Anthony Bolgar as one of us that spends a lot of time troubleshooting problems

Lasers
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@funinthefalls as one of us that spends a lot of time troubleshooting problems and documenting solutions in this community I find myself spending way to much time retracing problems and solutions. “Been there done that”… Deja vu all over again"…

I think we are getting to a point in this community that we have seen almost every kind of problem possible (or close to it) and have some pretty good solutions.

I also notice that the majority of the posts come in two major categories:
… Advice: getting advice
…Problem: looking for a solution to a problem.

We all know that searching the community is frustrating. Even to the point where many of us have collections that focus and collect on key subjects.

It dawned on me that part of our search problem may simply be that our “filter” categories may not be granular enough.

So I am wondering if changing/adding to the filter categories can help us better find existing advice and solutions.

Here is a set of categories that illustrate my thinking:
Advice: PWM & L CONTROL
Advice: LASER POWER SUPPLY
Advice: OPTICAL COMPONENTS
Advice: COOLANT
Advice: LASER TUBE
Advice: GANTRY
Advice: AIR ASSIST
Advice: AC POWER
Advice: LIFT/STAGE
Advice: CONFIGURATION
Advice: CONTROLLER
Advice: LASER FINDER DOT
Advice: ENDSTOPS/INTERLOCKS

Problem: PWM & L Control
Problem: LOW OPTICAL POWER
Problem: LASER POWER SUPPLY
Problem: OPTICAL ALIGNMENT
Problem: COOLANT
Problem: LASER TUBE
Problem: GANTRY MOVEMENT
Problem: IMAGE QUALITY
Problem: AIR ASSIST
Problem: AC POWER
Problem: LIFT OPERATION
Problem: ENDSTOPS/INTERLOCKS

I don’t know if there is a limit on categories or how to change them. I know it seems like a long list but I sense this level of granularity would improve our search filters and allow members to do some searching before posting. Often solving their own problems.
To use these categories one decides while posting if they are looking for advice or a fix and then choose the appropriate subcategory.

If we had to make the list shorter we could loose the ADVICE/PROBLEM and just keep the subsystem granularity. But I hope not :).

…BTW I have also been noodling how we can provide troubleshooting methods and reporting because I find myself repeating a troubleshooting, testing approach and asking for the results…
Examples are:
…Testing a LPS for proper operation
…Verifying the PWM control is working

With these filters we could post in each categories section a standard and proven way of how to identify, report, troubleshoot and test a problem in that category. This would dramatically reduce the amount of churn when trying to help someone with a problem.

What are your thoughts?

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Categories are limited in numbers (12 if I remember well), so no more available.

the problem being “the solution” is often in the comment in reply of a question. but sometime the post giving a valid solution or tip, is not related to the post (or question not in phase with this good answer).

I often change the category of a post (related to good answer in those case).

What I am demanding to the community is to not create a new post like they do when chatting. please be concise (but with plenty of comments), that make search easier for everyone.

use the search community on the right (not on top).

The community should reach 4000 members around the end of the month or early July. So your work is really valuable, keep sharing.

@donkjr

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(1) Some forums have a “sticky” post at the top, that say “read this before you post”. And then a link to FAQs or previously answered questions.

(2) Google+ is marginal at best for “chit-chat” and not well structured for searching. Plus “searching” implies you have to know what you are looking for in the first place. Often folks don’t know.

(3) It’s particularly frustrating when a completely new person drops in, with dozens of questions, that people helpfully answer, and then there is never any feedback as to what worked, or didn’t work, or how the problem was resolved. And you never see the person again. Until they have another problem. Is this K40 Tech Support?

(4) Also it’s funny that someone gets a K40 broken straight out of the box, and their first move is to post questions here, as opposed to contacting the vendor and bitching at them.

(5) The same half-dozen topics consume most the bandwidth:
(a) power supply problems.
(b) Cohesion 3D installation/configuration.
© optical alignment.
(d) LaserWeb.
(e) Corel.
(f) cooling/coolant

(6) A differently arranged forum would have FAQs and solid answers for common questions to be consulted beforehand. Instead the ad-hoc answers that arise here are often wrong, or pointers to other sites with marginal answers.

(7) Some comment environments have “scoring” abilities. So readers can up-vote or down-vote answers. And “best answers” are presented at the top of the list.

(8) And that same up-vote, down-vote soon identifies some of the experts. So in the future, you know that “an answer by Jones is gonna be worth reading”, while “another rambling comment by Smith is best skipped”.

(9) Comments are unstructured in a straight linear list. In reality comments are often focused on a previous comment (and in other environments presented in an indented format). Unfortunately, not here.

(10) Need a basic trouble shooting flow-chart, diagram, procedure, to guide a user to an appropriate line of questioning.

For example, “no output”. Is it power supply? Tube? Interlock? Mirror?

Some basic debugging to focus the question is in order. Instead those same procedures are presented over and over again every time the question is asked. They need to be collected in a centralized place.

(11) A guide or check off sheet for writing a question. Background details.

Often a question is presented because the writer is pre-supposing or wishing for an answer. Then as the comments and questions proceed the reality appears. What started off as a “my machine blew a fuse” line of questioning actually was “I completely rewired my machine, swapped out the power supply, did a smoothie conversion, and re-aligned the optics”. “Now my machine is blowing fuses”. These are two very different questions.

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5b - I thought we’ve been good about people posting in the C3D group. I get them up and running, then when they have software questions I send them to LW and questions about how do I improve this engraving or what water pump should I get I send them here.

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Ok, this is all good analysis but I am still wanting to try for an improvement in all this … not seeing it :).

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@donkjr ​​​ In your first pass proposal I’d suggest you not partition between “Advice” and “Problem”. (Half the time one is going to merge into the other anyway.) I’d say focus on the SUBJECT. The categories you’ve shown look reasonable. Some history will tell you how to fine tune them.

Several of my points, distilled down, point out the need for a more automated way of commenting (up-voted, expert users, FAQs, etc). Sadly you can’t fix that, but we’ve all seen forums that use those techniques. Google+ isn’t structured that way.

As a moderator, do you have the ability to move comments around? Or apply an “Editor’s Choice” or something similar to an existing line of questions? Some way to cut thru the chaff?

For example, the recent question about gluing on the detached coolant loop plate on the laser tube: That question has been asked before. And both times there was a long list of suggestions and counter-suggestions about what sort of glue should work best, how to prepare the surface, how to mask for fume outgassing. It would be nice to vector the current question to the previously answered one. Or to “promote” the correct solution, instead of reading the same 20 comments over again.

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@Nate_Caine you have sited a good example in the glue thing. I had to find that post (it was painful) and the user who posted wished he had found it prior to choosing an approach. Lots of wasted effort :(.

… I need to educate myself more on what I can edit…

Are you suggesting we should just change the current categories to these [more than 12 but I guess we can tweak them]:
PWM & L CONTROL
LASER POWER SUPPLY
OPTICAL COMPONENTS
COOLANT
LASER TUBE
GANTRY
AIR ASSIST
AC POWER
LIFT/STAGE
CONFIGURATION
CONTROLLER
LASER FINDER DOT
ENDSTOPS/INTERLOCKS

I do not know what happens to links if we delete/change a category @funinthefalls ?

Also perhaps putting a “guide” as a post in each section that has links to other posts or resources that deal with common exchanges/solutions etc … using keywords in the text for searching ?

… and I like the notion of adding troubleshooting guides and “how to write a post”.

Like you referenced I find that I have to ask lots of leading questions to find out the background behind the state of the machine. I have learned not to take things at face value until the state of the machine has been verified.

BTW: to be clear, I am not whining about helping folks, or dissing on those posting. I just can see as this group grows we will be challenged to scale. In addition I hate inefficiency …

That burning smell is me … trying to think…!

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FYI, we’ve tried all these “user interaction training” approaches, fact of the matter is that a good chunk of new people simply do not read pinned posts or search groups (or know that they can).
I started annotating a collection like so, the idea is that when a question pops up I just take a scroll link to it: https://plus.google.com/collection/8JBoCE

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So you collect posts that are relevant and organize them in a set of collections … mmm
… I have been doing that for some time for my own ease of archiving K40 stuff so I already have these categories.

Do you have to collect these under your account?
Do folks have to follow you to get access to them OR can you just link a person directly?

This might be a brilliant recognition that what we have already solves this problem if used in a different way ???:slight_smile:

I also just noticed that you can pin a item in a collection to the top of the collection. This could be used to highlight other posts and resources.

Lets try can you get to the below?
https://plus.google.com/collection/8wXtlB

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Don I’ve seen you do this already. The important distinction is that I add a description instead of just “capture”.

If nothing else, the collection is something I will one day task someone with converting to a wiki.

I’m sure it’s all public. I can see your link.

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How do you guide users to the collection? Do you observe their post, and then post a link to the collection? Or do you see a more automated way for them to discover it?

If you only have limited bandwidth, you want to expend your energy on the questions and answers and not on endlessly curating the posts and collections.

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As an experiment I just added a pinned post to a collection that links to a search term of my blog, exposing multiple posts on a subject. This is pretty flexible.
https://plus.google.com/collection/g5JMnB

…
I also added an experimental form to a collection that could be used to troubleshoot and collect data about problems. (as a side benefit it has analytics).

https://plus.google.com/collection/wsZDkB

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@Nate_Caine my thinking is when you see a post with a common problem you just link them to the collection and perhaps ask them to fill out the troubleshooting form. Hopefully for common stuff they fill out the form and in the process fix their problem. Even if they don’t, the content is captured and an expert can start helping with useful information in hand?
The information in the collection can describe a common problem, point to the common troubleshooting form along with posts that were captured from others with the same problem and how they fixed it.

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Sorry I have not got back to you sooner @donkjr One thing you can try is what many call centers use in tech support, create a document that has all your troubleshooting info organized by category, then as people have questions, all you need to do is cut and paste from the document. Speeds things up considerably.

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@StephaneBUISSON ​​ @donkjr ​​​ @Nate_Caine ​​ @raykholo ​​ @funinthefalls ​​ and other moderators, here is my 2 cents as a semi active user who has managed other forums. Let’s keep with Google + groups (just pointing at the elephant), it is super at keeping me involved with the k40 notifications, easy posting and viewing while on the toilet and bed (let’s be honest haha). It is awesome. We have nearly 4000 members because of the awesome interactions with great content and quick turnarounds, we really have a family here.
I do agree that the searching sucks on Google plus, I have +1 many comments just to hope the feature of checking at likes would come, no luck yet. Some posts from a year ago I know I may never find. I think an integrated plugin for the group with a knowlegebase would be awesome. After some basic searching I can’t find that yet, but found a post on how make canned responses in Q&A format, can you guys take a read?
https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/groups/#/ scroll down to “make canned responses”
https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/groups/#/

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Lot’s of good problem definition and thoughts here. To add my 2 cents, a partial solution to making searching easier maybe to have predefined hashtags (#) to use for posts or commenting. Like #LASERFINDERDOT, to use one of Don’s examples.

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@Abe_Fouhy these references are for "
Google Groups" not G+? To my knowledge they are two separate environments?

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@donkjr I thought G+ was google groups?

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This is a g+ community. http://Groups.google.com is the email list and corresponding web interface.

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Ooo oo well I feel a bit silly haha