We Need A Library Of Standard Advice At The Click Of A Button

[Doctorgori]

Great idea, but it seems to me that pretty much nobody does research of any sort before posting a question. Very few people would use the buttons. Just look at all of the "need pics under white lighting" comments. If people did a bit of research before posting, we'd never see that.

totally agree, and there is the rub

 

[blecki]

Also searching fails over time as knowledge changes. I am a software engineer working with technologies that have been around for 30+ years and any mildly difficult problem will inevitably lead me to stackoverflow, where I can either dig through answers from 15 years ago and hope they are still relevant, or get my question closed as duplicate even though the question it's a duplicate of is explicitly for a version of the products that are no longer relevant.

Letting people ask again in theory keeps the answers 'current'.

 

[Dan_P]

I think the problem is the poster thinks this might be the first time ever problem in a reef tank. They don't search, or if they do, can't find the exact answer to the exact situation to fit there needs. So they ask.

Yep, agree.

I was kinda hoping for a less typing option to solve the OP’s problem, short of a mind meld.

 

[Dan_P]

I make videos and reference those when certain topics come up. But I also understand that not everyone wants to watch a video either. You can also search and save the links on a notepad on a phone or computer about posts you replied to before, and copy and paste them to a thread.

This is very generous of you. I look a cad admitting to being a lazy typist

 

[Dan_P]

Excellent idea across the board. Stickies help a lot, but even those are hit or miss. Some people are more adept than others when conducting searches. And some people won't read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs. Still, big opportunity in your suggestion.

If we trained a Chatbot with the right information, we might have something novel on R2R to solve issues with the right answers. Our chatbot would be humble and instead of making up BS would admit it is in over its head and reply “ please ask a human”

 

[Dan_P]

When they do search they find dozens of conflicting answers. They find people who copy and paste the same response, complete with terrible grammar, on any post that vaguely mentions their favorite topic. And then there are at least three big competing sources of information that dominate all the search results and don't agree.

Oh, that’s a good articulation of the problem we all face searching for information on the internet.

 

[Dan_P]

This is also a private forum and not a blog. I agree there should be a blog section on here for experts to give advice, but that is up to the forum owner.

Interesting option that escaped me.

 

[Dan_P]

I agree in principle this is a great idea. In practice, my concern is that the "what ifs" are sometimes so extensive that the document is huge or becomes a series of links to more extensive documents. In a live discussion, we ask questions to drill down to the root of the issue, but without that, a lot of If then statements would be needed.

For example, these might be typical issues for which I don't see the answer being short.

Should I use this trace element supplement that the LFS suggested?

How do I raise my pH?

How do I get rid of this brown stuff growing on my sand?

Great insight as usual.

Articulating and then coding how a human performs a diagnosis is mind boggling. Though giving an AI a training set of how R2R posters ask questions and figure out the solution options would be an interesting approach for capturing how we all figure stuff out.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

You can also bookmark the page when you find answers you want.

Yeah, this is what I've taken to doing - bookmarking the info that comes up repeatedly under specific labels using the forum's bookmarking feature so I can pull the post up, quote the info, and paste the quote with relatively little hassle.

Not always worth the effort for quick responses (like pineapple sponge ID's), but useful for longer posts.

 

[Dan_P]

Great idea, but it seems to me that pretty much nobody does research of any sort before posting a question. Very few people would use the buttons. Just look at all of the "need pics under white lighting" comments. If people did a bit of research before posting, we'd never see that.

One of the neat things about R2R is that you can obtain answers to your questions. The array of personalities is so large that there is always a number of knowledgable folks who are happy to answer the most basic questions and are willing to keep repeating over and over again, “pics under white light please”

 

[Reefer Matt]

This is very generous of you. I look a cad admitting to being a lazy typist

Honestly idk if it helps or not. The YouTube stigma assumes I look for attention and/or compensation for doing so. So I assume many roll their eyes and skip past my post.

 

[GARRIGA]

R2R ChatGPT

 

[gbroadbridge]

@Randy Holmes-Farley, I am lazy, but still like and want to help folks get through their aquarium issues. It seems that I and many others dole out the same advice over and over again. Given that folks like to and probably are more comfortable with receiving information from a human, I envision a set of buttons which are linked to standard vetted advice for a subject that a responder to an OP’S question can just click on and the reply dumps the information onto the reply. While the stickies are a great idea, they can be too much to read for many issues. I would be willing to draft advice so the burden of vetting by someone is easier. I would also have a button for a list of “BS and Potential Products”.

Feel free to use this idea

I think people will be too lazy to search a set of buttons when they can simply post a question.

Even 30 years ago people were asked to read the FAQ before asking a question in a newsgroup, but they would still ask the question without reading - and searches using google are much easier today, and people seem to have shorter attention spans today as well.

If it were mandatory to press buttons before being allowed to post you would end up with a situation akin to making a telephone call to a financial institution - press this and then press that, which ultimately just results in asking a question of a human anyway.

Sorry, I just don't think it would make much difference to the repetitive quetions.

 

[Dan_P]

From what I've read here Rev encourages questions be asked even if they have been asked many times before. I have read of people being scolded (my interpretation) for complaining about people asking questions rather than using the search feature. I imaging more questions = more posts = more possibility of revenue but I may be totally wrong.

I agree, more traffic is good for business. Getting answers to questions in a friendly environment is priceless. The repeat and straightforward questions are the ones I am getting lazy about answering.

 

[Dan_P]

I think people spend too much time needing to feel coddled and important. Me me I'm important, I matter bla bla. I'm too lazy to spend anytime looking just answer my question and please give the answer I seek I don't care if it's correct or ethical.
It's a generation thing and is only going to get worse as time goes on. These are just the oppinons of a cranky old fart and have no really value

Haha, I hear you.

In my more philosophical moods, the contrast of each generation’s expectations is interesting.

 

[Dan_P]

Well we used to use books, highlighters, and tabs

Today we have Siri, Alexa, and ChatAI.

We could sort the generations by those two sentences.

 

[Dom]

Stay the course, Rev. As I say in my signature... "Don't fix what isn't broken".

 

[Dan_P]

I think people will be too lazy to search a set of buttons when they can simply post a question.

Even 30 years ago people were asked to read the FAQ before asking a question in a newsgroup, but they would still ask the question without reading - and searches using google are much easier today, and people seem to have shorter attention spans today as well.

If it were mandatory to press buttons before being allowed to post you would end up with a situation akin to making a telephone call to a financial institution - press this and then press that, which ultimately just results in asking a question of a human anyway.

Sorry, I just don't think it would make much difference to the repetitive quetions.

I would like those buttons to dump the answer into my reply so I don’t have to type all that info over and over again. They would be more of an aid for answering the OP’s question.

 

[PotatoPig]

We could start with something simple for the beginners that has a single definitive answer devoid of controversy:

How to Correctly Cycle a Tank

 

[brandon429]

Only an owner of a calibrated seneye is qualified to be on the cycling board of directors. No seneye equals no consensus and permanent disagreement from every angle.

The only way out of this requirement would be for any cycling chaplain applicant to show up to the job interview with 200 posted seneye logs from other peoples threads. From those aggregate timelines they’re still able to effectively comment on what reef cycles do. Thread logs en masse are an acceptable substitute for the actual hardware