Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Keeping the threads clean

Keeping the threads clean

TheBear - 2-6-2004 at 11:11

First I want to say I like the atmosphere here and I don't want this place to have rules with instant ban penalties for not following them and things like that.

But sometimes I feel threads degrades due to "dilution" of useful information.

One thing that annoy me is this constant posting of sources and prices even when discussing preparation and/or uses of a chemical. I mean: we already have a section for aquistion. And furthermore, exact prices and shop/dealer names are often irrelevant to 80-95% of the members because they don't live in the same country.

Offtopic:
This is just my point of view, and I want to point out that I'm fully aware of my status as a newcomer (looking a my postcount) so please don't take this as criticism.

[Edited on 2-6-2004 by TheBear]

vulture - 2-6-2004 at 12:37

Quote:

First I want to say I like the atmosphere here and I don't want this place to have rules with instant ban penalties for not following them and things like that.

But sometimes I feel threads degrades due to "dilution" of useful information.

What you're saying here is, atleast, paradoxal.

If you want to prevent such things it would require constant and meticulous moderation work in those thread, effectively killing the atmosphere.

People will always veer ofcourse in their conversations. On a forum scale this is just more obvious because everything is being "logged".

Ofcourse, threads should be kept on topic as much as practically possible, going off topic into extreme extent will cause intervention by either me, Polverone, Madscientist or Chemoleo.

chemoleo - 2-6-2004 at 12:38

Hmm, I don't want to 'ruffle your feathers', but I believe it was your humble self who wrote this...

Quote:

Biltema is too far away for me, know any other sources?
You bought MEKB??
How did you extrakt it?
And where can I find MEK?

Asking for sources and yet being annoyed if someone is so kind to post them? tststs

Anyway, I agree on the 'dilution of threads', sometimes too much subsidary info or even totally irrelevant stuff is posted... or my favourite 5 word posts (one-liners).... but that's just me

What can we do about it? Nothing really... apart from giving a gentle nudge here or there. Bans are not a general policy here... which is definitely to be upheld. Plus...streamlining everything to be 'perfect' would certainly make this forum less interesting, and would be a full time policing job... not the way to go!

Personally, I think the overall balance of information/friendliness versus irrelevant stuff/tight policies is very good... much better in a lot of forums I know

Edit: Oops, simultaneous posting

[Edited on 2-6-2004 by chemoleo]

BromicAcid - 2-6-2004 at 13:40

Veering off course is one of the things that actually help me the most. I may be trying to work on one area of study but a slightly related/unrelated subject may come up in a thread that I find quite interesting and may take to be my next challenge. We can't stay on topic all the time and if you can work in a piece of interesting knowledge in a slightly related thread and disseminate it without starting a whole new topic it is always a good thing as long as you don't go overboard, like the 4 or 5 posts in the phosphorus thread on sodium manufacture.

Personally I believe things run well just the way they are.

TheBear - 2-6-2004 at 22:48

Quote:

Biltema is too far away for me, know any other sources?
You bought MEKB??
How did you extrakt it?
And where can I find MEK?

Asking for sources and yet being annoyed if someone is so kind to post them? tststs

*Looking away in shame* Didn't even remember that, over a year ago, I was probably a bit ignorant back then

I don't think moderation is the solution, I think users knowing where to post what is better (I really feel like a hypocrite with my earlier posts in mind).

But I have another thought. I've been thinking and I've come to the conclusion that keeping threads ideal would cost to much in form of atmosphere loss, no human touch to it. But what a about running a wiki parallel to the discussion board? Here one could concentrate information learned from projects. For example, you could have "chlorine" as one entity, here you would write down everything good thats been accumulated in all the chlorine threads. Responses? Good or bad idea?

Slightly off-topic:
But I'm afraid my PHP scripting qualities are somewhat limited, I've written a guestbook and so but making a wiki would probably be too much work for me (would probably take me 6 months or someting, having to reread much programming)

Edit:

Keeping threads 100% on topic isn't exactly ideal, I agree with you BromicAcid. But it's more the dilution of some threads that become tedious (This does _not_ include threads especially devoted to document a projects progress, I'm thinking of axehandles superb threads).

[Edited on 3-6-2004 by TheBear]

Thread Splitting

I am a fish - 3-6-2004 at 00:52

In my opinion, splitting large threads would greatly improve this discussion board.

Take the Sodium thread for example. It is essentially a tangled skein of two seperate topics (1. Construction of electrolytic cells to isolate sodium. 2. Chemical methods of isolating sodium), which have little in common, besides the desired product. As the thread is so long, it is difficult to follow one topic, without the other getting in the way. Therefore, I propose that such threads should be split into their component parts. Where necessary, individual posts could be split, duplicated or modified, so that each of the new threads still forms a complete narrative. In order to preserve the board's history, the old unsplit thread could be moved to a new "Archive" forum.

I have a lot of free time at the moment. Thefore, if you do decide to implement such a policy, I would volunteer to identify (and make a list of) the individual posts that need moving.

Polverone - 3-6-2004 at 10:01

I have attempted to separate the hot electrochemical methods from more exotic methods, turning the Sodium! thread into two threads. What other threads would you suggest splitting?

I am a fish - 3-6-2004 at 12:08

Thanks. However, there is still work to be done. The "Sodium!" thread now starts with the following text:

Quote:

one little problem

Glass, fibrous or otherwise, is going to dissolve in molten NaOH. Are you an engineer by day, Orgy? You seem to have quite the love of Nifty Apparatus.

May I suggest two modifications:

1. The "Sodium!" thread be renamed, "Sodium isolation, without electroylsis of molten salts." (or similar).

2. All the posts in the "Sodium!" thread up to (but not including), Tacho's "Sodium Thermite" post (posted on 5-12-2003 at 04:41 PM), be moved to the electrolysis thread.

As for other threads that need splitting, the Sodium thread was the one that really stood out. However, I'm sure there are more and I'll get back to you later.

Polverone - 3-6-2004 at 16:36

Unfortunately, it turns out that dis-integrating threads is a lot easier than re-integrating them. I am afraid that the two sundered pieces of the Sodium thread must forever stand as a silent monument to the hubris of man.

chemoleo - 3-6-2004 at 16:42

TheBear - I didnt point out your source requests to embarass you, much rather, I thought it just goes to show that we all wonder/request, on occasion, where things/chemicals come from. Even though it may annoy us if other people do it. I just thought it served as an example that most people are interested in reagent acquisition, regardless where it is posted or what the idealised rules are - and you stood out as a prime example

Funny what XMB does - now there is a thread with -1 replies, yet 8000 something views ... while the split ones have none at all ...

Anyway - I personally was never that bothered by the Sodium! thread containing both chemical and electrochemical methods. What I liked about it, it contains all the information in one BIG piece of work. Somehow I never seemed to suffer the confusion others did ....
which makes me wonder - in principle, we should therefore separate the 'Making Lithium Metal' thread, too - as it covers various angles of a common goal (... making Li). But then, the thread is smaller... yet. You can see though that many threads should be, in principle separated.
I dont know what it is, but I always thought it's 'cool' to have sooo much information just regarding a single element, in a single thread - and now the impact of this is somewhat lessened

I guess I am being devil's advocate once again... this being too late anyhow.

Those are just my thoughts, anyway.

thread mangement

Magpie - 3-6-2004 at 18:31

I don't really mind the threads not being pure. If I'm really interested in something I can scan through the posts fairly quickly to find what I want.

But, if someone has the time to purify some of the longer threads I wouldn't object either. It seems like a lot of work, but it would likely be a "labor of love." And of course the administration would have to agree on what criteria were used for the separations.