Repair Guidelines-- Where are they, and where should they be

Question

With some recent silliness in meta referring to guidelines for repair questions, I went to our help center to actually look for those guidelines.

Bottom line: I couldn't find any.

If we're going to be sticklers about repair questions, there needs to be some guidance for new users that appears somewhere other than deep in meta -- if for no other reason than to try to minimize the number of meta discussions that a perfectly valid repair question generates!

Should we change our "what not to ask" guidance? Perhaps added a phrase on the consumer devices description that says "or the repair of such devices" would be a good start?

Answer 1

I frequently leave the following comment (or some variation of it) on repair questions:

Welcome to EE.SE! This appears to be a reverse engineering, modification, or repair question. Please be aware that such questions must involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design of the device being discussed, so that you can ask specific, focused questions that can be answered concisely. Otherwise, the question is far too broad. More information can be found here: Is asking how to fix a faulty circuit on topic?.

Answer 2

This is the only thing I could find on the subject:

What topics can I ask about here?

This site is for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts. We ask and answer questions about electrical and electronics engineering topics, which include electronics, physical computing, and those working with microcontrollers, Arduinos and embedded systems. We feel the best Electronics Design questions have a schematic, links to pertinent datasheets or some source code in them, but if your question generally covers …

a specific electronics design problem the theory and simulation of electromagnetic forces communication scheme the writing of firmware for bare-metal or RTOS applications

and it is not about …

a shopping or buying recommendation

consumer electronics such as media players, cell phones or smart phones, except when designing these products or modifying their electronics for other uses

Programming software for a PC

Source: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

The link takes you here where the guidelines on repair questions were decided. Is asking on how to fix a faulty circuit on topic?

Most of the time moderation queue reviewers can't tell the difference between a consumer product and a hobby project or repair of an oscilloscope, maybe that can be clarified in some way.

The part queue reviewers get hung up on is the "good understanding of the underlying design", for a lot of the queue reviewers the logic might go something like this: "This person's question is dumb and is obvious, so they must not have a good understanding, I'm closing this question" at any rate, there might be a way to change the wording in the moderation queue to clarify that. Queue reviewers could definitely be more lenient in repair question cases and other ways.

On the flip side, if people are repairing something, they should document what they have. Too many times an OP comes and it takes a lot of discussion to get their question clarified\documented up to a point where it is answerable, or that process never happens and the question remains on the site in a half baked state.

Answer 3

First you need to start by addressing people who say "repair questions are off topic" ignoring the help center on topic description like a certain mod. And people who think modification questions are off topic.

Second, you need to address people who think the level of information that a repair question needs is "if you don't know how to fix it, then don't ask." That type of circular, catch 22 logic has no place here.

We can all agree that questions that consist of "here's a picture of an enclosure, help fix" are bad. But a repair question where op has taken the part apart and located a possible trouble spot, typically a burn mark or something, and a description of what they did, is good and should not be dismissed off hand simply because it mentions repair.

Answer 4

IMO a reasonable criterion for repair questions would be to require the user to find a specific anomaly they could measure: an unexpected voltage at a test point, a (lack of) continuity which disagrees with the schematic, excessive current, etc. This is what I understand by "involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design" which is displayed in the custom close message.

I'm convinced that users who are willing to make a measurement and have a basic understanding of what they are measuring (not just a list of voltages across every accessible component) have a good chance of asking good questions and learn from the answers. Accepting requests to diagnose a broken device by photo can be easily abused and is unlikely to teach the OP electronics.

Yes, it's a dumb heuristic criterion, but I believe that complex elaborated criteria end up being too subjective and thus unenforceable in practice.

And yes, that means that there should be a minimum level of understanding before asking. And yes, it's catch 22 for user who haven't yet made contact with electrical engineering. I think it's justified because frankly I'don't think they will learn anything from answers which tell them which components to replace, and it's not the site's mission to save someone $10 by spending a couple of man-hours figuring out an electrical defect by photo.

Answer 5

Maybe something like this:

• The OP has at least some basic knowledge of electronics, and have access to basic tools that are necessary for the repair. Such as for example a multi-meter, oscilloscope, soldering iron.
• The post shows the research effort so far, with pictures. Schematics or datasheets should be provided if possible.
• The repair must be about a specific and narrowed-down problem, such as "how do I replace this electrolyte capacitor and what parameters are important to consider" or "what is the best way to de-solder this QFP", rather than "how do I repair my TV".
• In general, questions about methods of how to best carry out a repair of an electronic device, in terms of best soldering practices, ESD protection, safely disconnecting line voltages etc, are on-topic.

Answer 6

Yes, some good responses and comments.

Here again I get that horrible feeling in my gut thinking what if I was the one asking. I enjoy sharing my knowledge on SE to help people. I hate asking questions because my questions are generally (I feel) harder and those I cannot answer with simple searching and so would like to turn to specialists for help. I am reluctant to ask, not because I think I will not get an answer but because I will be judged on my style, location or format more than the merits of the question.

I have run afoul of mods on some stacks that insist that their way is the only way even though it does not serve the true goals of SE. I believe this goal to be the storing of the collected knowledge of humanity in preparation for seeding an AI on an interstellar colony ship to help with unexpected things that need solving.

Fixing a thing is the epitome of something that needs solving. Suggesting a trip to radio Shack (RIP) or Amazon when on a one way trip is impossible, the same goes for a disadvantaged citizen of earth that has to choose between a working oven and food to put in the oven.

@Scott Seidman you were hoping for concrete suggestions, here are three.

• SE should eliminate close voting and bad question shaming with immediate effect (they only serve the ego, there are no other limitations that are aproacing from having poor questions).
• SE should add tags for repair, homework, new member that are easy to set. A further suggestion would be to make marking as duplicate super simple for high rep users, I just had a look and again was unable to find the button for it. Also make the duplicate marking feature search for likely suggestions and list them by various options with those that the person has been involved in personally (Q, tag, A, Comment, vote, reopen etc) as those are the questions they remember best.
• SE should implement a system that hides poor (repair) questions from critical members so they are not required to see them as soon as their quality becomes apparent.

The rest of the system could work as before with those that want to answer questions doing so (gain points where others would close a question) and those that hate newbies and homework and repair and children and spam never having to see it so enjoying SE more and not having a need to criticize.

I have made these suggestions before and the general response has been they will not be implemented. That they result in poor data. That most people find questions here outside of search. That questions with no or poor answers should not even be here. That mods and long term members don't like to wade through rubbish questions (they would rather take the trouble to close vote them than just click next). That a visitor having found their way to a question without an answer will cause that visitor to suffer PTSD rather than receive some enlightenment in comments, at least a sense of how difficult a question they have posed.

These objections are spurious as my suggestions pretty much eliminate the objections simultaneously with making SE a better place to store information and find this information.

Bandwidth and disk space are no longer even an excuse to use for limiting any question. Have the quality of the question determine the visibility but not the existence.

Remember SE needs to evolve to serve the public or it will eventually stagnate and then serve no purpose even for the owners who are anything but transparent in their rule making. Their stated goals are nice enough for them but there is a lot of manpower that they get for free that they take for granted and do not always treat with respect.