开云体育

YIKES!
Hi John,
I would like to make amends for anything I said to Chuck. I have known him as a contributor to TekScopes for the past 17 years. I consider myself fortunate that he has shared his experience and observations as a member of other groups with me. We communicate with each other regularly off list. He was planning to stop for a visit until the virus put everything on hold. Only Chuck can say if your characterization is correct. Chuck is not shy so if he has something to say I know he will :)

If possible put yourself in my shoes for a minute. Two weeks ago on TekScopes several important issues were conflated and I was suddenly feeling a lot of stress while I tried to sort out how best to proceed. The ESR Meter thread resurfaced once again and I requested that the participants consider the impact on our other members if they continued. I find it ironic that you just clearly expressed your preference that the recent 475 thread be allowed to continue ad infinitum by taking issue with Roy Thistle. You singled out the one individual who, like you with the 475 thread, was a participant in the lengthy ESR thread until Roy took charge of the issue by creating a new ESR Forum on 开云体育. That relieved some of the pressure I was feeling from members. Once again, Thank You Roy!

Some members saw ESR Meters as a legitimate Tek related topic since they are a troubleshooting tool. Other members thought this topic was not specific enough to TekScopes and requested I stop it. My responsibility is to choose between them. Fortunately I didn't have to because Roy Thistle took charge and created an ESR Forum on 开云体育.

Chuck and I have both been around long enough to remember teletypes. So it was not really an issue when I saw the "character sketch" he included in an email describing own to make an engineer's ESR Meter. I watched as one member after another asked what that pile of hieroglyphics was supposed to be. A few people understood it and provided an explanation. The explanations resulted in still more questions/confusion which required even longer explanations. Chuck and I both find it strange that something so simple could cause so much confusion. I realized everyone needed instructions on how to decipher it. So I provided the instructions to understand what Chuck had drawn.

The issue of allowing attachments generated a lot of polarized responses pro and con. Some of the responses were verging on rude which surprised me. I have no experience with attachments and out of personal ignorance I thought about all the things that could go wrong. I needed to learn more about attachments ASAP and I started to do just that. I think Chuck must have sensed I was confused and having a hard time with this because he contacted me and made many good suggestions about where I should go and who I could discuss my concerns with to learn more. Attachments have benefits and they have drawbacks. I have seen some of the benefits. I am still waiting for answers about how to eliminate or minimize the drawbacks.

I spent many hours today writing this reply to you (this is the third time I wrote it, starting over from the beginning each time) because a brand new issue appeared yesterday which has all the makings of a controversy that is going to be a whopper. A few days ago I couldn't help but notice the "475 Questions" thread was getting very long. It is currently at 148 posts. I took a look at a few of the posts and I was stunned to see a member ask what "exp" meant. I couldn't spend much time thinking about it because yesterday a member got right to the core of that issue when he posted this new topic "Encouraging beginners: What are we accomplishing?" Apparently his question is not easy to answer to everyone's satisfaction.

One more thing before I'll permit you to step out of my shoes:
All of these issues have generated a lot of comments that are taking a huge amount of my time to respond to. That is less time I have to get the answers to the whether to enable attachments I have asked of other group moderator/owners. That was the hot issue 2 weeks ago. That is how far behind I am. I will probably choose to ignore this new topic until I reach a conclusion on the previous hot topic. Out of necessity I may stop responding entirely until I catch up.
If you, John, would like to take my place in the interim please feel free. A few things to remember if you do:
TEKSCOPES GOAL (from Michael Dunn in 2000): "TekScopes is about classic Tektronix test equipment, its use, repair, and collecting".

THE GOLDEN RULE FOR GROUPS (from Stefan Trethan in 2018): “No politics, no religion, no sports, simple as that.”

THE MODERATORS JOB IS TO STOP THIS PATTERN BEFORE IT REACHES #5
1. A slightly OT post is made.
2. It generates an unusually large number of responses.
3. This generates even more comments that go off at tangents.
4. Someone asks that the participants bring it under control.
5. That request creates more posts in support of the original slightly O.T. post.
6. Someone replies with "if you don't like it use your delete key"
7. That results in comments pro and con about whether the original post was O.T.
8. The posts die down over the next week.
9. If they don't die down the moderator will ask that the topic be put to bed.

TEKSCOPES IS NOT A SALES SITE: EBay, Craigslist, etc. are the proper place to list items you have for sale. However if you are offering our members scarce parts, sub-assemblies, instruments, etc. at prices that our members can afford then it makes perfect sense to offer them on TekScopes.

Dennis Tillman W7pF