@Manishearth I'm getting the feeling that preventing a proposal (not necessarily this one) from succeeding gets a lot of thought from powers that be, is that true?
@Manishearth Arduino and EE will always have overlap. There are areas within the Arduino scope that need more attention/promotion than other areas for this proposal to not be closed again. So, let me re-phrase, how do I appropriately push a portion of the scope more than others without promoting the relevant questions ? There are no absolutes with respect to scope. Especially not at this point.
@AnindoGhosh Area51 is designed (though they are working on a large improvement) so that proposals which won't get through beta never reach that phase. If you have to encourage users to vote during Definition, then what will happen during beta? You can't continue doing that, can you?
@AshRj So a question for you. Me, I'm very heavily engaged in EE.SE, but why are you keen on promoting Arduino.SE on a network which is seemingly strongly tilted against you?
@Manishearth Going by my experience with Robotics, I think once there is a site up (i.e. the Beta), the google-surfers come, so promotion needs less effort. It is far less against-the-storm.
@AshRj You can discuss the scope and redefine via discuss.a51. You can continue to do so if the site launches on its meta. The example questions define its natural scope, what "people tend to ask and like". That gives a glimpse of what the site will look like later
@AnindoGhosh Depends. A51 is supposed to act like a mini version of the site. Also, Robotics had plenty of votes in their definition phase
@Manishearth My point is, it sped up when it entered beta, because google searches started showing up actual answers, which cannot happen in definition phase.
@AnindoGhosh My main point there was that not all participants of a site vote. Similarly, not all followers of an a51 site vote on the example questions. Same problem, different scale.
@AnindoGhosh Sure. I'm saying that promoting individual questions is not "promotion". It helps the site go forward on paper, but the site is effectively in the same place
@AnindoGhosh different scale
Whatever you do, 30%ish of your community will not vote
generally speaking
(I just made that number up by estimation, I can give a better one, one sec)
@AnindoGhosh Sure. I'm saying that promoting individual questions is not "promotion". It helps the site go forward on paper, but the site is effectively in the same place
@Manishearth Nope, please refer back - Random non-SE-using people searching google for an answer are going to find them on a Beta site, hence resulting in an increasing in participant community size, while no such thing occurs during proposal definition phase.
A combination of reasons. In the few months that I have been at SO and SE, I have interacted with some amazing individuals right from engineers at Googleplex, California to researchers in UK. I have helped some university students through some really awesome project work, some of which I learnt about even more and followed up outside of the platform of SE as well. I have answered quite a few questions and asked some as well and have got excellent responses. Moreover, the different Se sites that exist have made me enjoy this experience even more.
@AshRj Excellent... Your SE experience parallels mine.
I just see a sort of vicious anti-Arduino sentiment here, which leads me to wonder. Personally, I am not really an Arduino proponent, more of a hardcore EE type - But I am highly supportive of anything which allows a segment of people to explore opportunities without conforming to the "accepted path": In this case, exploring microcontroller enabled projects without thinking like an EE or becoming one.
Hence my support for the Arduino proposal, since I agree strongly with you that the EE community, myself included, gives short shift to the Arduino-but-not-EE community.
A parallel I would draw is to the IT-enabled job functions which evolved in the 90s - such as contact centers. The users were interested in using IT without desiring to become IT specialists... and the IT community ridiculed them at every opportunity if they did not learn to configure their desktop or install the right device drivers.
And yet, today there is many times more value being created by ITES users world-wide than the entire IT community put together. I see the Arduino, its successors and similar products heading in that precise direction over time.
My views include the MSP430 Launchpad, the Lego Mindstorms products, and anything else someone can point out.
@AnindoGhosh I ...don't quite get what you mean here. You've said that A51 doesn't get the benefit of Google, while Betas do. I agree. I'm saying that one shouldn't push a proposal forward on paper, one should do something that actually advances the proposal (eg spreading the word).
@AshRj well, it doesn't have a negative meaning... but yeah, negative connotation, which I guess was intentional. No probs, I won't use it here :)
@AnindoGhosh On EE? Like I've mentioned before, it seems a better idea to try and fix that via meta posts and comments. I personally have nothing against this proposal except that it drains away from an existing site. (and is likely to get closed in or before beta)
@AnindoGhosh IMO if a site is going to fail, it's better if it fails before beta. Site closures after beta are messy. Again, why not try fixing the Arduino problem on EE first? Quite a few SE sites have had a problem with their communities looking down on a topic, that gets fixed by promoting the topic within the site and commenting/meta posting.
@Manishearth The challenge with that is thus: For an EE (yes, I'm one too), someone wanting to NOT understand the EE aspects of using a microcontroller board, brings out our territorial supremacy instincts. It takes a lot of mental openness to accept that an ITES need not understand device driver installation, to reuse my earlier analogy. "If they can't even install a device driver, they're morons". Natural human attitude. Not curable without extensive medical help.
@AnindoGhosh We had a similar problem (though in reverse) on Physics. The research level folks distanced themselves from the rest of the site. They formed theoreticalphysics.SE
@Manishearth Also, the failure is being presumed, by not understanding that for every EE, there are many more who want to be users of a technology without understanding it. I use a cellphone but I certainly don't want to figure out why it's signal bars are dropping. Compare the numbers of cellphone users to people with cellphone conceptual understanding, to see what I mean.
@Manishearth If you use bare MCUs, you belong on EE.SE and not necessarily on Arduino.SE. If, however, you use a Rainbowduino but couldn't be bothered by WTF is a current regulated driver, you certainly belong on Arduino.SE and not on EE.SE.
@W5VO Take it further: Not even "send me teh codez", more like "I want a tubelight and its base, don't tell me what a choke does".
@Manishearth I don't even begin to see how the Arduino community parallels that. These are users not practitioners, the Arduino folks.
@AnindoGhosh and here's where I disagree, and I doubt that further discussion will change that -- *duino questions are on topic on EE. They may be "simple" for most, or "stupid", but on topic. Just because the level of a question is way below others on a site doesn't mean its off topic. We allow elementary questions on Physics and Chem (with some restrictions--standard close reasons basically). Many of these have the same issue "users not practitioners". The difference is that our community
I'm thinking here of some pretty celebrated musicians I interacted with 2 weekends ago - who looked at me strangely when I mentioned frequency in the context of music notes. "Like I care about the nerdy stuff" :-) I was the minority there, while on EE.SE, the nerdy folks are the majority.
@Manishearth And that is where your argument falls flat on its face. "Layman" presumes an interest in the overall path that one is a layman in. This is true of the Church, this is true of even a craftsman using an awl. This is not true of a display artist buying a set of tubelights in a range of colors.
@Manishearth Do you genuinely expect someone to believe that an Arduinoob on EE.SE would not be expected to tolerate a discussion on constant current if they asked about rainbowduinos?
Also, there's nothing wrong with having stuff in an answer that the OP can't understand. As long as the question gets answered. SE isn't just for answering the OPs question, it's for other visitors to read the answer
@Manishearth Would changing it to address non-Electronic-Design arduino questions be a good proposal? It might be useful asking the EEs that. I suspect a resounding "Are you kidding" will be your answer.
@AnindoGhosh And that's an additional point -- A lot of Arduino questions which are of the non-ED type seem to be product recommendations or yes/no types. Currently, the questions on the proposal are either on topic for EE, or off topic by network rules
@Manishearth Absolutely true. There are MANY Arduinoobs who love the Rainbowduino. They use it to make fancy backdrops to a DJ's booth, for instance. It's a solid question as to how many backdrop patterns can be found, and is there a GUI to change such patterns. A typical answer that begins with "Show me your connections" or "fire up the Arduino IDE and look at x code" has just lost that interest profile.
@Manishearth I'm not even proposing yes/no answers - see the example questions I have posted on the Arduino proposal. Those are real questions from real Arduino users in real workshops I have been part of.
@AnindoGhosh Give me some example questions (better yet, create them on the proposal page) that would be on topic for an ED site, off topic on EE, and not Not Constructive
@W5VO Yes, I could and I have, with ease and often. "Use the LED booster shields X, Y or Z, depending on how many LEDs you want to run, and then use this open-source GUI to draw out your pattern".
@Manishearth That's the community. That's my point.
@Manishearth To many Arduino users, clicking on blink.imo is the limit of computing they want to do. To them, blink IS the development tool, anything fancier = find the local guru.
@AnindoGhosh I'm saying that I find no immediate evidence of "the last 500" questions being NC. I can't find a single NC one on the main page (not looked at it all, though)
@AshRj Besides, "easy questions" should always be allowed
@AshRj However, SE will probably never allow list questions. They used to, and now they don't (fun fact: Physics.SE still allows some list questions due to historical reasons, though we're working on phasing that out)
@Manishearth I never backtracked. I said you would find the same issue if you went through the last 500 questions. If I felt every 20th question were "nc", I'd say "Apply that thought to the last page of questions", no?
@AnindoGhosh What usually ends up happening is that questions worded as "What should I use" are closed, but if a list of recommendations come out of a specific problem, that's ok
Where I went to school, if something is a rule, it's a rule, not a negotiation criterion depending on who's looking at it. Adding subjectivity is just weak.
DIY is a favorite site of mine precisely because it is well-grounded in practicality, rather than being uptight about "thou shalt not ask what to buy".
@AnindoGhosh I think that it isn't as subjective as you think it is. DIY is a bit different because most questions are suggesting generic products. I would see a similar situation with EE.SE if every problem could be solved by adding resistors, transistors, and op-amps
@AnindoGhosh In my opinion, there isn't an equivalent that fits in the SE network. Until shields are so ubiquitous that you can say "Get a motor driver shield" I don't think you have the kind of environment that DIY enjoys.
@W5VO But there already are enough generic motor driver shields that "Get a motor driver shield" is a perfectly valid answer - this is because the master designs are open-sourced in that community, so everyone from Seeeduino to Adafruit essentially makes the same functionality in differing appearances.
@AnindoGhosh In DIY, that ubiquity expands to practically everything - If you know how to use a DeWalt drill, you could just as easily use a Skill drill. If the motor driver pins are routed differently, then you're starting to talk about code differences. At that point, your obstinately non-technical user has already glazed over.
@W5VO Not really, no: If the pins are different, the library that comes with it addresses that. That's the very season for the success of the Arduino platform: Separation of the geek from the user.
@W5VO The obstinately non-technical user is making Seeduino, Sparkfun and Adafruit inordinately rich by staying that way :-)
@W5VO Huh? I know you'd much rather not, but please do go see the Arduino playground, and any arbitrary set of motor shields, LCD display shields, graphic LCD display shields, or whatever else shields, and you'll see that that comment was invalid.
@W5VO Why would library calls be different? And if they were, why use an Arduino library at all?
@AnindoGhosh So (excuse my ignorance) if I have 2 different motor driver shields, am I controlling them with custom code from the shield manufacturer, or with plain digital IO?
@W5VO You're calling the same named functions the same way, the manufacturer's code translates for their device if it differs from reference designs published on Arduino Playground.
@W5VO The typical Arduino user (over 19 out of 20 of them) will not touch direct digital IO with a multimeter probe.
@W5VO Which is why DigitalFastWrite() didn't take off despite being demonstrably and massively more efficient than DigitalWrite(), simply because it was not "built in to Arduino" - until a recent Arduino build incorporated it.
@W5VO And mind you, DigitalFastWrite is still not actual digital IO, there's still the layer in the middle.
@AnindoGhosh I know that, but if I go to Sparkfun and look at the two first motor drivers I see (sparkfun.com/products/9815 and sparkfun.com/products/10182), the example code is different and even the pin connections are different.
@W5VO The typical Arduinoob would have posted that query to the seller of the shield in the first place. Also, since they often don't even own a multimeter, that limits "third party" trouble-shooting a fair bit. We had precisely that problem on EE chat yesterday, right? And David's response (I think it was David) boiled down to "you're using a non-standard shield, that there is your problem" - I'm exaggerating for effect here.
@W5VO 9 times in 10, if the motor didn't turn, the shield got RMA'ed as did the motor. Just like if I buy a CFL bulb and it doesn't turn on.
@W5VO Think of Arduino and its shields as appliances not electronic circuits.
@W5VO On EE.SE they are circuits. On Arduino.SE they'd be lightbulbs.
"I bought this light for my porch, but when I plugged it in, it did not light up" - rarely would someone respond with "Oh wait, that's a 12 Volt automobile light" - they just say "It isn't the right light bulb for mains".
And there's no way a response would include "Build a 12 Volt buck convertor for it" :-D
@W5VO Close but no cigar: I've seen it happen - all that happens is a slight discoloration of the CFL base. Those devices are built for safe self-destruct.
@W5VO The mains power never reaches the bulb, it just fries a sacrifical fuse or diode rectifier in there.
hmmm... that should also tell you how many CFL bases I've "liberated" in my perennial research ;-)
@W5VO They sell a few here in India targeting the SUV so-called fog light market (the 4 to 6 lights on top of the vehicle just for bragging rights), because of some strange law preventing the use of Xenon bulbs in cars. The LED bulbs are too expensive, the incandescents use too much power.
@W5VO Yup, my car (back when I used to drive, when I lived in Delhi) had Xenons and I had a police document providing me special permission for using them.
Anyways.... if that "appliance" level of troubleshooting is what you expect to offer, then there's going to be a lot of answers that stop at "send it back/contact the manufacturer" because that is your target audience. I know teaching basic concepts can be out of the question depending on skill level, but I'm not sure what the best solution is here
@W5VO It cost me 2 hours, a small official fee and a slightly larger unofficial gift, and a big 2-page letter explaining why I would suffer eyestrain due to the spectral pattern of conventional lamps during my off-highway journeys.
@W5VO Troubleshooting is a small part of the audience - "What can I use to do X" is more common, and "can Y be done at all without calling in a specialist" is another segment.
@W5VO My Xenons were the second set of hazard lamps / headlamps underneath the main ones, really close to the ground, only switched on when travelling on some pretty harsh non-roads.
@W5VO I remember the CD changer would skip once when I switched on the Xenons, small price to pay for the raw lighting power.
@AnindoGhosh The funny ones are the retrofits - putting "Xenon" bulbs in old cars. It makes it look more like they put a blue film over the headlight, because it sure isn't brighter
@W5VO I don't even think those are actual Xenon spots, the dim blue ones. An actual off-roader Xenon can outshine a dozen regular headlights. It also drains the battery very fast, so these were wired to not come on unless the engine was running.
@AnindoGhosh do you think the questions we get tagged arduino in EE.SE are representative of the arduino audience? If so, I'll do a "survey" of the questions
@W5VO Understandable. It's a very different universe.
@W5VO The advantage of the SE platform is, the quality of the question formulation can be improved through gentle mentoring - something forum platforms do not do well with. OTOH attempting to change the problems people seek solutions for, is misguided and counterproductive. Those forums will have shown you that EE.SE isn't the right place for many of those problems, besides the quality aspect. Arduino.SE will be more appropriate, and we'd deal with the quality issues as we go.
@AshRj Basically, I would say any board designed to work with the Arduino GUI and libraries is fair game. The NetDuino and the Fez Panda II are not, to my understanding, within that group. Nor are any other .NET based embedded platforms. The only thing they have in common with the Arduino world is the pin spacing being the same as the Arduino shield.
@AshRj Does that mean Arduino shields will work with those boards? A very limited subset will out of the box, some others will if suitable libraries are written. None will work with the Arduino IDE, bootloader and libraries. Therefore my first instinct is to not include those.
@AshRj OTOH, there are some boards which work with Energia (essentially the Arduino IDE but not claiming the name to avoid hassles with the Arduino lawsuit machinery), with fair to excellent support for the Arduino default libraries, functionality and code base. An example is the TI Stellaris Launchpad. Should that be included? I'm not sure, but I'd not fight it too hard.
@AshRj Parallax, on the other hand: Nope, nothing in common other than they use a microcontroller, as does every other microcontroller dev board in existence. So the answer would have to be "Nope".
@AshRj That's just outright petty of someone, and if the mods aren't keen to act upon this, I would have to say there's strong tacit support for whoever wants to scuttle the proposal, hence it is becoming a waste of effort.
@AshRj Well, now that there's clearly malicious action to scuttle the proposal, I'm curious to see what actual action gets taken by the powers that be.
@AshRj Also, you know how it is: If someone is bitter enough to attempt malafide downvoting, then the proposal evidently is worthwhile enough to evoke such negativity from the petty.
@AnindoGhosh "aren't keen to act"? I disagree. Downvoting happens on many A51 proposals. In itself, it's nothing against the rules. Also, they may not have the tools to look into this further.
@Manishearth Serial downvoting? I can understand downvoting of a question or two by proponents of a proposal because they feel that particular question isn't in line with the proposal.
@AnindoGhosh Arduino itself is a hackable platform and if certain parts(shields) of the platform can be extended and used in with other boards/platforms I think it should be included in the scope.
Here is one view:
The Arduino proposal ought to support any development board or platform that works with the Arduino IDE, the Arduino libraries (functions documented on Arduino.cc) and one of the Arduino compatible bootloaders.
The Arduino proposal ought to support not just the classic Arduin...
@Manishearth Then there's no point in my responding, is there? :-)
@AnindoGhosh But yeah, we can't debate that -- since we don't know the details. Well, I can find out, but I doubt that the details can be shared here. (details on vote-related tools are generally kept secret)
@Manishearth Item: Is there malicious activity? (tech team can find out). Item: Is there intent to prevent such and protect the proposal? (mod team can answer that). Item: Is there some basic ethic that is expected, regardless of the letter of the "rules"? (that's where I'm seeing alarms)
@Manishearth Community team can handle all of that I think, if they so choose. They would have access to all the moderation tools available as well anything else, if there is.
@AnindoGhosh And, my point is that the comm team (who generally deals with this) may not have access to the tools necessary to investigate and invalidate this on A51. They'd need a dev
Some comments on the Area 51 discussions seem to suggest that there is a new Area 51 in the works, because of which no further changes/improvements will be made on the current site.
Is this true? If yes, when can we expect to see it ?
What happens to the proposals on the current Area 51 site?
@MaksimOrlovski Conspiracy theories has been shot down before. Will probably not work this time as well.
@MaksimOrlovski Video game ideas has a premise that itself appears not constructive. Plus, the absence of any questions doesn't really show what the proposal will try to cover or limit itself to.
@AshRj I looked at the actual voting data on the example questions and there is one person who cast a large number of downvotes. It looks like there's a user who doesn't think the proposal should go through or that the proposed questions belong to it, which is entirely fair. This is exactly what Area 51 is for.
4
The way the system is designed, it's impossible for one person to bring down an otherwise viable proposal. So, while you are right and someone is downvoting a bunch of questions, I still wouldn't worry about it. Presumably your proposal will have more supporters to offset this. :)
Proposal: Arduino
Maybe it's a good idea to also discuss the variants of Arduino like Netduino, Panda, Gadgeteer and others.
Here is one view:
The Arduino proposal ought to support any development board or platform that works with the Arduino IDE, the Arduino libraries (functions documented on Arduino.cc) and one of the Arduino compatible bootloaders.
The Arduino proposal ought to support not just the classic Arduin...
Some comments on the Area 51 discussions seem to suggest that there is a new Area 51 in the works, because of which no further changes/improvements will be made on the current site.
Is this true? If yes, when can we expect to see it ?
What happens to the proposals on the current Area 51 site?
Arduino
Arduino