I think the reason for a lot of what we're seeing is in part what has caused the growth at 8052.com and at the same time has caused the questions that are asked to often be less than optimum.

I think 8052.com has become quite well-known as a source of 8052 information. I'm also quite sure that many professors and teachers around the world mention it to their students as they are studying the topic.

While I certainly don't mind students visiting 8052.com, the drawback is that many of them are just interested in 8052s and/or microcontrollers so that they can pass their class. Since they don't really care about the topic long-term they are less worried about whether they are wasting other people's time--all they want is the answer now so they can finish their homework.

The question is how to deal with this, or even if it should be dealt with.

One possibility I've considered is having a second forum that would be available only to professionals and/or serious 8052 developers. My concern here would be how to select who would qualify, and also I'd be worried that we'd have a situation where all the gurus might hang out in the "professional" forum (which might receive little traffic?) while a bunch of students would hang out in the other forum asking questions with no-one there to answer them.

I'm not sure forcing a user to read a list of requirements prior to posting is going to help--the few "requirements" that are listed on the "Start New Thread" page are already ignored; is there any reason to believe certain people wouldn't just click-thru the new intermediary page?

The idea of requiring users to register to post is an option. On the other hand, it doesn't require much time or effort to register so I'm not sure that'll do much by itself.

I'm very interested in hearing everyone's opinion on this. First, does everyone agree there IS a problem? If so, what can be done to address it?

Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster