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  • Author Author: dougw
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2020 - a good year for hindsight

dougw

Somewhere in the last 2 years I lost the plot. I thought I would share my experience in case it benefits other members. One of my goals in the past 2 years has been to get nominated for member of the year, but I have not been able to figure out what it takes.

image

The first metric I thought was important was participation. I addressed this by reading virtually everything that was published on the forum and commenting whenever I could contribute something useful. It definitely takes a lot of time to wade through all the material generated on the site. I also participated in the badges program and so far I have 115 badges. All this participation resulted in well over 100,000 points per year. 8 of my blogs in the last 2 years have exceeded 10,000 views.

Another metric I thought would count is participation in design challenges, which take a huge amount of time and require lots of blogs. I successfully completed 5 design challenges in the last 2 years, winning 2 of them.

A third metric I figured would count is Project14 participation. In the past couple of years I have participated in about 14 Project14 contests, winning about 3 of them. I don't really try to win all these contests, because I don't think that would look good, but I like to boost the activity in this corner of the forum.

A fourth metric I thought would count is road tests. In the past couple of years I have won about 9 road tests. (which is every one that I applied for) I have been refraining from applying for more, especially high-end instrumentation because I don't want to hog all the great free equipment.

Another metric which I like a lot, although I don't think it carries any weight, is circuit design. In the past 2 years my blogs have featured at least 27 custom PCBs that I designed.

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It is clear that this level of participation is not adequate to get nominated, so either:

  • I am not doing the right things
  • I am not doing enough of the right things
  • I am not doing the right things with sufficient quality
  • What I do is not popular enough
  • I am doing something that is frowned upon

image

I have not received any feedback that I am doing something wrong and I cannot spend more time and effort on element14 - there just aren't any more hours available. Basically my current approach is not working, and I cannot do more, so I need to stop expecting better results. Which means I can stop doing what I was doing and how I was doing it.

It has already been quite liberating. I no longer feel obligated to read all content on the forum and I will be spending a lot less time generating videos and blogs, which will leave a lot more time to work on projects, even if they go unpublished. Imagine how much time it took to edit and publish 165 videos in the last 2 years.

I don't want to give the impression I have a complaint with element14 - it is the greatest forum, with a superb staff who do all the right things and I have enjoyed lots of success on the forum in the last 2 years. Really enjoyed it. It is just this one little goal where I screwed up, so if you have any insight into what it takes to get nominated for MotY, articulate them in the comments below.

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  • Hi Doug,

     

    I'm sorry about this, and really hope you didn't feel like the photo. I'm surprised if you've not been nominated for Member of the year at any point, that's something many of us will feel sorry about, since we have experienced your hard work for many years.

     

    As I understand the responsibility for nominations falls on us, we should remember to call out and recognise people, and there's no excuse. If it helps, it is clear that a lot of such awards are a representation, i.e. (hopefully one of many) examples of the work that gets achieved.

     

    Your presence (not just content) is something there's no doubt we would miss if it wasn't there, in case you have any doubt at all (there shouldn't be I hope).

  • in reply to shabaz

    no I don't feel like the cartoon image Those cartoons were my attempt at humor around one of my (many) miscalculations. I am (obviously) not good at humor. As an engineer, when I set a goal, I tend to logically analyze how to achieve it. Being wrong or failing doesn't particularly perturb me although I do want to learn from it. The goal of this blog was to see what I could learn from other members about my miscalculation. This is not about a miscarriage of justice because I don't see anything wrong with the process. The wonderful sentiments that were expressed in the discussion were a bit embarrassing although much appreciated, and there were some gems of advice in there as well. The members here are truly outstanding people.

    I get a lot out of element14, which motivates lots of participation and this particular goal doesn't invalidate any of that. I have lots of goals and new goals are always popping up.

  • in reply to dougw

    "As an engineer, when I set a goal, I tend to logically analyze how to achieve it"

    Except that there is not much engineering in here, no defined rules, criteria or anything. Society, or the community in this case, behave in a pretty unpredictable way. You can see this clearly in the world of politics, many times actions backfire in an impressive way, considering how much money is at stake you would think politicians would take enough precautions to avoid backfires, yet they still occur. My explanation is that they just can't predict the results of actions as social systems are too complex, random and chaotic. Lots of cognitive biases also play a huge role on people's decisions. For instance maybe rearranging the projects you released the last year could have gotten a  completely different result, for instance by releasing the best projects at the end of the year.

    I've also tried to understand the value system of the community, but at this point I've given up. I can't seem to be able to predict with enough accuracy how the community values different projects.

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  • in reply to dougw

    "As an engineer, when I set a goal, I tend to logically analyze how to achieve it"

    Except that there is not much engineering in here, no defined rules, criteria or anything. Society, or the community in this case, behave in a pretty unpredictable way. You can see this clearly in the world of politics, many times actions backfire in an impressive way, considering how much money is at stake you would think politicians would take enough precautions to avoid backfires, yet they still occur. My explanation is that they just can't predict the results of actions as social systems are too complex, random and chaotic. Lots of cognitive biases also play a huge role on people's decisions. For instance maybe rearranging the projects you released the last year could have gotten a  completely different result, for instance by releasing the best projects at the end of the year.

    I've also tried to understand the value system of the community, but at this point I've given up. I can't seem to be able to predict with enough accuracy how the community values different projects.

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