Why didn't I think of this before.

I'm convinced some teacher/lecturers tell their students to come here first. Sadly, that means we are a victim of our own success but there isn't much we can do about it. Perhaps a section for bona fide teachers (although I don't know how to verify that) where they can directly contact moderators for advice on the best way to use the Board instead of just pointing students at it.

Brian.

Are these the same teachers/lecturers that teach their students to use verilog-1995 style port declarations? Might be interesting to invite them over to the forum for a worthwhile discussion on best practices.

If you don't want to respond to an annoying post, then don't.

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I completely agree. And don't try to correct the poster's lazyness with inappropriate means.

Bad thread starts ought to denied by Mods with reason sent to OP.

e.g. Insufficient effort/content/data/ images in question.

Is ths automated or manual? Thats what I do.

Reject and PM to add more detail

mrflibble said:

Are these the same teachers/lecturers that teach their students to use verilog-1995 style port declarations? Might be interesting to invite them over to the forum for a worthwhile discussion on best practices.

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I've read a few blogs on the state of education in some countries that says a lot about the push for quantity of engineers graduated than the quality of those engineers. Of course the education institutions have to draw from that same pool of graduates to find their instructors. Which I think results in the problem with the quality of questions on this forum, as I suspect those same instructors tell their students they can get help from edaboard.com, since they themselves got help here.

I'd like to see some way (though I have no idea how) to enforce a check list like SunnySkyGuy proposed in #18. If their post doesn't conform to at least majority of the check marks it gets moved to a "Poorly Written Posts" (PWP) area similar to the "Trash" one. I'd also like to see no remnant of the post like we see with the post that have been moved from the ASIC to the Programmable fourms (which I don't understand exactly why they were moved).

I think that PWP area should have sticky topics that have a summary of some of the most important rules, links to pages like the "How to Ask Questions the Smart Way". And an explanation at the top of the forum (not a link) on what the PWP area is an why a post may have been moved to PWP area. If the OP thinks their post was unfairly targeted they can request that it be move back.

bigdogguru said:

We, the moderators, are currently in discussion concerning the forum policy in regards to what exactly is permissible content in a reply.

However, in the interim I will need to kindly insist that all members refrain from posting any content not specifically and directly related to the OP's question or request and avoid posting Google search links of any form.

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Did this get resolved? Are we still in the interim period?

I don't envy you your jobs, because this sort of thing is always tricky. But it's good to know what the current stance is. By lack of action in certain instances I sorta kinda puzzle together that saying "you could try google 'termA termB' for some inspiration" is sorta okay. (and it better be, because if not it's going to be hard to communicate). Direct google links seem to also be sorta kinda okay. And the current unofficial status of LMGTFY links is unknown due to low sample count.

Regarding giving someone a search suggestion there's roughly 3 ways:
1 - telling the poster something like: You could try searching on these terms "termA termB"
2 - direct google link for a search on "termA termB"
3 - LMGTFY link for "termA termB"

Option 1) is possibly the most polite, politically correct, nice, non-confrontational way to tell someone they can find something with that particular search.

Option 2) is much like option 1) by way of information it conveys, but is shorter. It is pretty much the natural form I'd say, what you would use when you are doing a project with multiple people. You quickly paste the relevant links (in this case google link), you don't give a verbal or full written description of how to get to that link.

Option 3) is again much like option 2), but with the unwritten HINT to the poster that they could maybe have figured out this particular google search for themselves.

Personally I think these all have their place in normal forum communication, where most often I'd use option 2) the direct google link. But as said the other two options have their place as well.

Anyways, I was wondering if there was any resolution to this, or if it just sorta kinda quietly went away.