Fanboys - These Members

[bum]

There's quite possibly a simple way to implement some code on the forum tablet that uses either the Google +1 or something similar to gather an aggregated consensus on posts. With a little bit of tinkering that could be linked to OP user names and an additional line created on the profiles with user scores - kind of like the ratings found on ebay.

The downside is that while this has obvious advantages it will of course also stymie the forum's autodidactic nature and create an enforced pedagogical environment, moving away from the 'open source' type arena of unfettered free sharing.

There's already a member rating system in place, guys.

(Every time I point this out I drop a star.)

 

[bradsbrew]

Do a search ffs.

OK will do. What does FFS mean?

 

[Muggus]

Realistically, the best providers of advice on this site are those who are actually commercial brewers with years of experience and worked their way up from homebrew, of which there are many on this site.

Naturally, they rarely have the time to post here, and more often than not incognito, of course. And even then, will often get shot down by less experienced brewers whose voice/typing is more prominant than their brewing experience and knowledge, which is a shame.

There is some great info to be gathered from the brewers here, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak...and often a topic will get more involved in the method in which to skin a cat, than answer someones query...once again a shame.

But hey, published books are no different, and indeed no two brewers are the same. As much as it is cold hard science behind all the processes in brewing, conducting those processes can manifest itself in seemingly an infinite number of ways. So at the end of the day, it comes down to the fundamental scientific principals being adhered to staunchly, but a means of doing so is entirely up to individuals choice...obviously constrained by budget/time/effort/etc.

/rant

 

[IainMcLean]

There's already a member rating system in place, guys.

(Every time I point this out I drop a star.)

But the current 5* system isn't intuitive. You have to access it by leaving the thread you're reading and goign to a member's profile. Why not have it linked directly via a button on the footer of each comment eg. "like" that is a simple click, has a visible tally, and doesn't interrupt the user's reading...

 

[bum]

But the current 5* system isn't intuitive. You have to access it by leaving the thread you're reading and goign to a member's profile. Why not have it linked directly via a button on the footer of each comment eg. "like" that is a simple click, has a visible tally, and doesn't interrupt the user's reading...

Why not? Because, at the end of the day, this is all just a popularity contest and still doesn't necessarily reflect a brewer's usefulness - although in pretty much all cases those with very high rating deserve them, but if you need the stars to tell you that you're probably not ready for what they have to say anyway.

 

[Muggus]

Why not? Because, at the end of the day, this is all just a popularity contest and still doesn't necessarily reflect a brewer's usefulness - although in pretty much all cases those with very high rating deserve them, but if you need the stars to tell you that you're probably not ready for what they have to say anyway.

There in which lies the problem, Mr Bum.
Because it is more than likely those who post the most who are more than likely to give advice. And therefore are more than likely to get any sort of "Like"ing or "Rating"ing, and therefore more likely to rate highly.
And hey, it's good that they're there to give advice all the time, but it might not be the right advice.
And it's not just forum...so often you get people getting told by their LHBS to do this and that and use these ingredients to make a certain beer, and it will often be so wrong its not funny.

So at the end of the day, I feel a bit sorry for people starting out, because if they ask a question, chances are they'll get million different answers, and they have to decide which one to trust...and **** me, that's a hard decision...and no rating/like system in the world is really gonna help all that much.

 

[bum]

I agree with what you've said there, Sir Muggus. In fact, I hope that is has not escaped anyone's attention that my post was saying exactly the same as some of what you've said. But I do disagree with the following to a certain extent:

So at the end of the day, I feel a bit sorry for people starting out, because if they ask a question, chances are they'll get million different answers,

For me (and I realise that my experience and wishes may not reflect those of everyone/anyone else), this was exactly what attracted me to the board when I first started posting here. I've always enjoyed the many different perspectives and I honestly feel it has improved my brewing. I accept, of course, that many people may just want the right answer immediately and don't want to pfaff about with all the different perspectives.

In fact, I lament the clear narrowing of perspectives that has occurred here of late. I'm not sure a noob asking a question does get a million different answers any more.

 

[jyo]

From the local guy's i have found JYO and Kiefer33 to be most helpful and spoonta too. I may need to bribe him to come down and help me with my tub. The rest of them sorry guys i just don't know you to well but cdbrown is a top bloke!

Cheers, Fish. Happy to help with what I can, mate.

Regarding the post count argument. I have a relatively high post count for the number of years that I have been on the site. I suppose this is mainly due to each individual's readiness with engaging with the general public. I like the banter, the awesome personalities on here and talking about recipes and ingredients and what others are doing with their brewing. I am also an Aquarian and I like long walks on the beach. Porkspin is also a bonus.

I regard myself as a non-technical brewer. I am happy with my technique, I produce reasonably replicable results. When people start talking alpha/beta/ salivary amylase, I don't yet fully understand. I personally know brewers whose technical understandings would be that close to a commercial brewer, yet they rarely post. This is where the post count system is flawed.

Another thing to note is that some of the requests here have already been suggested in another thread a year or so ago....no change.

Look, I started mashing a belgian wit and drinking at 1pm so my initial meaning has been lost

 

[Nick JD]

In fact, I lament the clear narrowing of perspectives that has occurred here of late.

I lament the romantic prose that flows hither from our bum.

 

[bum]

Bum is entirely a free-flowing romance zone.

Quite fluid, in fact.

 

[Nick JD]

I'm getting all moist.

 

[Muggus]

For me (and I realise that my experience and wishes may not reflect those of everyone/anyone else), this was exactly what attracted me to the board when I first started posting here. I've always enjoyed the many different perspectives and I honestly feel it has improved my brewing. I accept, of course, that many people may just want the right answer immediately and don't want to pfaff about with all the different perspectives.

In fact, I lament the clear narrowing of perspectives that has occurred here of late. I'm not sure a noob asking a question does get a million different answers any more.

It's certainly great to hear a range of oppinions/theories/techniques/styles in regards to doing something brew related, and really, i'd love to have the time to explore them all...I really would.
And really, who wants to be preached some sort of dogmatic view/style, where you must do everything thusly otherwise you're doing it wrong.

What worries me that if say you're starting out and you pick up your tin of Tooheys New kit and brew it according to instructions, it doesn't turn out anything like Tooheys...and often they're come here for answers, and get hit by, sure, a bit of slander, but also a number of options and the poor bloke just wants to make one of the most common beers in the country. And the REAL unfortunate thing is that he'll never come remotely being able replicate that beer on a small scale with a kit ever...and would be doing well to do so with AG.
I mean sure, alot of commercially brewed lagers are not great examples for beers to expect from homebrewers, but they just happen to make up some figure around 90% (don't quote me exactly there) of the market of all beer consumed, and people would love to be able to brew what they drink...it's just never easy to tell them it's probably gonna cost them more for the equipment they need to do so than a years supply of the stuff would be.

Probably got off-track there, but my point is I think if I were starting off here looking for advice, it'd be nice for it to be either clearly scientific, or if opinion/annecdotely based, it'd be nice to know. At the end of the day, it's great that people are exposed to a number of options, and it's up to an individual to decide which path to take...and most of which are right...and it'd be nice to be able to try them all, but it's not an easy thing when you're just starting out.

 

[mh971]

There's already a member rating system in place, guys.

(Every time I point this out I drop a star.)

I really don't believe a member rating is worth shit in regards to determining if accurate information is being given or not. I reckon it ends up more a reflection of ones tone and attempts to be helpful.

Evidence of this: I am on another forum, I know SFA and yet I have a member rating slightly higher than some members who in my opinion and experience consistently provide high quality detailed information. I think I have made possibly one useful post in almost 400, and my inaccuracies in others should have cancelled this out ten fold.

Best thing I did was start reading the BJCP Style Guidlines and purchased 3 books. How to Brew, Principles of Brewing Science, and Designing Great Beers.

 

[Muggus]

Best thing I did was start reading the BJCP Style Guidlines and purchased 3 books. How to Brew, Principles of Brewing Science, and Designing Great Beers.

LIKE

...oh wait, shit...

 

[Guest Lurker]

i just click on the members names and go through all their old post's.
Just spent the other day reading all of Jayse's post, and have done the same with butters and a few other's.

Well spotted, if you want to learn about passion for all grain brewing, a natural feeling for what will work and what wont, plus learn a bit about Led Zeppelin, then dig up all the old posts from Jayse from the early days of this forum. He taught me everything I needed to know, and I never even met him.

 

[pbrosnan]

Well spotted, if you want to learn about passion for all grain brewing, a natural feeling for what will work and what wont, plus learn a bit about Led Zeppelin, then dig up all the old posts from Jayse from the early days of this forum. He taught me everything I needed to know, and I never even met him.

And buy some bloody books and get on with it, it's not that hard FFS. A lot of the BS on here is generated by people who want to make a simple process difficult. And that comment about commercial brewers is rubbish. Real commercial brewers aren't interested in the types of techniques and styles that homebrewers are. What they want is to produce exactly the same product from seasonally and geographically varying ingredients, many use various additives to do this. Strange thing is that craftbrewers don't always do this and so there may be some variation ... which inevitably leads to whinges about how "blah blah Golden Ale not the beer that I had back in the old days (2007) and oh look I've got 90,000 post since April this year so I must be great ... blah blah"

 

[seravitae]

I'm on another brewing forum where they take this to the extreme, offering a board where elected 'experienced' brewers (tagged on their account) can actually reply to threads in a 'mentor' subforum which causes all other members, experienced and nonexperienced, to be unable to post, so that people can 'see a clear discussion between student and mentor' as it were.

It fails horribly. Nobody can object to incorrect information, and the student gains a direct liking and submissive approach to the individual, and what you merely get over time is a 'copy' of the so called 'expert'.

we dont need more of the same, we need more of different. thats what makes this hobby/obsession good. take advice from whoever you can, use your judgement wisely, research from many sources, and safely test things and note your observations - become your own brewer, not someone elses

edit: and for god sakes don't take any of my advice, hell, i'm on a brewing forum and i don't even brew? why am i still here? ..... what is life?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I dont think you're going to get a "no effort required" way to tell the good posters from the bad - and good/bad will mean different things to diffent people. Your a newby who wants basic info - great Joe Blo is the poster for you, but he,s valuless to an experienced brewer who just happens to have discovered AHb recently.

A trust points system works - eveeryone doesn't contribute to an individual's trust points, but everyone can see how many trust points you have assigned to brewers you think are worth it. and then if they trust you - perhaps the people you trust are worth looking out for.

So - a membr has had a bit of a read around the site and (as unlikely as it seems) has decided he likes the way I post and thinks I seem to know what I'm on about. So he goes to my profile and looks at my trust list and sees that I trust for instance Dr K. so now he has an incling that perhaps DrK's posts might be worth checking out.

You could have a simple script thing where member A assigns trust to member B and then the members that member B trusts are automatically assigned "potential" trust points for member A. If member A has several people on their list that trust another member, that member gets multiple potential points. Kind of like how google increases the ranking of a page as more other pages link to it.

It would be even nicer if the forum was able to identify to you, if a particular thread contained a contribution by members on your trust list, or members with high potential points on your trust list.

Its just a rating system - but Being able to see other peoples ratings can help you to seek out people who might rate highly with you. Sort of easy to do informally as well. As an example, I am about to alter my Sig line to include a few of the people on AHB who's opinions and posting habbits I respect. If everyone did the same, then you have the majority of what I mean already in place and I think that it would moslyt give the OP what they are looking for, without having to have the Mods officially elevate anyone to Guru status. Or the mods could just elevate a few people to guru status.

PS - I dont particularly plan to leave those names in my sig. Just illustrating the point.

 

[Tim F]

Another forum I'm on has a voting system - you can give a post a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Then there's a button you can click to show all the highest rated posts. Would probably work pretty well here too...

 

[seravitae]

mm, i disagree. many forums have this, but the dominance of ratings come from 'funny' posts or 'clever' posts, so people artificially raise their rating by being a friendly person rather than an honest and plausibly correctly informative person.

perhaps though you could limit the rating system to a specific subforum of which was strict on maintaining brewing assistance only. certainly wouldn't let it loose globally, lest the off-topic subforum would have thumbs going everywhere.

I think a better way of presenting correct or useful information is by actually removing the individual's 'apparent credibility' alltogether, and making the *source* itself credible. Wiki is one way of doing this (and no not the AHB wiki, which i never really thought of as a real wiki. we need an actual wiki server and people who'd bother to publish and critique). At least in that way the author(s) is/are mostly hidden (except for discussion/critique pages) so there's a less likely chance a person will be faux-altruistic in supporting such an endeavor.