When you respond to a question

[duraleigh]

By any measurement, TFP is the largest, most informative pool site on the net. Why is that? It's because of you.

Collectively, we are an incredible resource of pool knowledge that cannot be found anywhere else.

So, do we all sit back with a cool one and bask smugly? No way. We continually look for ways to improve this site. One easy way we can do that is to post our responses with as much forethought and precision that we can muster. Here are some ideas I hope each of you will consider when you post up to help a newbie....

• 1. Answer the primary question. If it is apparent the newbie desperately needs to SLAM his pool, but he asks a question instead about his TA level being askew, we should first answer his TA question. Then as an aside (or a PS) suggest to him that he read up on ABC's of Pool Water chemistry, SLAM or whatever else is appropriate. The point is, don't completely change the direction of the thread.....he will quickly be overwhelmed.
  
  2. Read the newbies post thoroughly. We have seen an increasing frequency of responders asking the newb a question that was already answered in the newb's post. ( I am a significant offender ) That lengthens and diverts the discussion sometimes to the point of sidetracking it.
  
  3. Proof read your response before you post it. Typos, Siri blunders, and misspellings all are indicators of a hurried response and can lead to confusion......again lengthening and diverting the point of the thread.

Our Moderators are pretty darn good examples of the above ideas. There are few typos, few misspellings and the responses are normally towards the point of the newbie's question. We all make mistakes and always will but the precision of their responses is usually pretty darn good......it's a source of pride.

When you respond on TFP, you are, in a sense, representing TFP with your knowledge and your words. Even the small details of your response should reflect that.

PS - I have proofed this twice and am now hiding under my desk praying that none of you will find a typo.

 

[dmunster]

As a software developer, I am inclined to use technical forums very often for research/Q&A/etc. More often than not, I cringe when posting a question or when I read a post in which I know someone is going to be lambasted for the question.

I can honestly say that this is a unique forum in that people respond very informatively, quickly and without the unnecessary negativity which often seeps into other forums.

As a community member, I’d like to say thanks to all you guys/gals who respond to us pool enthusiasts with honest, quick and non-judgmental responses (even if they have typos :-D )!

 

[Speedo]

I've noticed a few other forums that attempt to be polite, nothing like here though!

 

[duraleigh]

I considered mentioning good forum manners in the list above but, honestly, you folks are at the top of your game on that subject.

There is always room for improvement, I guess, but y'all are close to impeccable.

 

[Beens]

As a software developer, I am inclined to use technical forums very often for research/Q&A/etc. More often than not, I cringe when posting a question or when I read a post in which I know someone is going to be lambasted for the question.

I can honestly say that this is a unique forum in that people respond very informatively, quickly and without the unnecessary negativity which often seeps into other forums.

As a community member, I’d like to say thanks to all you guys/gals who respond to us pool enthusiasts with honest, quick and non-judgmental responses (even if they have typos :-D )!

I'll second this! I love that no one gets "yelled at" here. It's so stressful to be in forums where people are constantly complaining that someone posted something "instead of searching" or asked something at the end of a thread that may have been answered somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, it's kind of annoying to see a question asked 34234832 times but I'd rather see that with polite answers than the nasty.. "why don't you learn to search?" and "read the whole thread" snippy comments.

Thank you to everyone here for being so polite!!

 

[Mongo]

An honest question:

On another forum, someone recently said they came over here and posted about ozone. That after posting, they were "chastised", their posts deleted, and their account frozen or deleted (or whatever) so they couldn't post any more.

I know what I think about ozone. And I figure that most on this forum think similarly to me. I never saw that person's posts here, so on the other forum the only thing I could reply to was that if someone suddenly signed up for TFP access and on the same day suddenly posted about how wonderful ozone is on multiple sanitation threads, that the person might have come across as a spammer.

But is that something that happened?

 

[duraleigh]

Ozone has been pummeled to death on this forum. The pluses (few, if any) and minuses (lots) have been hashed out over and over for six years.

None of the frequent responders have much interest in beating that dead horse any further.

If you come onto the forum insisting that 2+2=5, you will be corrected. If you continue to insist that is the correct result, despite repeated attempts to tell you the answer is 4, you will not be allowed to participate here.

Ozone and copper additive posters here are VERY often shills, but even if they are a sincere, misguided believer, they will not be permitted to post repeated fallacies that are antithetical to the proven, simple method we teach.

The forum's focus is not to promote every dubious point of view. Some are based on voodoo but most are based on selling you something.....something that very likely isn't good for your pool.

Sound self centered? It's not. It's about teaching all the newbies that BBB is a correct and simple way to manage your pool. It is important to keep that message in focus.

If you decide that copper or ozone is the way you want to care for your pool, that is fine with us....but you will not be allowed to promote that faulty science on a forum that is dedicated to the opposite.....honesty.

 

[Mongo]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[chem geek]

I believe the post about ozone and TFP on another forum is this one. If the discussion from "womanowned" was promoting ozone and stayed civil [EDIT] with no selling or promotion of products or services or being obstinate with repeating inaccurate information even after warnings, all of which violate forum rules for all and for those in the industry [END-EDIT], then normally this should just get moved to the "Agree to Disagree" section or if it gets technical then to the "The Deep End" section. It is true, however, that we have written about ozone a lot on this forum. It hasn't been written as being harmful, but as not being worth it for outdoor residential pools. There is some use for it or for UV in indoor pools due to the lack of sunlight, but the bather loads in outdoor pools are so low, most ozonators woefully undersized, and the UV in sunlight creating hydroxyl radicals from chlorine, that ozone has little value.

Even in spas, ozone doesn't work well if you use chlorine and the bather load is infrequent since ozone ends up reacting with chlorine causing one to have to add more chlorine or add it more frequently. Ozone is useful in residential spas when the bather load is higher such as someone soaking every day or two. It is also useful in bromine spas to automatically generate more bromine. There are some builders and manufacturers who promote ozone alone, but that requires more expensive higher-output ozonators and very fast turnovers so bigger pumps and larger plumbing (i.e. an expensive high-end pool designed for that purpose). Even so, it's not approved as a primary disinfectant by the EPA as it has not been demonstrated to be safe (i.e. not outgas too much ozone).

On GardenWeb, there have been discussions with womanowned where this is a pool builder that I believe runs Best Backyard Pools (based on this info). This person does not appear to be working for an ozone manufacturer so is not a shill, but a pool builder who believes in ozone. Based on this list of equipment that is sold, it has both chlorine (SWG from Pentair) and ozone so it's not an ozone-only builder. I am unable to post to GardenWeb as I am banned from it since one time I referred to TFP and at that time this was apparently a violation of rules (that they since changed) and I was banned without warning.

 

[Donldson]

On another forum, someone recently said they came over here and posted about ozone. That after posting, they were "chastised", their posts deleted, and their account frozen or deleted (or whatever) so they couldn't post any more.

If it is the person I am thinking, the one chem geek linked to, then I can attest that the person in question very clearly broke the forum rules. I won't get in to the details of what the user posted, I'm not a mod and it's not my place, but I believe the intent of the posts were pretty clearly not to politely discuss the pros and cons of pure chlorine vs chlorine/ozone.

Thanks for the reminders Dave! I know I am guilty of some of these, mostly the first. I'm working on it, I promise!

And dmunster, you are right, it is very friendly. The mods are very good at keeping in touch with regular posters and just sending polite reminders if they think you might be a bit, say aggressive. I admit to having to be reminded of that once or twice... We are all learning, both how to care for a pool and how to be better people, right? :-D

 

[Mongo]

Thanks guys. Not trying to pick a fight, or even irritate anyone by picking a scab.

I've always thought this a pretty good forum. It's obvious a lot of effort has gone in to the tutorials, etc, and I for one fully appreciate them.

It was indeed "womanowned", and the main reason I asked was I thought her Gweb post pretty odd, as this does seem to be very happy place to hang out and post.

Best to all.