Forum Attachments

[Anonymous]

New members should be advised that they have only so many Kbs allotted to them as uploads.

Deleting all of ones previous posts attachments to clear the way for new attachments is going to really make a mess of the forum.

I'm not sure if this applies to downloads, perhaps Noxx or another Moderator will jump in with the answer.



ttys
gustavus

 

[lazersteve]

The work around is to use off site storage for your attachments. If you notice I do not attach any files in my posts, I link them to my website in the body of the post.

There are a multitude of free file sharing sites out there that anyone can use.

Steve

 

[Noxx]

Everyone is limited to 100mb. But now your limit is 400mb.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Noxx, but Steve's advice of using an external service is a great idea for the more experienced forum user.

I know quite often a noob will ask for advice on a process and pictures invariably will be asked for to help identify the problem.

This forum rocks, the best ever.

I noticed that there are no user groups, could we not start various groups for members processing strictly karat scrap, e-scrap, catalytic converters and useful outside links etc..

What I'm thinking is that it would help organize the forum by keeping members of the group on the same page.

 

[Noxx]

Hmmm, I'm not sure to understand what you mean... Could you elaborate a bit more ?

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Sure Noxx user group 1 Newbies, contains where to find precious metals like gold and silver, what reading material one should obtain and where to find it, a Q & A section gathered from past posts ( mostly repeats ) and would fit here nicely.

For example what is the wire from the power supply made from - Answer copper which has been tin plated giving it the silver color.

For field work a file and magnet maybe your best friend to quickly identify metals.

Maybe to progress from group 1, the new member could answer a dozen questions. from the Q & A 75% correct you move on.

Group 2 could be all matters relating to silver.

Group 3 Gold

Group 4 catalytic converters


Each group would have a separate help needed , gallery very similar to the forum lay out we now have the only difference is that any help being asked and replied to would be in its perspective group.

 

[peter i]

It could be an administrative hell, or require the writing of quite a bit of new code....







Storing pictures off-site has a serious drawback however:
When "www.picturebox.dk" suddenly cease to exist, all the pictures hosted there will disappear, and the picture worth a 1000 words will miss in the posts.
Only the dreaded
[img::]http://www.picturebox.dk/thepicturethatshowsitall.jpg[/img]
is left.

At the two fora where I'm admin, we strongly urge members not to store pictures off-site, for just that reason.
We have a limit on picture size, and will always give a member more room if he need it (for relevant pictures).

 

[Noxx]

We have a limit on picture size, and will always give a member more room if he need it (for relevant pictures).

Same law applies here

 

[viacin]

Maybe to progress from group 1, the new member could answer a dozen questions. from the Q & A 75% correct you move on.

yeah, I don't like the idea of having to take a test to learn more information, hence the reason I droped out of school It would also create factions of noobs and elitist refiners. "so what group are you in? Ooh, you suck then."

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe to progress from group 1, the new member could answer a dozen questions. from the Q & A 75% correct you move on.

yeah, I don't like the idea of having to take a test to learn more information, hence the reason I droped out of school It would also create factions of noobs and elitist refiners. "so what group are you in? Ooh, you suck then."

Rather then bash the idea lets have some input on keeping the forum organized - every seconded day I read someone asking if there is silver or this and that in computer scrap. How many cpu's to get an oz of gold and so forth it goes.

Every Noob joining is asking the same old questions - why because they do not read previous posts, why because the forum has become scattered.

 

[viacin]

There are a lot of problems with your idea, I wasn't bashing you. I can see it causing problems, and dividing the users of this group like a caste system. I don't have an idea on how to make your idea better, just a warning about it. Call me Paul Revere.

I've been through this before with another forum I was a moderator in. It eventually split the forum apart and it was in the best intrest of everyone to close it.

I completly agree that this forum has little organization. People wonder off topic in almost every post to avoid posting a new topic, making the search engine almost useless. I think that lazersteves guide is the best bet, but the forum has outgrown it by leaps and bounds. It's good for a noob like me to start with, but after you've learned the basics and want more you have no where to turn and will eventually end up posting a question twice.

The real problem is the guy with 1-10 posts under his belt that comes in assuming that he knows something and starts asking questions. They mean well, and really are looking for knowledge. But they do not realize how deep this forum goes. This forum is a encyclopedia of gold refining knowledge, but with no table of contents. What it really needs is to be organized in a A-Z guide (much like Lou's book proposal). But that is a sever undertaking that would need constant updating and changing thanks to the new guy or off topic post.

I think that we need a place for the noob to go and learn the basics before they can post. A Q&A here could work, but once you are allowed to post there should be no test of your knowledge that is obvious to the group.

 

[lazersteve]

My forum guide has three main problems listed below in no particular order.

1. It needs updating. For this I need suggestions as to what to add. When I created it I ran through a quick punch list in my mind. I have revised it once or twice in the life of the forum. It's overdue for a new revision. Suggestions are welcome.

2. Members visit it once and don't realize it will be different the next time they read it. The key to my Forum Guide is that it evolves as the forum grows. Yes it is grows as the forum grows. I designed it using query keywords I defined against the current forum content. I just need to know what people are looking for so I can build the new queries that find the information for them. I need user input for this. Perhaps a section 'Suggestions for the Forum Guide' needs to be created?

3. People don't use it or read it before they start posting question. Maybe all noobs should be required to read the guide before posting?

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Great idea a knowledge base, since we do not have a board I would assume the final decision would be up to the forum owner Noxx to implement.

Perhaps we could help choose the appropriate application from the list of open source software available from the following link.

http://www.opensourcescripts.com/dir/PHP/FAQ_,038_Knowledgebase/

I'm also positive there are greater minds at work here than I, willing and able to make suitable suggestions on setting this up to work.

 

[Noxx]

Maybe I could implement a mod that allows new members to make new posts only if they have read a certain page.

 

[viacin]

3. People don't use it or read it before they start posting question.

Steve, I did not even realise that there was such a list untill I had asked about 5 useless and stupid questions. I think that it, and your finger processing and gold refining videos should be required before posting on the forum. Also, the list generates something of a search query for the question on hand, correct? Well trying to find something with the search engine is very difficute because everyone posts off topic. I have found some answers with your guide, but I found that in general it doesn't answer all my questions.

I thought about this today, and came up with a lot of opinions, some of which are way too long to post here (maybe a seperate topic if it would help).

Steve's guide is a great start for someone fresh to the forum. It gets them around and shows them a few things. BUT I'm not so sure it fills all the gaps in a noobs mind, mainly because some of the posts on this forum raise even more questions. Plus his links are dynamic, and get off topic sometimes, confusing the wouldbe refiner even more.

I thought about a lot of ways to solve this problem, some of which would require a team of NASA scientists to pull off. After I searched the root of my thoughts, and finally hit bedrock, I came up with this.

A step-by-step guide with pictures on the basic topics as follows in this order:
1. What chemicals and equiptment to buy, and where to get them. (I can help here! I've spent two weeks bugging everyone trying to figuring this out.)
2. The cold method of nitric acid production
3. disolving impurities with the nitric you made
4. making AR with your nitric
5. running your gold from step 3 in that AR,
6. and finally melting your gold and pouring it into a bar.

basically from impure to bar. Now I have never done ANY of these, so I'm SURE I'm missing something so obvious, but I have tried to cover all the basics of gold refining. If I have missed something, then it should be added in. This could later be expanded to include other PM's as time permits, and other processes as well. It should always be kept as simple as possible, but not simpler. I think that Steves videos, with his permission, would be another option too.

You may ask why not just send them to steves website, after all he does cover the entire finger process. well I thought about this too. I don't think everyone will go and watch the videos. I don't know why they are not, but they obviously are not or we would not be having this conversation. And from a noob point of view, finding out what video to watch first is slightly challenging. Maybe if we could take his awsome videos, and organize them in a "from point A to point B, step by step" finger process on the forum? I'm sure storage and bandwidth is also a problem here. We could also take the first few gold refining process from hokes book, do them in real life, film/photograph it, and then post it with a step by step walkthrough on the forum. I think pictures would be more helpful if the tutorial is good enough.

The uninformed noob questions problem, is just that. We have the answers on the forum, and they have the questions and a desire to learn. You just have to figure out how to put the two together before they have a chance to post.

I'm kinda on the inside looking out here. I am a noob myself ya know, and I'm really hoping we do this so I can learn too and stop bothering everyone with double posts!

This long post was just the point of view from a noobs perspective. Of course, since I am a noob that has asked a lot of stupid things, you could just ban me and the others too. problem solved