Please use OT in subject lines of your posts...

Fred Bloggs isn't a troll. He's not malicious, and he doesn't go after people merely because he doesn't like them.

John Doe is a troll - but doesn't seem to have enough sense to realise what he is.

Irrelevant, because he isn't actually a troll - merely opinionated (like most of the people who post here).

This is an unmoderated group. The only way to deal with people whose opinions aren't worth attending to is to ignore them, and that doesn't work too well because sometimes their silly opinions are presented in a way that makes them look faintly plausible, and someone has to point out that the opinions aren't as plausible as they might appear. <snipped John Doe's implausible opinion>

Careful, a comment like that is likely to trigger John Doe from Dr. Jekyll mode into Mr. Hyde mode where the Mr. Hyde mode troll outputs top posting articles with full quoting of message headers.

top posting articles with full quoting of message headers.

He's always dumb, and if he gets even more emotionally involved than usual he gets even more slap-dash. I'm never going to bother to be "careful" with John Doe - he's just an infestation.

Perhaps it would be better to reimagine "OT" as indicating ON Topic?

Probably not. The official topic here is electronic design. Some people - like John Larkin - have a rather strange idea of what that involves, but when they post about the design of electronic circuits they are on topic. John does seem to think that tinkering with circuits until they more or less work is a legitimate design process - and it does happen a lot in real life, even if proper designers then work out why their desperate improvisation actually works, and go on to optimise the circuit.

People forget, like you did.

Please tell us your badge number.

Finally someone got it!

Usenet groups run on courtesy and unenforceable 'rules'. Once those are no longer respected then the group dies off...

John ;-#)#

SED is not doing well. It's mostly OT posts from foul snarky old farts who don't design electronics; if they do design, they are unwilling to expose it in useful detail.

Maybe they don't NEED help with their designs - and are confident in their own abilities to not CRAVE having their egos stroked?

"Look, Mommy, I made a pitcher!"

Unlikely in both respects.

The few people who do design in public, like Phil and Win, seem to be very good at it.

What's to discuss if the "design" is standard subcircuits. If you have to make everything an invention, you're not going to get anywhere.

Design engineers invent new concepts, new circuits. That's the definition.

Copying eval boards or textbook circuits is no fun anyhow.

Yah, right. Try looking back in the archives ten years or so.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Try 30. Or, weren't you around, back then?

That does fit John Larkin pretty exactly . He probably doesn't realise it.

It might be John Larkin's definition. Where I come from, inventors invent new concepts and new circuits, and design engineers only do it if they have to.

If you can solve the problem you are facing with techniques that are known to work, development goes a lot faster. Inventing stuff necessarily invents unexpected problems.

But it is a much more reliable - and usually much faster - route to a design which will keep the customer happy.

Bill Slowman Troll wrote: =====================

** Course he is.

** No all trollsa are.

** So he's not like you. ** So exactly like you. ** Sso it is self policing.

** The are other and better ways.

Now how do we get rid of demented fools like you ?

..... Phil

John Larkin wrote: ===============

** No, that is NOT the "definition" - just your absurd notion.

..... Phil