FAQ Board

[Wesli]

While noob questions do stimulate discussion, i often don't answer them just because writing the same thing out time and time again is too boring, like how to brew sheng without getting a bitter brew. Having a FAQ board would allow me to help these nubs, while keeping me from feeling bad about not helping them.

Concerning Wyardley, I've had nothing but wonderful exchanges with him. He has a lot of experience, opposed to just knowldge, and he takes generous amounts of time to share it with us. I can see how his discussion of certain things he's had a lot of experience with could come across as snobby, but knowing you guys, this isn't likely to be the case. I've probably just missed his more antagonistic posts. So, even if we don't accept him into ITD (he'll have my vote), then I'll still look forward to gaining from his posts, wherever they are.

[ABx]

I think some of you guys get offended by Will's posts when he doesn't mean to. Yes, he gets snippy when people don't listen, but otherwise he's pretty technical and I know that some people can read condescension into it when it's not how it was meant.

[Chip]

I will say it again, the guy is a wealth of knowledge. His posts can be very informative.

But sometimes he does act like this is his Teadrunk forum. I can also see how he can be viewed as condescending sometimes.

[Proinsias]

I think some of you guys get offended by Will's posts when he doesn't mean to. Yes, he gets snippy when people don't listen, but otherwise he's pretty technical and I know that some people can read condescension into it when it's not how it was meant.

First off I'll say that I have no issue with him being part of ITD. As far as offense and condescension goes, in my experience on forums these are not positions posters generally choose to come from but ones that are arrived at by not really considering posting style. If Wyardley means to be helpful and informative but ends up rubbing people up the wrong way the blame does not necessarily lie with the reader, especially when there is more than one person getting the same tone from the posts.

I find many of his posts very informative and he is brimming with tea knowledge but he often manages to fit into the same posts something along the lines of "If you'd actually thought about this for a minute you would have done......" and then proceeds to be very helpful. At least that's my impression.

[ABx]

I think some of you guys get offended by Will's posts when he doesn't mean to. Yes, he gets snippy when people don't listen, but otherwise he's pretty technical and I know that some people can read condescension into it when it's not how it was meant.

First off I'll say that I have no issue with him being part of ITD. As far as offense and condescension goes, in my experience on forums these are not positions posters generally choose to come from but ones that are arrived at by not really considering posting style. If Wyardley means to be helpful and informative but ends up rubbing people up the wrong way the blame does not necessarily lie with the reader, especially when there is more than one person getting the same tone from the posts.

I find many of his posts very informative and he is brimming with tea knowledge but he often manages to fit into the same posts something along the lines of "If you'd actually thought about this for a minute you would have done......" and then proceeds to be very helpful. At least that's my impression.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating voting him in right now. I would definitely vote for him if he was nominated, but I wouldn't start the poll.

I know what you mean; I was thinking about the same thing when I was writing, but I don't think I did a very good job of covering it. Your example, however, reminds me of a good analogy.

If you think of someone starting an explanation with "If you think about it..." then there are two ways that you could read that, which would normally be determined by tone of voice. One way would be condescension ("you didn't think before opening your mouth") and the other is just more intellectual ("if you look at it this way, then it's easier to understand"). It actually happens all the time with me when I'm IM'ing my boss - he thinks I'm being indifferent or *BOO* by text but completely agrees with me by voice - and sometimes I have to put a lot of effort into preventing that.

I suspect that he's probably an introvert, and people tend to misunderstand how introverts think and do things and confuse it for pretentiousness and/or condescension. It happens to me all the time IRL unless I focus on it (and even then with some people), as well as everyone that I know that's either an introvert or a technical person (which is most of the people that I talk to). I suspect it probably happens with me more than I know.

That's not to excuse some of the things that he does do, though. I do see that he sometimes crosses the line with some threads and people that don't really listen; I can sympathize, but there are usually better ways of handling these things. I also think that sometimes he expects too much of newbies.

In other words I think he sometimes fails to account for the human factor. My point is just to try to bring some counterbalance - he has his failings, maybe more than many (but not as much as others), but I think that if you look at some of his posts another way then they might not be as bad as they can seem to some; I'm sometimes surprised by the responses he gets (though not at all surprised by some others). I just think that sometimes he says something that someone doesn't want to hear and so his post get read the wrong way. It's not like he's Tenuki, aka Mr. Tea Master, where someone would have to be st00000pid to disagree with him

[ABx]

I was looking at the sticky thread in the green and puerh forum with the links to good threads, and it occured to me that we could do something like that for a FAQ. Just have a "FAQ" sticky for each forum, with a discussion thread that's not stickied. Maybe keep the sticky locked, then people can discuss and write FAQ entries in the discussion thread, and when there's a good one then maybe a mod can move the post to the sticky thread? Otherwise people could post directly to the sticky thread and the mod could delete or move any posts that aren't FAQ entries. Entries could be a typed explanation or a link to an ongoing thread or whatever - as long as it explains something that gets asked frequently. Things like "give me recommendations for oolongs to start with" would probably be better addressed by links to existing threads.

I'm kinda with Wes in that I have a tendency to ignore some of these questions after I've spent significant time answering the same question several times already. Each time I do answer those, my answers tend to get shorter and shorter, and I've learned better than to just link my previous response because they don't usually read them. After a question gets asked five times over, I sometimes see the new threads just go unanswered. A FAQ, however, would give us reason to put in some real effort to type out a good response and then we could gently point people to the FAQ if it comes up. Then if and when they have further questions it would make for more interesting discussion for everyone.

[Chip]

Introverts unite ... in a non condescending way of course. I am also structured which can add to the misunderstandings as well.

I was looking at the sticky thread in the green and puerh forum with the links to good threads, and it occured to me that we could do something like that for a FAQ. Just have a "FAQ" sticky for each forum, with a discussion thread that's not stickied. Maybe keep the sticky locked, then people can discuss and write FAQ entries in the discussion thread, and when there's a good one then maybe a mod can move the post to the sticky thread?

Agreed, which is what I have been saying as well.

I really like topics answering the FAQ instead of a packaged answer, which fits nicely into the theme of "forum."

[Proinsias]

Yeah, I think I recall Herb Master asking for a sticky thread in the oolong forum as pu-erh has one and now green tea is getting one. Seems like a good idea all round.

I think I've said it before but I'd like to give my opinion to the odd newbie whilst pointing them towards a general consensus.

[ABx]

For some reason I thought everyone was talking about a new separate forum with FAQs... or maybe I just forgot. But yeah, something like the stickies you have in the green tea and puerh forums, but without any non-answer posts, would be great IMO. Maybe you could even just keep an eye out for great posts that explain something well and copy them to the FAQ thread with a link to the thread.

[Proinsias]

Well that was the idea at the start of the thread but since I bumped it to show off some snakiness the sticky idea was put forward by Chip.

The other advantage of the faq being done sticky style is that it is a little more likely that someone will click on it to have a look before posting a question than it would be for them to go and have a look for an faq part of the board as it is staring them in the face as they head for the 'start new topic' button.