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Are we losing sight of the purpose of the site?

"Can We talk here?" Joan Rivers

I see tonight that the percentage of questions answered is running at 26% much lower than normal. I thought the site was to help people fix their Macs to start off with and as a result sell parts to be able to afford the site and employ people at iFixit. It's great that it has grown to include fixing everything under the sun. But the number of knowledgable people to answer those questions seems to be limited. I, for one, am only able to give so many hours a day. I don't want to flame anyone but the number of really poor answer providers has seemed to increase exponentially and is getting out of hand. Some of this advice is really bad and I just don't have the time to quell it all. Can we discuss how we can get back to what we are good at. I understand that instructions on how to take care of a pimple are needed but we can't solve all the problems of world. We don't seem to have a guideline on how to keep the site focused. Am I wrong here or just tired? How do the rest of you feel about it and can the site be directed without giving offense?

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@mayer I do agree with you on a lot of points. First so I want to make sure that I understand this perfectly. I thought from the beginning that "iFixit is a wiki-based site that teaches people how to fix almost anything, not just Macs :-). I do agree with the quality of the answers on some days (makes me scratch my head) on others the quality is very good. I think we have an influx of new people that answer a lot of questions beyond their comfort level. I do feel that it is okay to correct those and guide those answers. I believe that this is brought on by an increased popularity of iFixit since even the questions are on some days all over the map, with all kinds of devices and problems. I think, we should just continue to answer the once we can and leave the once we don't for others. It is my opinion that it would be a mistake to specialize to much into one area.

Trust me, I gave retiring some thought. I figured maybe I am just getting old and cantankerous myself. There may just be a new generation of "fixers" coming up that will recommend to take the device to Apple (or other manufacturers) for repair and it is seen as an okay answer because that is the expectation.

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Hey Guys,

I appreciate this discussion. It has always been our mission to teach the world to fix everything they own—a lofty goal, we know. If we're doing this right, we should continue to see questions related to all kinds of devices and problems. It's impossible to have experts in all areas, so we structured the site in such a way to get the best information upvoted to the top of a question thread. The iFixit staff is trying to spend more time on moderating answers so the burden doesn't fall solely on the community—you two in particular do an amazing job and we can't tell you how appreciative we are.

We're trying to get better and we're open to any ideas you may have in helping us to improve the answer quality across the site. We can try to provide more training to new members to help them understand what a good answer looks like, but we'd like to encourage as much participation as possible. It would be helpful for me to see some of the specific answers you have concerns about if you don't mind sending me some links.

But really, we need about a dozen more Mayers and Old Turkeys :)

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When I first joined I tried to answer everything . Time tempers all things, now Ive tried to limit the questions I answer to what I have in my knowledge base (the old noggin) or if I find the question interesting I'll do a little research on google to see if I can help figure it out . Its true some of the answers can be off the wall (as can some questions) and really wrong and that's were moderators come in to guild the new ones . I know Richard helped me out with a few misguided answers when I started. If we nudge these folks in the right direction and point out how answers can be found we can have a few more like Richard and Mike. They are defiantly the backbone of this form and I hope to see you guys here for years to come. I guess what I'm trying to say is perfection is a lofty goal and something you can strive for but until its here we'll have to put up with those who want to help but just don't know which way to turn the wrench. I have a sign on the wall of my shop that states .... Shop rate 60 per hour ... 70 if you help ... 80 if you worked on it first... 120 per hour if your gonna stand there and tell me how I'm doing it wrong.

My 2 cents

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mayer will be eternally grateful.