Reading OP post-mortem

FIRST General Forum
1

This is a thread where we can discuss the results of my experiment in the “CD has a problem” thread.

Using Hybrid mode, we can see that 9 of the 31 responses did not follow the rules I had set in the OP. Which could be due to any of:
Not reading the OP
Not being able to follow instructions
Intentionally choosing not to follow instructions

Based on the structure of many of the posts, it seemed like most people actually read the OP, but it’s hard to tell since that thread didn’t really follow any normal CD format. Also, I added in the requirement that people delete the quote tags on my post after about eight replies, so an additional three people who kept the tags in after the eigth reply failed that requirement.

If I had a chance to re-do this experiment, I would have chosen a single controversial topic (like mentor involvement on building robots) and instructed people to try to post like they would if it were a real thread. Just asking people to post “controversial” posts just made everyone want to post troll things, and didn’t really foster an actual discussion. If the thread had followed a more normal discussion format like this, it likely would have gone on longer and fewer people would’ve been tipped off that something in the thread was off. Oh well, maybe next time.

For reference, here was the article I was basing this on.

2

Thank you for sharing your insights Caleb.
Any thoughts on paths to improve CD ?

3

Two of the 9 here. I misunderstood the directions by multiquoting your post, then quoting the post I wanted to reply to.

4

Are you referencing the title of the other thread? I don’t actually think CD has a major problem, I just wanted a kind of click-baity generic title for that thread.

I guess I would like it if more CD users:
Read the OP and early posts on threads
Quoted other posts or sections of other posts so discussions flow more logically
Re-read and edited their posts 2 or 3 times before submitting them (and were not afraid to throw out entire posts)

I don’t actually know how prevalent these problems are though, which was part of the reason I made the other thread. I also don’t know how helpful these rules are for others, but I personally find them very useful and try my best to abide by them.