ad now, without political bullshit.
And then you are surprised that people bring it up, with every topic? We cannot talk about solar panels because some idiot at fox had the contrarian standpoint that they are somehow evil. Also EVs are bad because they will just take the default contrarian position. And the other side is just batshit crazy, who would loose their mind if you ask a technical question about a "male" connector.
Common sense, people 

And you forgot about how the words 'master' and 'slave' have been cancelled as well. Nowadays you see all kinds of crappy substitutes in equipment and manuals leaving the user guessing WTF they are on about.

There are several of these woke inserts into the electronics field, and they push really hard to replace the words.
I had a discussion that using colors in schematic is ableism, and I'm a -ist for doing so.
BTW, if anyone gives you any bullshit about it, it's: "Microcontroller out Sensor in" and mental note about the karen who was complaining about it.

[tggzzz]

But then they make everything about politics. I used to watch TV, play video games or go to forums online. It was all fine enjoyable. Then they turned everything into their loudspeaker to tell me "the message". Suddenly video game characters were telling me their pronouns and Hollywood has its nervous breakdown. And when sales stop they double and triple down on this bullshit. I cannot watch a joghurt ad now, without political bullshit.
And then you are surprised that people bring it up, with every topic? We cannot talk about solar panels because some idiot at fox had the contrarian standpoint that they are somehow evil. Also EVs are bad because they will just take the default contrarian position. And the other side is just batshit crazy, who would loose their mind if you ask a technical question about a "male" connector.
Common sense, people 

And you forgot about how the words 'master' and 'slave' have been cancelled as well. Nowadays you see all kinds of crappy substitutes in equipment and manuals leaving the user guessing WTF they are on about.

There are several of these woke inserts into the electronics field, and they push really hard to replace the words.
I had a discussion that using colors in schematic is ableism, and I'm a -ist for doing so.
BTW, if anyone gives you any bullshit about it, it's: "Microcontroller out Sensor in" and mental note about the karen who was complaining about it.

I'm not colour blind, but colour blindness is surprisingly common in men (~10%) and much less common in women (<1%)[1]. I have no idea about those with strange chromosome combinations, nor trans, nor... (That should flush any such karens out of the woodwork ) That prevalence is sufficient to justify an "ableism" tag where someone attempts to justify requiring colours in schematics.

Nonetheless colour in schematics is almost always a pain in the eye-brain combination, and should only be used very sparingly as a hint. No information should be lost when rendered in black and white.

[1] https://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/

[Nominal Animal]

Nonetheless colour in schematics is almost always a pain in the eye-brain combination, and should only be used very sparingly as a hint. No information should be lost when rendered in black and white.

I suppose news should be in black and white for the same reason, then?  And should we definitely replace traffic lights with abstract unicolor ones too?

No, really.  What is the difference?

[PlainName]

Traffic lights aren't really appropriate because the colour isn't the decider. The position of the individual indicator, relative to the others, is always the same - go is at the bottom, stop at the top and ambivalent who the hell knows in the middle. You can lose the middle one and still be able to figure them out instantly in black and white.

[nctnico]

Nonetheless colour in schematics is almost always a pain in the eye-brain combination, and should only be used very sparingly as a hint. No information should be lost when rendered in black and white.

I suppose news should be in black and white for the same reason, then?  And should we definitely replace traffic lights with abstract unicolor ones too?

AFAIK traffic light colors aren't strict red/orange/green but have other colors mixed in (like green is actually blue-green) to aid color blind.

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out. One of the worst color choices I've seen is the old wire color code used for mains wiring in the Netherlands: red for neutral and green for live. It is wrong on so many levels... 

[NE666]

Traffic lights aren't really appropriate because the colour isn't the decider. The position of the individual indicator, relative to the others, is always the same...

...You can lose the middle one and still be able to figure them out instantly in black and white...

Try that from a distance, at night.

[tggzzz]

Nonetheless colour in schematics is almost always a pain in the eye-brain combination, and should only be used very sparingly as a hint. No information should be lost when rendered in black and white.

I suppose news should be in black and white for the same reason, then?  And should we definitely replace traffic lights with abstract unicolor ones too?

No, really.  What is the difference?

The context was schematics, not life, the universe, and everything.

Traffic lights is obvious: vertical position.

[Nominal Animal]

AFAIK traffic light colors aren't strict red/orange/green but have other colors mixed in (like green is actually blue-green) to aid color blind.

I do believe blue is used in e.g. Japan.

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out.

Yes, but this is not what tggzzz wrote: "No information should be lost when rendered in black and white."

This can sound nit-picking, but is actually very important to me.  If that was amended to "No necessary information ...", I could easily agree.

I've worked with artists, and even done some proper Uni research into visualization and sonification of information, and although I've done some experiments with color in schematics, I do not have the necessary style in schematic drawing to not annoy the hell out of EEs here.  Even so, what I found leads me to believe color could be used (perhaps not by me, but by someone better at schematic capture) to make schematics even easier to understand; but still keep the schematic just as specific if converted to black and white only.

That is, color can help human perception and understanding (and IMO should be used for that!), but should not specify any technical details not otherwise inferrable from the schematic.

[tggzzz]

Traffic lights aren't really appropriate because the colour isn't the decider. The position of the individual indicator, relative to the others, is always the same...

...You can lose the middle one and still be able to figure them out instantly in black and white...

Try that from a distance, at night.

Do you have personal experience of colour blindness that you could share?

Nonetheless, it is an interesting question. It is difficult to find a picture with all three lights on simultaneously, but this one shows the more important ones, i.e. red and green at dusk.

You can use https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ to see the effects of 8 different forms of colour blindness. In all cases both red and green are clearly illuminated.

There is usually non-trivial ambient light (ask any astronomer!) and there must be car head lights. I expect those are sufficient to allow the white surround to be visible, and that is sufficient to determine position.

[tggzzz]

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out.

Yes, but this is not what tggzzz wrote: "No information should be lost when rendered in black and white."

This can sound nit-picking, but is actually very important to me.  If that was amended to "No necessary information ...", I could easily agree.

Now you are being silly, deliberately snipping the majority of the paragraph to (try to) make a point. I expect better from you

Using your technique, I can twist your post thus:

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out.

Yes, but this is not what tggzzz wrote: "No information should be lost when rendered in black and white."

I could easily agree.

[tszaboo]

Nonetheless colour in schematics is almost always a pain in the eye-brain combination, and should only be used very sparingly as a hint. No information should be lost when rendered in black and white.

I suppose news should be in black and white for the same reason, then?  And should we definitely replace traffic lights with abstract unicolor ones too?

AFAIK traffic light colors aren't strict red/orange/green but have other colors mixed in (like green is actually blue-green) to aid color blind.

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out. One of the worst color choices I've seen is the old wire color code used for mains wiring in the Netherlands: red for neutral and green for live. It is wrong on so many levels... 

Please don't engage in this discussion again. Best to ignore it, and to go back to the orginal topic.
But you see, politics...

[nctnico]

In general colors can help to make schematics and diagrams more clear but care must be taken to make sure color blind people can also use them or at least don't mis out.

Yes, but this is not what tggzzz wrote: "No information should be lost when rendered in black and white."

By definition information is lost when rendering a color image in black & white. So this statement is pretty meaningless.

You could also argue a schematic should be legible for people without needing reading glasses along the same line. Bottom line is: if you can add features (like color, big text, 'sans serif' fonts, etc) to a schematic / diagram which can help the majority of the people understand the schematic more easely it is a win. Bonus points for choosing the features in a way so people with visual handicaps are still able to profit from it. But I think we are in agreement about that.

[PlainName]

I think Nominal is right on this:

This can sound nit-picking, but is actually very important to me.  If that was amended to "No necessary information ...", I could easily agree.

That's not the same as:

You could also argue a schematic should be legible for people without needing reading glasses along the same line.

He is talking additional information, not essential. So perhaps an audio attachment so you can hear the designer describe the circuit as you go along. But that's not essential data, and a deaf person would perhaps miss it but it isn't necessary to underestanding the circuit (or shouldn't be!).

We saw that colouring power lines as red and ground as green do add quick comprehension to a schematic, but in black and white there is nothing really lost. But, OTOH, colouring every wire a different shade is just confusing (and perhaps is noise the black and white version filters out).

As with many things, it is not all the way there to that extreme, or all the way to this extreme, but some middle ground sweetspot that works.