No politics, no religion, no sports, simple as that. This has been the
golden rule for groups for a long time, because it works.
It doesn't matter how tempting it is to reply, how much a false
statement cries out for correction, I must not reply.
(And I intentionally write _I_ must not reply, because I am prone to
off topic posting myself.)
The sad truth is as much as we might agree on Tek scopes and technical
topics in general, you'd be surprised how much we disagree on those
three topics.
Best not to find out.
Forget all the other crap, forget off topic tangents or even the
personal attacks (which happen quite rarely here, thankfully).
That stuff just blows over by itself as people get bored or ashamed,
but the big three have the real potential to break a group.
The way I personally took Dennis's post was this: "Do not engage if
you see something very off topic, no matter how much you want to".
Admittedly this might be reading between the lines a bit, but if most
of us just stick to that simple rule everything else will sort itself
out.
I was quite pleased with myself that I managed to delete my response
to the Hiroshima post.
ST
On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 8:03 PM, Dennis Tillman W7PF
<dennis@...> wrote:
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your reply. It points out the difficulty I had in composing my message. My intention was to enlist the help of the "TekScopes Elders" to keep the conversations relevant. I apologize if you felt I was grinding a line in concrete. That was not my intention at all and I hope nobody else took it that way.
The vast majority of off-topic posts (especially when the subject line specifically states it is off-topic) regarding test equipment, for example, or manufacturing methods in your case, are appropriate if the membership can be of help.
If you look at my posts you would find more than the usual number of off-topic posts because I have a huge respect for the depth and breadth of technical experience of our membership and I use them as a last resort when I can't find the answer on my own. When I remember to, I will also ask in my off-topic post, that they contact me off-line if they can help so I don't take up unnecessary TekScopes bandwidth.
I hope you can appreciate that as our membership grows it is inevitable that the variety of topics that come up will gradually make it more difficult for our members to find topic threads that are of specific interest to them. Improving the "signal to noise" ratio by keeping the focus on Tek products will enhance our reputation as a technical resource and make it easier for our members to filter out the topics that are of specific interest to them.
Dennis Tillman W7PF
