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What Happened To The Guy Who Wanted................


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I use metric in all clay measurements-like lidded forms

Our system is so backwards with inches

Long ago we as a country where going to convert-they put up some road signs in kilometers but it all faded away and now the signs are long gone.

The US  sticks to our cave man measurements 

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Here in the UK I remember the country going metric - back in 71 that was. But it all went off at half cock. Kids were taught in metric since mid 60s, but somehow they still work in stones, pounds and ounces, though some shops are happy to weigh out half a kilo of meat or fish or potatoes. Petrol is sold by the litre, but fuel consumption is miles per gallon. Lengths bounce from feet and inches to millimetres at the drop of a ruler. Crazy...

 

Anyway, I'm sorry that my comment has sort of derailed this thread. I promise that if - sorry, when - I ask for advice I will thank everyone who takes the time and makes the effort to help me. Which leads me to a question I must post ...

 

Girts

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Well you know it would be boring if we were all logical and the same, or even if one of us were...

There was a maths teacher I knew who had the children measure the class room in turtles, not feet and inches or mms, BUT the bleeding turtle kept growing, but then there was the calculation involving how much the turtle grew pa .....

Too complicated.

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I use metric in all clay measurements-like lidded forms

Our system is so backwards with inches

Long ago we as a country where going to convert-they put up some road signs in kilometers but it all faded away and now the signs are long gone.

The US  sticks to our cave man measurements 

 

 

To borrow a quote from The Simpsons:  "My car gets forty Rods to the Hog's Head, and that's the way I like it!!!

 

I honestly think they stop teaching the students here, how to use a ruler at some point.  I get kids in class, and we use rulers for linear perspective, or to cut mats, and they don't understand how to use it at all.  "Where is one-quarter/ three-quarters on the ruler?"  "  "What's a sixteenth?"

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That reminds me of primary school when we had to learn how many rods there were to a chain, chains to a furlong (which they still seem to use for horse racing!). I guess I miss the poetry of the names, but not the total impracticallity of the different components. 12 of this, 3 of that, 14 of the other, 8 of something else.

 

Girts

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I love this topic! I honestly think part of the answer is that most people don't consider that the helpers might actually want a follow-up. I've never thought of it to be honest. But now that I have.. I'll make more effort to give a follow up. Maybe over time we'll start a trend :) I can say though, I return to certain forums infrequently, but eventually I'll find my way back there. With many questions.. the first few answers might be great but quickly devolve into sarcasm and stupidity. In those instances.. I feel dejected or stupid and hesitant to post any follow up. I have one seen where I asked one question.. respondents banter about getting silly, and someone had looked through my history and noted I never re posted afterward. So that time I did answer with the above mentioned reason s why. Anyway. So.. thanks for bringing this issue into consciousness. I'll be more aware of it in the future :)

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Sometimes we just need to take 'time out' from ceramics.....I know....gasp!!.....but are very happy to find CAD still here when we return!

 

My first experience at posting met with a rude, dismissive and incorrect reply but fortunately 2 years of 'lurking' showed it was not the usual.  So we can't 'diss' the lurkers.

 

Did not see Mike Faul post, but do think that sometimes we don't READ THE QUESTION accurately.......so we go off on tangents, answer what we THINK we read, or, indulge in some sort of Facebook-like opinion frenzy.......

 

.........think it comes down to reading the person's question once or twice to get the actual enquiry they're asking from it (and maybe asking one or two of our own questions) before answering 

 

Also, think the internet has bred the idea of a website ' Chat Help' convenience so much that people no longer feel that they NEED to get back to the people assisting them.   Whole other discussion.

 

So much reading to catch up on.

 

Irene

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I use metric in all clay measurements-like lidded forms

Our system is so backwards with inches

Long ago we as a country where going to convert-they put up some road signs in kilometers but it all faded away and now the signs are long gone.

The US  sticks to our cave man measurements

 

Mark, I do the same thing. Much easier to measure and remember a 98 mm lid than 3 and 3/4 in. plus a little bit more (3.85877"). I take great pride that my lids fit with no slop whatsoever.

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I have certainly been guilty of misreading a posted question. When I first showed up here, there were some leery of my posts and answers. That is the other issue: posers come through stirring up problems and make well intended people suspicious of newbies. I do not blame them for being leery of me at first: some of my answers were strange (foreign). :ph34r: After awhile they got accustomed to me and my weird way of looking at certain ceramic/glaze issues. I

Nerd

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"...sometimes we don't READ THE QUESTION accurately.......so we go off on tangents, answer what we THINK we read..."

​The folks here and on other forums who actually listen to people and form polite and well informed responses deserve a lot of credit.

​I usually regret posting for one reason or another. Most of the time this will come back to not listening very well.

​

​

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I have been posting on this forum for 6 years, I joined so I could be connected with other potters and help newbies when I can.  I find this forum to be very civil if it wasn't I wouldn't be here.  I have noticed that many times a question isn't read well,  so I am careful to reread it before I post a answer.  It is nice to get a PM thanking you for your suggestion but those are far and few between.  I don't mind the newbies that disappear,  they have figured out the pottery isn't just a walk in the park and have moved on to something else.  If nasty PM's become a problem a joiner fee might end that.  Some forums have a small joiner fee, you can lurk all you want you just can't post until you join.  Well that is my two cents, happy posting.   Denice

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What I like about this place is the time taken by many people with different backgrounds in this field to read and try to figure out an answer to the problems of others. Even the answers to what has been perceived to have been asked bring knowledge to this forum and so can be tucked away and used when relevant.

It is a internet thingie, the non thanking, but I do it most times I think unless I have my full blinkers on.

The question posed is sometimes not the correct one either.........some posed a glaze recipe probs. turn out to be a firing prob. so some of the "tangents" taken are essential, and some of the aberrant answers can act like spin offs for future directions.

The silliness etc..well what's a day without a smile, even at yourself.

Want only the cold hard facts all the time, hire a consultant or accountant, oh have I done it again???

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I too agree with Babs. Also it's worth pointing out that even if someone asks a question and never responds to your answer, the answer is also read by other people and helps them learn too. So in this way the value of your answers is multiplied. And where there is dissent and discussion, this is good too because we learn about how complex ceramics are or where different approaches can work.

 

I am learning so much just by lurking and reading about the stuff that other people ask - and many thanks to all of you for that and for the fun side too because that makes learning enjoyable. And meanwhile I'm still experimenting with the ideas that came from some questions I asked months ago, and eventually might be able to report back at some point.

 

Joe

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I'm a lurker here, a ceramic beginner, and almost never post because I've found that an archive search almost always yields excellent discussion and good advice about whatever I'm wondering about - it's fairly encylopedic. Reading these posts I'm thinking that a very warm thank you is owed to everyone who has so generously taken the time to post help here over the years. So here it is - HUGE thanks from a rank beginner!

 

That said, I'm sure I'm not alone in using this forum as a welcome resource rather than joining it as an interactive community. I used to be an enthusiastic participant in several online communities (non-ceramic-related ones), but have avoided that since one went south in miserable flames and others divided into silly, unkind factions and so on. That's not happened here, a very good thing!

 

It makes perfect sense to me that people feel un-thanked and resentful when they take the time to respond to questions and never receive any feedback. Frustratingly curious, too, to the extent that they've become genuinely interested in another's progress. At the same time, I'm not sure that it's willful rudeness that allows people to query and disappear when they have their answer.

 

Many people really don't want the perks and the hassles of deep involvement with an online community (uploading pics, becoming familiar, being frequently interactive and "known", etc., or even participating in sustained conversations) for perfectly OK reasons, I think. They'll enter this forum in the way that someone might call Amaco to ask about a glaze - simply to obtain useful information. Whatever answer is posted enters a public database that will be useful for many more people. That can be felt as a kind of exploitation, but it's definitely an inevitable and I think deeply valuable function of the best online forums.

 

The way I resolved this issue for myself when I encountered it in forums in which I was active in giving advice (in territories where I had some expertise) was by thanking myself warmly for contributing to many unknown others via an invaluable public database. Every really good forum has a somewhat close-knit "heart" and, in my humble opinion, some tolerance for non-disruptive "drop-ins" and lurkers who make off with valuable help with never a look back. Closed online communities avoid this, but tend to become kind of involuted and unable to replace lost membership. Someone here said it was like being an unpaid consultant. It really is, but - and I'm offering this humbly - it might be more heartening to think of it as a willing volunteer service to the ceramics community at large.  Maybe not, but it's a optional way to frame this and makes for a happier mind.

 

And THAT said, it would take a whole page to thank by name the community members who have posted answers to questions asked by others in here that have been of immense help to me. Gratitude, again, to you all.

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wow !

 

i never guessed that just remembering the many single posted questions that never had a published resolution would have resulted in almost 3000 views and almost 75 answers.  even if some of the answers are not about the question, the discussion is fun.

 

i was sent off in tears a few years ago by some people who not only read the question wrong, they imposed a complete scenario of their own and concluded that i was a (insert very bad word here) who should be taken out and shot.  thankfully, some of you were kind.

 

but that nagging question of the plates needed for a wedding by the weekend still keeps my imagination alive wondering.......................

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  • 2 weeks later...

I love this topic. It was one of the first I read here, (weird right?) any way, this post was the reason I made sure to post the results of that bisk firing.

(JUST FYI) and what did I get fer my trouble????? OLD LADY hits me with

a CRACKED POT joke!!!!!! God I LOVE THIS SITE!!!!!!

 

graybeard

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