Thread: I’m irritated and annoyed! But also grateful.

I really do appreciate the learning and wealth of knowledge shared here...especially from the cranky old farts - of which I hope to be in the future!

Originally Posted by SRC

This is a great forum but as with any forum, without new members it would die. So be thankful that you get "irritated and annoyed", it's a good problem to have.

I beg to differ. While everything that has been said so far sounds nice and dandy while you are on the reveiving end, it poses a challenge for the senior members. SRP has always been providing the most accurate, state of the art information. None of the self proclaimed competitors are anywhere near our collective level of experience and expertise. None have been able to provide anything even remotely resembling our Workshop area, or the Wiki with its razor database.

However, this has been taking a lot of drive and countless hours of work. Energy and time that could have gone into active forum participation. Personally, I opted for Wiki work after a glance at the site statistics. SRP is growing. And I feel it would be wrong to add random users as mentors or moderators, ie we hire for attitude *and* skills.

So, how many beginners can a forum take? I have been running and moderating internet communities (mailing lists, newsgroups, IRC channels, and web forums) since the 80s. And I have seen some die because there were more beginners than the senior members could handle.

Which is where courtesy comes into play. Call me old fashioned, but I consider it rude to enter a forum without having perused the FAQ. Ours is the best in class, and it answers most questions a beginner can have.

Ie I am all for intelligent discussion. The stress being on intelligent.

Regards,
Robin

The more people that convert to straight shaving, the more options are made available to the oldtimers.

Brands like Proraso, Pinaud and such suddenly become more widely available.

New manufacturers enter the field. The options in new razors grow to where it was so many years ago.


There are many good things that come from popularity.

Wow...you disagree with me so you copy, paste and highlite a portion of my post into yours, and then end your post by embarassing me by saying "I am all for intelligent conversation. The stress being on intelligent". So I guess that according to you my post was not too "intelligent".

I'm not even going to try and defend the point I was trying to make but I will tell you this...see if I ever post on this forum again.

Thanks for embarassing me Robin !

Well, Scott,

I'm actually sorry you feel embarrassed by a general remark I made. Write it off as an inter-cultural misunderstanding, would you? My point being that what sets SRP apart is the quality of its contents, but quality suffers if the ratio of inexperienced users failing to ask smart questions outgrows the number of people being able to give quality answers. While this text is about technical 'forums', it is - at its core - also about SRP (or, if you will, about other shaving forums that have failed in this respect): How To Ask Questions The Smart Way. You may ask yourself, 'What do straight shavers have to do with hackers?', and quite rightly so. Hackers do, however, share many characteristics with straight razor shavers. Or how else would one explain people using 30k grit hones to get the most out of a razor, or spending countless hours of research to find a way to make a Coticule work more or less the same as a cheaper, more consistent synthetic hone? Hacking is about mis-using technology to make it work in unexpected, but useful or fun ways. A lot of what is being done in the workshop and honing sections of this site is in fact hacking. And it has led to great advancements that benefit many people (compare honing today to honing 3 years ago, or take a look at Glen's walnut tumbler - a classic hack if I ever saw one).

And coming back to the misunderstanding with 'intelligent conversation', let me quote from ESR's article, keeping in mind that this is my personal opinion only:

The first thing to understand is that hackers actually like hard problems and good, thought-provoking questions about them. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. If you give us an interesting question to chew on we'll be grateful to you; good questions are a stimulus and a gift. Good questions help us develop our understanding, and often reveal problems we might not have noticed or thought about otherwise. Among hackers, “Good question!” is a strong and sincere compliment.
Despite this, hackers have a reputation for meeting simple questions with what looks like hostility or arrogance. It sometimes looks like we're reflexively rude to newbies and the ignorant. But this isn't really true.
What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this “losers” (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it “lusers”).

I do not agree with too many things ESR says, but I think the above sums up pretty nicely the core problem of any highly specialised internet community. It is about resources, and about keeping the senior members (the ones with high experience, not necessarily high post count) motivated, because otherwise the community will simply wither away.

My background in running internet communities is a predominantly technical one, ie we were able to actually give answers that were right or wrong, whereas with straight razors, there are huge grey areas. But the underlying problem is the same, ie how to accommodate new joiners while retaining or enhancing the quality of a site - without alienating either the new joiners or the senior members. I cannot find one particular text that describes the typical life cycle of internet communities at the moment, but it describes how almost all communities which grew from small, family like groups of enthusiasts to large ones with zealots, fanboys, and egomaniacs, failed. I have even been part of two such communities, and it was not pretty, not least because of the massive amount of work that went down the drain, the spin-offs that failed to deliver quality while producing even more clueless fanboys, and the emergence of cult followings for egomaniacs who were into a particular field because it was easy to gloss over their lack of experience with fancy pictures and tear jerking tales of success and glory.

Maybe that is the way all internet communities are, but even after 23 years, I refuse to accept this as an inevitable fate, ie I would not want something like that to happen to SRP, ever. But when I take a look at its spin-offs, I can see a lot of that happening already. SRP's moderation team, and the dev team, are doing a lot to keep SRP the place where people can find state-of-the-art information, presented in a gentlemanly fashion and can have a nice discussion about things that are only marginally related to the straight razor shaving culture at the same time. But if you compare it to what it was two or three years ago, it has subtly changed. New joiners often get referred to the Wiki, simply because senior members cannot cope with the workload. As long as they are led to specific articles, or even section of articles, I find that a viable solution, and in true SRP spirit (we used to link to archived posts previously, but with the massive rise in archived post numbers, it has become almost impossible to keep track of the ones worth quoting, so the Wiki is - for this particular purpose - superior to the forum). However, 'go read the Wiki' is, in my opinion, not a valid answer. But it happens, and the reason is typically that the person asking the question did not even read the FAQ. Which, as I said before, should be common courtesy, and will lead to smart questions.

So, sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope the above will clear things up.

Regards,
Robin

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

Well, Scott,

I'm actually sorry you feel embarrassed by a general remark I made. Write it off as an inter-cultural misunderstanding, would you? My point being that what sets SRP apart is the quality of its contents, but quality suffers if the ratio of inexperienced users failing to ask smart questions outgrows the number of people being able to give quality answers. While this text is about technical 'forums', it is - at its core - also about SRP (or, if you will, about other shaving forums that have failed in this respect): How To Ask Questions The Smart Way. You may ask yourself, 'What do straight shavers have to do with hackers?', and quite rightly so. Hackers do, however, share many characteristics with straight razor shavers. Or how else would one explain people using 30k grit hones to get the most out of a razor, or spending countless hours of research to find a way to make a Coticule work more or less the same as a cheaper, more consistent synthetic hone? Hacking is about mis-using technology to make it work in unexpected, but useful or fun ways. A lot of what is being done in the workshop and honing sections of this site is in fact hacking. And it has led to great advancements that benefit many people (compare honing today to honing 3 years ago, or take a look at Glen's walnut tumbler - a classic hack if I ever saw one).

And coming back to the misunderstanding with 'intelligent conversation', let me quote from ESR's article, keeping in mind that this is my personal opinion only:

The first thing to understand is that hackers actually like hard problems and good, thought-provoking questions about them. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. If you give us an interesting question to chew on we'll be grateful to you; good questions are a stimulus and a gift. Good questions help us develop our understanding, and often reveal problems we might not have noticed or thought about otherwise. Among hackers, “Good question!” is a strong and sincere compliment.
Despite this, hackers have a reputation for meeting simple questions with what looks like hostility or arrogance. It sometimes looks like we're reflexively rude to newbies and the ignorant. But this isn't really true.
What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this “losers” (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it “lusers”).

I do not agree with too many things ESR says, but I think the above sums up pretty nicely the core problem of any highly specialised internet community. It is about resources, and about keeping the senior members (the ones with high experience, not necessarily high post count) motivated, because otherwise the community will simply wither away.

My background in running internet communities is a predominantly technical one, ie we were able to actually give answers that were right or wrong, whereas with straight razors, there are huge grey areas. But the underlying problem is the same, ie how to accommodate new joiners while retaining or enhancing the quality of a site - without alienating either the new joiners or the senior members. I cannot find one particular text that describes the typical life cycle of internet communities at the moment, but it describes how almost all communities which grew from small, family like groups of enthusiasts to large ones with zealots, fanboys, and egomaniacs, failed. I have even been part of two such communities, and it was not pretty, not least because of the massive amount of work that went down the drain, the spin-offs that failed to deliver quality while producing even more clueless fanboys, and the emergence of cult followings for egomaniacs who were into a particular field because it was easy to gloss over their lack of experience with fancy pictures and tear jerking tales of success and glory.

Maybe that is the way all internet communities are, but even after 23 years, I refuse to accept this as an inevitable fate, ie I would not want something like that to happen to SRP, ever. But when I take a look at its spin-offs, I can see a lot of that happening already. SRP's moderation team, and the dev team, are doing a lot to keep SRP the place where people can find state-of-the-art information, presented in a gentlemanly fashion and can have a nice discussion about things that are only marginally related to the straight razor shaving culture at the same time. But if you compare it to what it was two or three years ago, it has subtly changed. New joiners often get referred to the Wiki, simply because senior members cannot cope with the workload. As long as they are led to specific articles, or even section of articles, I find that a viable solution, and in true SRP spirit (we used to link to archived posts previously, but with the massive rise in archived post numbers, it has become almost impossible to keep track of the ones worth quoting, so the Wiki is - for this particular purpose - superior to the forum). However, 'go read the Wiki' is, in my opinion, not a valid answer. But it happens, and the reason is typically that the person asking the question did not even read the FAQ. Which, as I said before, should be common courtesy, and will lead to smart questions.

So, sorry for the misunderstanding, and I hope the above will clear things up.

Regards,
Robin

As a newbie this kinda makes me scared to ask a question? lol

While I think you both kinda over reacted, the cultural thing being a part of it, ie German efficiency vs American or English lets have a beer/cup of tea and a chat. .

You wan't to open it up for discussion no matter how silly it might seem. I asked some basic or silly questions in my first posts (and probably will ask a few more) and was pointed to the wiki that helped. I don't think I want to be just pointed to the wiki every time. Members of all experience can answer my questions, I like all aswers from experienced and no so.

Hopefully there will be plenty of people join here and staright razors make a big comeback so some of the questions asked can be answered by others.

Man I appreciate if a newbie gives me advice, some of it's great but I do value the experienced gents just as much if not more so. Others like to help and talk and we can feed of each other.

Encourage all discusion and broaden your horizons as sometimes people just want to talk. Sometimes people have off days too.

Now where's that beer.

take it easy,

Aussie's 2 Germany 0, world cup South Africa, can't wait!

I was going to ask a question, but now I am afwaid.....

To the OP,

I kinda know what your saying, if too many people invade your fishing spot then the fish will run out. But this is different, you want and need many to come to this site and join. We can all help each other.

No one deserves disrespect and I don't like it when youngens show it to the elders.

My manager is one of the most patient men I know and sometimes when we have issues at work and some people ask silly questions and don't understand the processes I can get a bit peed off. But my manager has a certain understanding and charm that everyone just loves him as he can relate and get the message across in a great way. Really is a great man and sometimes he irritates me when he doesn't just use his stripes/authority. But looking back he has developed a great team that I could never have done and now I admit he is the better man that I wish I could be someday. Now even though people admit I might be the more "inteligent" man I would rather be like him and he be the more "inteligent" man!

Personally I think it's better to be charming and funny than right!

take it easy.

Hope not too many motocross riders come to my track, especially if I stack it.

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

I was going to ask a question, but now I am afwaid.....

you'll be ok mate, it's the holidays and beberlin will be tanked on steinlagers.

Originally Posted by kenno

you'll be ok mate, it's the holidays and beberlin will be tanked on steinlagers.