Innapropriate Requests

[PatClarke]

Is it just me, the Forum and a few people I know who have an email address on here?
I am getting far too many inappropriate questions in my private mail, like forinstance "Please tell me how to sesign a FSAE car? We will compete at the Anctartic event in 2008 and want to know how to design the car.
PS. Do you have any old CBR600 engines lying around that you can send us"?

Usually these emails originate from Uzbekistan, or some country in that part of the world.

I would be interested in hearing if other forum members have had these questions? Certainly, they are being posted on here and are adding nothing to the credibility of the forum as a resource.

Regards to all
Pat

[KevinD]

i have been asked a few questions by south american teams... both were really good questions pertaining to matlab, and to data Aq stuff respectively, which i was happy to answer. i almost wish i had more questions because i enjoy answering them... provided they are good questions http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Big Bird]

Pat, you know i don't need to send you stupid questions in your PM - because I ask them in person at the comp each year.

I've not had any requests sent to me personally recently, but I've noticed a definite decline in the quality of requests posted on the forums. I was almost tempted to start a thread "Appropriate Use of These Forums" a couple of weeks back - but settled a bit after a stiff bourbon and a good lie down.

It is still disappointing though, there is a lot of bogus or repeated threads to wade through if you want to find good information on here.

My grumble. I'll go back to bed now.

Cheers,

[jack]

The "engineering spam"� has been pretty out of control lately. I don't even check this place out much anymore. Is it really that hard to figure out that you need to read Carroll Smith's books?

To any new teams: please buy all of Carroll Smith's books and thoroughly study them before asking a question. Don't mean to sound stand-offish but you will save everyone a lot of time.

[SpdRcr]

I feel that there is a large misconception with what this site should really be used for.

Additionally, people who give out too much information are to blame, but who says they are right in the first place? If people would just think a little bit on their own and do their own research, we would see half of these threads disappear.

[ad]

I feel your pain http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Andycostin]

Pat,
We(Swinburne team email) have had a few emails from India in the past month or so (prob about half a dozen). None from anywhere else, but they were quite simple questions - kind of annoying when trying to filter through official sponsor mail and such.

Yeah, a little nouse would go a LONG way....

[ben]

I think it might help if a basic introduction to each area of the car could be posted somewhere with links to appropriate suppliers.

In the end you're saying go and read Carroll's books and Milliken, etc, etc. These references exist because someone was gracious enough to put their hard earned knowledge and experience down on paper. If one or two of us did the same we could maybe help the whole competition?

Pat's done it with his tech advice you can download from various locations and many of us like myself do it my volunteering to judge.

Just a thought.

Ben

[jonnycowboy]

Yeah I agree.. most people I've seen that have been asking questions are from people that we might of been like 6-7 years ago... who knows maybe they don't translate the Carroll Smith books into Indian or Arabic, I mean we can tell they have a hard enough time with english asking the basic questions, how are they supposed to understand an in-depth analysis of racecar engineering? Not only that but they dont have the disposible income we have here in the occident so less money for racing in general, they don't have the exposure that we've had to both racing and mechanics.

Anyways I think people should do what Ben is saying, this is a place to learn, the knowledge we have should maybe be gathered up into one big post or PDF that every new member can read, instead of insulting them for their language skills or where they come from.

Especially with the more basic information, this could be a timesaver since its not like its protected information, its out there, sure but if the book about brake system design takes 8 weeks to deliver to India, and 5 minutes to answer here... you see what I'm getting at?

Jon

[Bill Kunst]

Pat,
I am new to the forum, but not to working on a team, or going back as an alumni to help support teams in tech and manufacturing expertise. I really think the main problem is that everyone wants instant gratification. Its like self pleasure without the work. I ask for the answer, someone hopefully replies with the right answer. No work for me, YEA!!

I find that many morons, from the states, have grown up on hondatunermycarisfastertech.com/forum and don't know how to search anywhere, which is evident within this site. Using dogpile, yahoo, google can get you most of the results you get here with less time and insult. Sure, we may never be able to find the directions on home to build a winning FSAE car on the net, but we can ask someone and they might just tell us.

So, to sum up this long post, laziness craps up this forum and almost all others out there.

My five cents,
Bill Kunst

[Bill Kunst]

Sorry,
forgot the rest of my post.

Even if we post the "Appropriate Use of These Forums", someone would have to read it. I suppose this presents the same problem that we have all over the forum.

Bill

[KU_Racing]

mad props to johhnycowboy for the correct use of the word 'occident' in a sentence.

[Dan G]

I confess, I had no idea what he was saying...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occident

[Cory M]

I think Bill K has hit the nail on the head.

[AK UT]

Originally posted by KU_Racing:
mad props to johhnycowboy for the correct use of the word 'occident' in a sentence.


So we're right wing french radicals now?
ok, Mort aux Bolches!

[jonnycowboy]

haha
well I didnt know wikipedia has that kind of definition for 'occident' but I used it defining us in the western world including North America and Europe...
as for the french, 'je suis demi francais alors j'imagines que je peux dire ce que je veux, calisse!' hehe

[Ashley Denmead]

I hear ya pat, ive had heaps of emails in the last 6 months or so from different teams. Things like "we've chosen an engine and have decided to build a spaceframe.....do you know how we should design the steering, suspension, brakes and drivline?" I'm more than happy to share experiences and help out others if they have particular questions but cant design their car for them!

Ash

[geniousanurag]

Originally posted by Andycostin:
Pat,
We(Swinburne team email) have had a few emails from India in the past month or so (prob about half a dozen). None from anywhere else, but they were quite simple questions - kind of annoying when trying to filter through official sponsor mail and such.

Yeah, a little nouse would go a LONG way....



Well none of us here want to cause any annoyance to anyone. My suggestion is to create separate discussion forum for new members. Those who dont get annoyed may go over there and answer the quiries.

[sourplum]

Originally posted by ben:
I think it might help if a basic introduction to each area of the car could be posted somewhere with links to appropriate suppliers.

In the end you're saying go and read Carroll's books and Milliken, etc, etc. These references exist because someone was gracious enough to put their hard earned knowledge and experience down on paper. If one or two of us did the same we could maybe help the whole competition?

Pat's done it with his tech advice you can download from various locations and many of us like myself do it my volunteering to judge.

Just a thought.

Ben

i'm agree with u.

it's easier to build the second car as most of members in this forum did (correct me if i'm wrong).you all hv a wider choice than us.u could refer to your senior..to your previous car,but for the first timer like me....hmm

[sourplum]

Originally posted by geniousanurag:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Andycostin:
Pat,
We(Swinburne team email) have had a few emails from India in the past month or so (prob about half a dozen). None from anywhere else, but they were quite simple questions - kind of annoying when trying to filter through official sponsor mail and such.

Yeah, a little nouse would go a LONG way....



Well none of us here want to cause any annoyance to anyone. My suggestion is to create separate discussion forum for new members. Those who dont get annoyed may go over there and answer the quiries. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
yeah i'm strongly behind you.by the way,you are doing in what part???i'm in fuel tank..

[James Waltman]

Over the last few years I've gotten quite a few emails from other (mostly new) teams asking for advice. Some of them were pretty lousy questions and some were good.
I enjoy the good ones and they get good responses. I just roll my eyes at the lousy questions and ignore them.
Same thing with posts here on the forum. There have been some questions on here lately that I have rolled my eyes over. Maybe they have become more frequent recently but these questions have been around as long as this forum. Go back to the first pages of this forum – there are a lot of the same questions there.
The difference now is that we have built up quite a knowledge base here over the last few years and the search function works reasonably well.

The new people asking lousy questions need to put in a little more effort and the veterans need to cut everyone a little more slack.

There are always going to be questions that waste your time. I guess that's the downside to this forum.

[tgman2]

The number of times the answer to a post has been either "google", "Carrol Smiths books" or "use the search function"......

[RollingCamel]

As a team captain of a "newbee" team, i had to restrain the team members from posting directly in the forum at first.

Some questions may slip under radar and some may have contacted some judges directly and inappropriately. I would like to apologize to anyone who may found it annoying.

As for separate discussion for new teams, i did start "The Newbies Thread" for such thing but even if we want to have a quality thread you need good quality questions. Low quality questions will make such thread get ignored, veterans will never be interested to check it.

There is an educational and cultural difference. In Egypt we have serious problems in our educational system and culture. People are so dependent, lack good education and has many misconceptions. It is much easier for them to embarrass themselves asking stupid and lazy questions rather than searching for the answer first.

My conclusion is that we need strict set of rules to keep the standard of the forum high. It will be beneficial for both the veterans and the 'newbees'. Check Guy Croft's website and his rules, such forums does need strong moderation.

[Diablo_niterider]

how about we have a country specific filter i.e how about all the questions say that come from India pass through a group of moderators from the relatively stronger/experienced Indian FSAE teams (that are selected by the forum moderators) for approval.

The most active and deserving guys,i believe would be Mahek Mody, Sriganesh, Vandit, Shashi Maurya and a few more(if they are willing to) who could answer most of these basic questions they face or approve it if they think its appropriate enough.

well i guess that should help.

[Gaanja]

@ Hiren

I wouldn't mind that. Its just that most people from our region just want to take the easy way out and get things done with the least amount of effort. I am willing to help in anyway possible to effect a change in that attitude.

cheers

[The_Man]

Originally posted by Diablo_niterider:
how about we have a country specific filter i.e how about all the questions say that come from India pass through a group of moderators from the relatively stronger/experienced Indian FSAE teams (that are selected by the forum moderators) for approval.

The most active and deserving guys,i believe would be Mahek Mody, Sriganesh, Vandit, Shashi Maurya and a few more(if they are willing to) who could answer most of these basic questions they face or approve it if they think its appropriate enough.

well i guess that should help.

I do not agree country specific filters, it's a form of "national discrimination". By having such a filter you are saying that Indian's are not competent to posting on this forum directly, I can not conform with that. I agree some are not but not all, it is not in our rights to generalize. Yes we can help where ever we can. And I am willing to do so and I have been doing. Try and contact people making inappropriate requests, most of them somehow do not realize they are inappropriate.

I understand Hiren, that you are like me trying to resolve this situation but I am sure there is a better solution. I do not mean to be rude.

[Bazanaius]

I don't think that asking lazy/non-researched questions is restricted to the indian teams - I've asked a few and I'm sure a no. of others have too.

I agree that some kind of post moderation might make the forum easier to read - perhaps this can be based just on the relative 'noob' status of a person to the board, defined by the number of prior (succesful) posts?

[Nick.Jayjock]

Originally posted by jack:
The "engineering spam"� has been pretty out of control lately. I don't even check this place out much anymore. Is it really that hard to figure out that you need to read Carroll Smith's books?

To any new teams: please buy all of Carroll Smith's books and thoroughly study them before asking a question. Don't mean to sound stand-offish but you will save everyone a lot of time.

As a leader of a reorganized (essentially new) team, I agree for the most part. This helps create educated "guesses" for questions, but from my personal experience I feel there is still a disconnect between the books and actually getting into the design work. They give you a good base, but after that the next step can be unknown sometimes.

Also in addition, for me personally I don't learn well from reading, in regular classes, Thermo/Fluids etc. So I know there are a lot of things I personally have missed from these books. And when asking a question it can sound as if I haven't tried, just because I truly don't understand what is going on.
(Even if I've read a chapter multiple times, as well as multiple books)

[RollingCamel]

Originally posted by Bazanaius:
I don't think that asking lazy/non-researched questions is restricted to the indian teams - I've asked a few and I'm sure a no. of others have too.

I agree that some kind of post moderation might make the forum easier to read - perhaps this can be based just on the relative 'noob' status of a person to the board, defined by the number of prior (succesful) posts?

2nd

[vandit]

Country specific Forums, Filters, moderator control etc. can surely help but in the end people on this Forum are here because of their interest and not like they are compelled to. I know many who have their simple rules to interact on this Forum. Some prefers to reply to decent questions, some tries to engage with new teams, some ignores personal mails, some only reads discussions. I think it is upto you and your energy to what level you want to involve.

@ Pat ,
i know you dont have so called limit to your energy levels. Your help to teams especially new teams is phenomenal. It is sad to see that you have been getting lot of mails lately.

....thanks for not mentioning what Stupid mail i sent to you.

[RiNaZ]

I asked the owner of this forum if the moderators can delete stupid and repetitive questions. The owner said no.

Moderators can only delete spam. Msg post from users cant be deleted no matter how stupid the question is.

This was a few years back, so he might have change his mind seeing how more and more of these inappropriate request started to come up.