site going down

I have been a member here for some time ,learnt lots from this site and it gives me great pleasure seeing the amount of young people that are engoying chemistry. THE FUTURE LOOKS GOOD
But of recent times i think the site is going down hill,there seems to be a lot of rubbish being posted as well as advertisments.You post something one day and you would be lucky if it is on the same page the next day.

maybe i am wrong.


regards azo

I do not agree that the board is going downhill. We indeed suffer from a lot of spamming the last few weeks, but that is not the same as the board going downhill. Still there are many interesting posts and people doing nice syntheses and experiments. Even young and unexperienced people can add interesting ideas and it is good to see young people experimenting and learning and sometimes being bitten by the goddess of chemistry (mewrox99 ).

It would be good if some technical solution can be found to the highly irritating issue of spam. Maybe such a solution is present in the next release of the forum software ??

Quote: Originally posted by azo

I have been a member here for some time ,learnt lots from this site and it gives me great pleasure seeing the amount of young people that are engoying chemistry. THE FUTURE LOOKS GOOD But of recent times i think the site is going down hill,there seems to be a lot of rubbish being posted as well as advertisments.You post something one day and you would be lucky if it is on the same page the next day. maybe i am wrong. regards azo

Quote: Originally posted by m1tanker78

As for the spam attacks, maybe SM admin should implement a system where new members' first 5 or 10 posts need approval before appearing in the forum. Seems to me it would be a lot less burden on the moderators to approve a few new posts than to sort through hundreds(?) of U2U messages where members have reported a few spam posts. This should also cut down on drug-related postings and other prohibited material, IMO.

Things I've noticed:

<b>Discussions nullified due to safety concerns. </b>

A recent example being:

"Hi, I want to discuss making Cu(II) fluoride as a means to make fluorine."

Response#1
You're Crazy

Response #2
That's dangerous

Response #3
Finally someone joins the discussion.

That post made me dredge up my old post on electrochemical fluorine production where I was thinking about making a cell. Responses were more along the lines of "You know, you can pick up calcium fluoride for your viewing window in a rock shop"

Hell yeah what we do can be dangerous, but everything is dangerous. If you want to enumerate the dangers of a procedure you parlay into them using a relevant response.

<b>Posters being too defensive and / or jumping to conclusions</b>

More people than usual are seemingly unable to admit their mistakes. They defend ideas as they are stripped away until their only defense lies in some mundane wording in the initial response.

"Well, of course when I said there was no orbital interaction in that post I meant the 1s orbital!"

These are usually the same posters that jump into something and say that a given reaction is impossible or someone is flat-out wrong without any backup. ANYONE can say someone is wrong, but when you do it with a one word answer, well, anyone can do that too. If you're going to answer a post, answer a post or let it sit.

<b>tl;dr</b>

If you're going to respond to a thread, at least read it, the phosphorous thread is pretty bad in spots from the same ideas coming up.

<b>Picking apart answers</b>

We have all kinds here. Some people are arm chair chemists, some bench chemists, some wish they were chemists, and others are backyard chemists. There are others too and lately there have been more people on this forum that would make a nice one sentence reply like:

You forgot research chemists

Let's face it, chemistry tends to stretch to the infinity along the horizon and we could fill books (and some people have) with exceptions to rules or trying to give the most comprehensive answer to a question (A comprehensive treatise on inorganic and theoretical chemistry anyone?). Sometimes I don't like to answer posts to questions I cannot answer with 100% certainty because I know someone will come along and think of the exception and then post that with a cocky little emoticon. So long as the overall picture is correct it's a good answer, that's what really counts. And exceptions should be explained, not pointed out with glee as if by pointing out the failure of the previous post you boost yourself up to International Hazard level.

Wait... what was my point here?

It depends on how you define "going down". I've been studying (non professionally) chemistry for more than 30 years and still I learn something new almost every time I visit here.
(maybe i'm a slow learner )
Still a little more patience and kindness wouldn't go astray.When researchinig through the older threads there seems more of a camraderie and less analysis of motive.
A little more debating a topic on merit and a little less character assasination.

Quote: Originally posted by LanthanumK

Some analysis of motive is needed for a potentially illegal question like "What is the best way to blow up a house?" For a more legitimate post, entire replies should not be comprised of safety concerns; instead, a 1-sentence addition to the reply can be added on, stating the dangers of the process if the process has extraordinary dangers, such as the production of F2 gas.

Quote: Originally posted by LanthanumK

Some analysis of motive is needed for a potentially illegal question like "What is the best way to blow up a house?" For a more legitimate post, entire replies should not be comprised of safety concerns; instead, a 1-sentence addition to the reply can be added on, stating the dangers of the process if the process has extraordinary dangers, such as the production of F2 gas.