Thought about posting in General Questions, but I’m not sure if the answer will be factual.
I’ve just begun to get into the hobby of building PCs, overclocking, etc. Whenever I run into a quandary, I do a Google search and browse tech forums for a similar problem. And I feel like I’ve noticed a message board behavior that deserves an explanation:
A typical forum thread will go back and forth from the original poster to an “expert” - or at least a helpful fellow - who progressively diagnoses the problem…
And then, right before the problem is “solved,” the expert requests that the OP e-mail him directly to finish the dialogue.
What is this about? Are they worried about maintaining a thread that is just a two-sided conversation? When it could go on via e-mail without taking up forum space? Or is the expert about to recommend a remedy that’s illegal or something?
I feel like I’ve done this so many times - whittled my computer problems down to a similar story mentioned on the net - only to encounter the “E-mail me” response. Sometimes it’s extremely frustrating! Why wouldn’t they want to help people with similar tech issues?
Thanks, guys. And the first person to respond with “E-mail me” gets a smiley.
As a technologist and heavy computer user who is not part of this “field”, I smell a rat.
Generally technical people will be happy to keep going in a forum discussion. Maybe somebody wants to turn the conversation into a sales pitch that isn’t allowed in a forum, or maybe something else is weird.
The whole topic of overclocking is a weird one. If you want somebody to help you do computing, pay them for their products and take their advice about how to operate them. Overclocking is by definition using a product in a way that the manufacturer says isn’t reliable. If you were trying to overload rope, and somebody tried to get you into a private email conversation about it, you’d be all kinds of suspiscious, right?
I own a computer repair service, I will outright refuse to participate in overclocking of any sort. Its one of those hobbies that might be really fun for short periods of time but generally just cost alot of money. As far as online discussions, as a few dopers here have discovered, employers sometimes find out about the dope and may hold them responsible for statements made online. Some of these people may be giving instructions on how to RMA an overclocked part and explain the exceptions that will allow it without exposing themselves to employment repercussions. Plenty of them are also probably soliciting a “donation” for their final bits of assistance but you would think people would come back pitching a fit about that in the forums if it was common practice.
Not something I’ve ever noticed. Generally I tend to find that a handful of people will contribute 90% of the useful content, and you end up with a handful of huge long threads covering most things that can happen, hundreds of silly little ‘what do I do’ threads, and a few very specific and useful threads. Look here for an example, where clunk and a couple of others have manged to build up a ‘how to overclock a core2duo’ thread of 54 pages and a similar core2quad thread of 29 pages. Those mammoth threads are awesomely informative, but such a slog to read
Thanks for the replies, guys. Yeah, I guess I never made the connection that overclocking usually means using a product in a way that was never intended. So broadcasting that could potentially mean trouble.
Overclockers: what do you actually use your computer for?
I ask because all the people I’ve known who were into overclocking (not many, I admit) seemed to spend nearly all of their time modifying and tweaking their machines so as to get the best frame rate from Quake (or whatever), but never actually playing the game.
