[EricVanWyk]

I'll be brutally honest: I stopped reading your posts, I found them uninteresting and valueless. After reading your anti-apology, I do not intend to begin reading them again. ((However, I have read the thread up to this point in its entirety many times))

I've made a rather harsh statement, so please allow me give my definition of worth.

I love Chief Delphi. It allows me to constantly expand and refresh my understanding of electronics, mechanics, culture, pedagogy, control theory and more. I define the value of any post by its contribution to either someone else's or my own expansion of understanding. Conversely, a post can have a negative value if it reduces that understanding.

Some of this value is cut and dry: An explanation of PID, for example. Some of it is much more subtle: The self confidence someone gets from communicating on a peer level with some brilliant / powerful minds. In any case, the value requires bi-directional communication.

A number of your posts have been extremely negative on the "subtle value" scale. What you think is playful devil's advocacy loses a lot in the translation to text, and comes off as boorish, not clever. If I were a sophomore in high school and received one of these replies, I'd likely be put off from posting again. That is not acceptable.

The people who have been around here for a while have a natural control for this - they lose interest in you. This hurts you.



Moving forward, you need to identify a few people whose strengths align with your weaknesses. I'd recommend JaneYoung for manners, GregMcCaskle for balanced viewpoints, Al Skierkiewicz for relaying fact in an accessible and useful form, and KingOf1337 for showcasing cool ideas. My personal list also includes Squirrel, MarkMcLeod, DonRotollo, etc.