So I have to explain what I mean in more detail, using some of my sentences, although I think there are clear enough.
“Interesting” is only an opinion, here mine, and as such is not directly linked to some moderation acting, as I suggest by "One can agree or disagree ".
In the other hand by indicating that “his message has a degree of relevance in the on-topic scale that can be compared to a lot of comments in several topics.” I mention that his message can be on topic, proposing:
The heart of his message is
The TSR concern is a part of the wind energy concern, so @dougselsam’ message is relevant as mentioning a technical backround of the topic.
When I say I know nothing (about the subject) I can’t blame someone for saying I know nothing (about the subject). The distinction between I know nothing and I am a know-nothing becomes narrow, above all in the way that is formulated by Doug:
I don’t see any insult here in the given context. Moreover as often he adopts a polemicist tone that applies for AWE community which is not involved enough in wind energy, according to him. So it’s more of a benevolent warning.
For a moderator quoting and applying some rules can be good but it is not enough as the form can be respected but not the substance. Trying to understand the writer’s intentions can be helpful.
In French language a “pamphlet” can be a paper polemicist as well as a brochure. It looks to be the second meaning but I had understood the first meaning before.
I “should read a beginner’s pamphlet on wind energy” me too.
By the way, @kitefreak:
You seem to have a very strong opinions on how an AWES forum should be run and are willing to spend more time than myself and probably any of us.
Instead of trying to get me and the moderators to run this community your way, maybe you should set up your own forum. It’s usually good to have a bit of competition.
If we can contribute whilst understanding that nobody can know all of this wide field of tech… We’ll likely all benefit.
What did Confucias say? Something about being wiser is knowing there’s more you don’t know.
Or was it Dunning - Kruger?
@dougselsam, you should detail what can be wrong about technical choices (soft wing, yoyo reeling…) instead of making personal attacks or fixation on someone.
There are many things we don’t know about what would be possible in AWE field in regard to current wind energy. Explaining them is better than discrediting.
Seems weird to have a “forum” on a highly-advanced aspect of a subject of which one does not have basic knowledge. That has always been a problem in wind energy. Outsiders express “opinions” that “sound good” but because wind is invisible, people tend to believe things that “sound good” but that do not reflect reality. Sometimes they’ve run across a buzzword, like “TSR”. Before long, people are having arguments over nonfactual topics. For example it is common for otherwise-knowledgeable people to deride standard wind energy for “not understanding” that vertical-axis turbines are “clearly superior” because they “respond to wind from any direction”, “handle turbulent sites better” and are “better-suited for the built, urban environment”, common talking-points from vertical-axis-promoters, of dubious factuality. Verticals “sound good” but the problem is finding even one working example, since they break down when exposed to decent wind resource. But you hear these points repeated over and over by even people just looking into buying a wind turbine for the first time. They’ve been misled. By crackpots. They don’t know fact from fiction. Really, they know less than nothing, because they have been fed false information. “Know-nothings” in this case is meant as a descriptive term for when people are not up-to-speed on the basics of wind energy, yet purport to be trying to advance the art far beyond its present state. It is not a slang description of someone’s head or brain-size. I don’t agree that those are synonyms. Maybe “newbie”" is a synonym. Neophyte. Beginner. Amateur. Interested outsider. People who don’t even know what they don’t know! We’re all know-nothings in most fields. Some of us have some knowledge in some fields. As people have told me in things I am trying to learn “You don’t know what you don’t know.” That was in the sport of hang-gliding where someone was trying to save me from accidentally getting killed. After a few funerals I understood better what they were telling me. Mid-summer, mid-day, can be dangerous, due to thermic turbulence. Again, air (like say a dust-devil) can be invisible. But out of their field of actual expertise, hang-glider pilots are just as likely as anyone else to scoff at regular wind turbines, saying the verticals are the only way to go. How would they know? They don’t! They know one subject well, but “know nothing” about a different topic. People who say that have read convincing material from “Professor Crackpot”. Maybe more than one Dr. Crackpot.
Yes even people with PhD’s can be crackpots, especially if they get outside their actual field of expertise. I should ask a hang-glider pilot who favors verticals why he doesn’t do loops to hook a thermal? Here is how stupid vertical-axis turbines are: If you compare wind turbines to a peanut can, the regular turbine is represented by the lid, a simple disc of swept area. The vertical-axis turbine requires the entire rest of the can to represent its swept area. Altogether the vertical-axis turbine must sweep about four (4) times the area, to make the same power, as a regular old wind turbine pyro-peller. I would say pi (3.14), but because the verticals sweep their area less efficiently, let’s call it four (4). Here’s one for the know-nothing newbies, relating to swept area: The actuator disc slows the wind. Much of the wind just goes around it. The wake is like 1/3 - 1/2 the original windspeed, while the air going thru blades is slowed significantly. So if you think the tip speed ratio is 6, what is it really? See? People don’t know Jack Shinola about wind turbines.
I’m working on that basic knowledge, or even the prerequisites. I actually don’t need that much knowledge about wind energy though, beyond a few basics – like TSR (which turns out is not so basic after all). First I need to build something, which requires different knowledge and experience: different physics concepts, material properties, and a hundred other things. After I’ve built something I can again look at and optimize it with the help of actual experts in the different areas, if it is worth pursuing at all.
I have expressed only one opinion on AWE on here, that I can remember: I guess after single kite yoyo systems are perfected, more kites will be connected to a single generator, which opinion I have not stated with certainty. So the rest of your message shouldn’t be addressed to me I think.
The Old Forum is where less-intrusive moderation has long prevailed, and continues so. Both Old and New Forums are public goods, not “own(ed)” property. Let the future judge which AWES Forum contributed more or better; for now both are valuable.
I am not hoping to get Moderators here to run the Forum “(my) way”, just trying to report Moderation bugs for Moderators to fix or not, as best they can.
Its the authoritarian software that creates topic-policing. You happen to be on the authoritarian spectrum in enforcing topics as you please. I am on the other hand am trained to reject authority and secretive players.
You did not save the topic from derailing, you derailed it.
The majority of your comment was on Doug and his ST, that was off-topic in the original topic so I sent you a message asking you to change it.
Doug says something, you say something about Doug, Doug replies, and the topic turns into something other than what we expect when we read the title. As a service to the reader, who I assume to be busy and not have infinite patience, I remove the off-topic stuff.
Doug, The top example of AWE false news, as you define it below, is your “fanciful” Popular Science coverage. Stop unfairly and unhelpfully slighting far superior examples, like COTS ship kites that can actually offset ~2MW of ship diesel-electric load, while the ST must remain marginal even at kW scale, due to scaling law limits you never seem to have known about. Join the ship-kite club when you get tired of being stuck with comparatively zero ST power. I am lucky to have been part of KiteShi…
Hi Dave, this topic is not about Doug or his ST. Please edit out the off-topic stuff.
That’s a lot of relevant points. Don’t you have any to add?
The old forum has never needed splitting. Perfect topics are not that important when key-word search is the Gold Standard. Splitting topics is hardly my idea of worthwhile. Good luck with your technical AWE work instead.
You shouldn’t feel free. We are writing here in service to a potential reader. Not for self-gratification. You shouldn’t feel free to make every topic about the feud between you and Doug. You have the Yahoo forum for that, anyway.
You wrote “feel free”. Actually, I post a lot that is nothing to do with Doug, technical stuff. It you I lose time with by your nontechnical priorities. No one correcting Doug’s technical errors is where your moderation focus will lead.
I really do feel free by never acquiescing to secret players. I hoped wrongly you wanted me to feel free in any case, no luck.
Let me rephrase, I think you should feel free, but please stay your hand if you feel the urge to say something negative about a person, especially something that you have written many times already.
No, freedom of speech is sacred. Censorship is evil. You sure repeat your Netiquette ideas, go ahead, who am I to stop you. I can only in good conscience continue to object to your anonymity as much as you repetitively split mixed topics.
I will stop posting if I cannot stop your intrusive moderation. You seem to find technical excellence not worth putting first. Doug’s addled take on Kline news really did logically boomerang on his tech. Its not about him as such, or your secretive authoritarian pattern of conduct.
To me the attention of the reader is sacred, and fleeting. The topic was, and now is again, about K Line, perhaps the reader reading the topic title and reading the discussion is interested in that.
I know, the knowledge archive function is comparatively not sacred to you. Fleeting interest will be what you deserve then. Someday these texts will be mined for gold. Your topic splitting will not have mattered, except as an annoyance to authors.
Current and future readers will use search to jump right to what they seek, not use your intrusive ordering based on an imaginary reader.
I am a real person, with a real complaint, and you hardly care. My post did contain on-topic content, just as you require, but you broke it. Work on AWE instead, you are not good at moderating me.
I pasted the text here for factual background. My concern is Windy Skies splitting on-topic technical content in favor of his Netiquette whims, and as a violation of an author’s intent. His demands made under anonymity are problematic.
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kitefreak:
Windy_Skies: