Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Some of the sticky's are too effing big

Some of the sticky's are too effing big

morganbw - 8-1-2015 at 15:17

Who has time to read 60 plus pages on one sticky.
I am new here but if there are sticky's the crap needs to be trimmed from them

I have gone through a few of them, but leave pretty tired.

Zephyr - 8-1-2015 at 15:31

Many of the stickies are extremely big, but several of the large ones have shorter write ups done on them, which are good for a overview, without having to go into the detail of the longer thread. An example of this is the benzene thread (12 pages) which has a much shorter summary. Another, more extreme example is the phosphorus thread (48 pages) which is summed up nicely in the prepublication section.

aga - 8-1-2015 at 15:36

You're right.

The important ones would benefit from a summary.

Glad to hear that you feel so strongly that you're willing to take the job on señor morganbw !

gdflp - 8-1-2015 at 16:11

Mots of the long ones already have a summary if you're willing to look. If you're planning on running an experiment though, it's very useful to have pages of data, successful experiments, and even explained failures. The stickies have already been trimmed, and what may seem like crap to you may be valuable information to others.

diddi - 8-1-2015 at 16:24

another possibility could be to add to the SM wiki "Synthesis of phosphorus" for example which reflects the important conclusions after a 7 page discussion on each of the many methods trialled so far. create a new sticky pointing to the wiki and "unsticky" the full thread so that if members want to review the thread they can still browse through it and it will still pick up in searches.

APO - 11-1-2015 at 12:35

I kinda like how big they are to cover multiple different syntheses and techniques, but that's just me. I also like reading talk about the subject and stories sometimes. An up to date summary for some of the larger threads might be a good addition though.

Bert - 7-2-2015 at 06:19

image.jpg - 28kB

Quote:

The sciencemadness.org forum just now is enough to drive one mad. It gives me the impression of a primeval forest full of the most remarkable things, a monstrous and boundless thicket, with no way of escape, into which one may well dread to enter.

_{-The ghost of Friedrich Wholer}

Some of the stickys are so wide in their topic as to defeat a summary- Take a trip from end to end of "unconventional shaped charge", IF you've got a week or so, with following all the links & even skimming the uploaded files/references. And I can STILL think of aspects that are not covered-

Every now and then I look at some projects I THOUGHT I was going to whip into shape, particularly a couple of safety related explosives testing/use and lab procedure threads.

We could use a couple more moderators, one with training in library science would be lovely.

Quote:

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?”

_{-The ghost of John M. Browning}

BromicAcid - 7-2-2015 at 11:10

Quote: Originally posted by morganbw

Who has time to read 60 plus pages on one sticky.

Sciencemadness is not a 'How To' website. We should all be so lucky as to find a thread that we can enjoy over the course of a week or month and supplement said learning with additional research of our own to feed back into the hearth that is SM.

jock88 - 7-2-2015 at 14:37

It's very important that the whole thing stays MAD :-|

Etaoin Shrdlu - 7-2-2015 at 14:56

Quote: Originally posted by BromicAcid

Quote: Originally posted by morganbw

Who has time to read 60 plus pages on one sticky.

On the other hand, some of those stickies are filled with off-topic discussion and a bunch of people doing the same thing over and over again. It would be pretty nice to have them summarized.

Hennig Brand - 7-2-2015 at 14:57

Everyone has to prioritize. You may not have time to read all the stickies, because of higher priority obligations, and that is life. Many people want everything tied up in a neat little package so they can "imagine" to learn the material in 15 minutes. Not saying that there isn't any long windedness or straying of course from time to time in these threads, but I wouldn't cater to the people who simply want a how to manual and easy answers. Some separate summaries sounds like a reasonable idea though, which does offer some choice and could be used as a quick reference even for those who have read the full thread.

S.C. Wack - 7-2-2015 at 15:16

What we need is more restraint in posting, he said in #1501.

Brain&Force - 12-2-2015 at 19:10

I think we have to have an archive section for the best threads, that's not closed but hosts the best threads. It would be a great place to continue.