Explicit close reason: "OP bought undocumented stuff, asks us instead of seller for documentation"

Question

There's numerous instances where inexperienced users bought things off the internet that didn't come with anything resembling sufficient documentation, often even of very basic things like operating voltages, and expect us to compensate for the shortcoming of the seller.

I think we should not tolerate these kinds of questions for (at least) two reasons:

• Politically, and economically, it's unsound to support business models where people of no technical expertise whatsoever sell components on the internet, getting around having to actually afford documenting their parts, whereas companies that actually do offer even the minimum feasible documentation have expenses. This is made morally worse by the fact that "clones" and plain counterfeits that don't even incur any R&D costs are among the things that are most heavily sold in this form.
• It's bad for the quality of questions on this site. Basically, the same reasoning as against product recommendation questions apply: Information outdates quickly, this isn't a catalogue, the questions are usually underresearched.

Finally, I also do think it's bad for beginners. If I accumulate my experiences with things that people have bought over {insert direct far-east import marketplace platform here}, it's that these things seldom work as well as to expect from a reasonably engineered and quality-assured product, and that's usually the reason why the price tag's so low.

Beginners are led to believe that not getting the specs of what they pay for from whoever they pay is the norm. And that should really not be the case. And, if we don't proliferate quickly outdated info based on guessing on (usually actually stolen) product photos, we can at least avoid giving this impression a platform.

So:

Can we please have a close reason

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic, as StackExchange should not be used as substitute for sufficient documentation. Please refer to the manufacturer, seller or service dealer for sufficient documentation, as is the standard for any reputable business.

Answer 1

I completely understand your position but disagree.

I don't see why those of like mind can't simply ignore the question if it's of no interest.

Championing the active prevention of the posting and answering of what are most certainly widely useful answers for the stated reasons seems heavy-handed in a central-planning sort of way.

If there was a 'hobby' SE that might make sense to shunt questions off to there, but there isn't and there are a bunch of presumably similarly (but differently) annoying questions that arise from bad youtube videos, instructables and such like.

Answer 2

Sorry, but I strongly disagree.

By putting all the cheap stuff found on eBay and Amazon or other "non reputable" sources into the same thrash bin is judgemental and heavily penalizes low-income hobbyists, especially those in developing countries.

I still remember when I disassembled old TV sets to get scrap components when I was a young boy. If I had had such sources at the time I could have made great projects with a couple of bucks and I could have learned much more quickly. Instead, all my money went into the few things I couldn't get from scrap equipment (e.g. a good analog multimeter).

Moreover, although some modules and components are not well specced (or no specced at all), they are not necessarily total crap. I'm currently testing a small Arduino mini pro compatible board (2 EUR) driving fancy patterns on a cheap SPI-controlled display module. It has been running that routine for about 7 month now (I really wanted to see if they were worth at least a tenth of their price). Guess what? Never a glitch! Of course I wouldn't trust it for mission-critical stuff nor for professional devices, but for learning and hobby projects they are great.

I even tested a batch of probably fake "el cheapo" 1N4007 diodes (their terminals were tiny as those of 1N4148s): they performed quite well and the DC characteristics were in line with the datasheets of major vendors (I wouldn't trust them for peak non-repetitive currents of tens of amps, like the "real ones", but for hobby work, heck!, they cost a tenth of the price and you won't regret frying a dozen of them while learning!)

Yes, I know it's an hit and miss and you can find really crappy stuff out there. However, if you find the right vendors, they usually keep their quality standards quite predictable across their goods.

I agree that we should always point out that there are higher standards in professional electronics, so that the beginner has a chance to learn and improve, but not every hobbyist will be a future electronic designer or engineer.

Therefore I think that we should respect those who infuse sufficient effort in asking a question, even if they use components of unknown source, and we should not dismiss their questions for their lack of money or resources.

As I always remind people on this site, this is not (yet?!?) a "professionals-only site". If we are to keep our policies that way, we must cope with people who sincerely love electronics and want to do more advanced projects with less money, instead of always flashing an expensive Cree LED using a couple of original Fairchild BC547s or whatever /grin/.

The scale of the economics is 1 to 10, or more, sometimes! You can't really blame a poor newbie because (s)he prefers to program a cheap Arduino clone. We are not here (at least, I am not) to protect the interests of TI, Vishay or Nexperia against hobbyists eroding their profits by not buying original parts. I'm not getting paid by them, so I owe them nothing, except due credit for making exceptional stuff, and this also means telling an hobbyists what's the difference between quality and crappy stuff (and between professional stuff and hobby work).

EDIT

Since my answer has drawn much attention and is currently the highest ranking one in this thread, I'd like to point out better why I think hobbyists are a resource for this site even if they don't follow professional best practices.

See this question posted some time ago. What on earth could be less professional than that by today's standards! This notwithstanding, that question was well posed and slightly humorous (and the OP was very responsive in comments), and this prompted many good answers that covered many aspects that are relevant even for a professional.

Answer 3

I partially agree with your sentiment, but I disagree on a few points:

• As a Q&A site, our goal should be to share our knowledge with 'the internet', so in principle whatever we share could be beneficial to someone. We shouldn't be judgemental of what their reasons could be.

• The lack of documentation could also be caused by obsolescence or any other reason, and the close reason might look to someone as a quick way to dismiss a possibly valid question.

• What you say about investment in documentation, I think it's not our responsibility to support one or the other business model. We try to help the engineers and hackers (in general: users) community by providing the necessary information.

We can also choose to inform beginners that a certain piece of equipment may not be a wise choice, but in the end it is their business whether they use it or not.

Answer 4

Cheap (and often undocummented well) stuff from popular online marketplaces is not neccesseraly crap. More expensive brand name goods are usually just a better probability it's not crap (just have a look at some errata pages in the popular datasheets).

BUT too often the only way to find out if the noname stuff is of poor quality and not clear how to deal with OR just less fancy but fully compatible with industry standards and behaves in expected way IS to try.

I know people who have access to high-end equipment and materials but occassionaly buy cheap stuff just for fun. If that doesn't function or is too cumbersome to make it work it's no big deal to dump it right away. But if that appears a fair thing for the price this means they get some experience.

But how would they share it if it's banned? :-)

Answer 5

It might be better to ask a question like

"Why is it a bad idea to buy crap from e-bay." in the forum, and have people answer it well so you can cross-post that in those type of questions.

That way it is more edu-ma-cational...

---

Actually there are a few "often up" questions like that. We could really do with a common library question pages. Like...

"500 ways to drive a LED from a GPIO..."

Pity those type of questions are deemed... not questions.

Answer 6

I disagree that we should banish all things Ebay or otherwise. We do have the option to close out the OP in a hurry if it is that bad.

Speaking of bad, what concerns me more is an OP with little to no skills who wants to build a Tesla coil from an Ebay power supply. That is like trouble squared.

Yet in spite of that often and dreadful combination I do not think we should just close because of poor or missing documentation alone. They are many hobbyist who know the pin-outs of many IC's by heart-like me. And may have spent decades building this-and-that, so they do not mind hand-me-down parts from Ebay or other parts brokers with high prices.

What we should question the most is does the OP know what they are doing? The worst case scenario is the OP knows little and has no documentation. From there it gets a little better. Does the OP have documentation to present to us but lacks skills? Does the OP have much skill but is missing a detail or an understanding of a dubious spec?

The variations I have seen in just a few years suggest that we continue as is and let the close/re-open and migrate system take out the garbage too messed up to work with. This includes what seems to be a good question and documentation but a stubborn OP who does not cooperate with us, such as providing us with a diagram or schematic.

The close option gives us the option categories we need to take the garbage out of the system, sometimes in one day.

I see NO point in putting a noose around the OP's neck just for lack of documents. We must judge such events based on the OP's skill (or lack of) as well.

Answer 7

The scope of EE is already incredibly broad, it wouldn't hurt to narrow it down a bit.

I propose that we make questions of the nature described by the OP off-topic, but direct them to Reverse Engineering instead. It seems to be the perfect fit for these kind of questions.

This with the blessing of that site, of course, though I doubt a SE beta site would mind getting more visitors.