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Geoffrey Moore Langdon
CADENCE AEC Tech News # 15 (Dec. 1, 1999)
Internet Discussion Forums
I would advise every CAD user to do four things in order to help keep their skills and knowledge up to date: 1--subscribe to printed magazines for their field (such as Architectural Record and CADENCE); 2--join a user group or association (such as the AIA or various CAD user groups); 3--check out online newsletters (such as AEC Tech News); and 4--join an Internet discussion forum.
Participating in a discussion forum on the Internet is a very dynamic and engaging experience, since you know that, at any moment, you can jump in with your own comments. While such discussions are similar to the erratic flow of dialog at cocktail parties where you may pick up a useful nugget of information only occasionally, these forums differ in that all contributors (even the meekest and most soft-spoken among us) can be equally and fully heard. We all also like to join conversations where we actually know something, so we can contribute, or at least "overhear" discussions on new topic areas. There is also a chance that a new user may ask a question and actually get an answer--though, particularly if it is an old question already answered countless times in the past, it will frequently be awarded with silence, or spark what seems to be a totally irrelevant discussion as someone picks up on some nuance or phraseology or even an unusual email address on the original posting message.
It can thus be frustrating to a new forum user who mistakes such a discussion area for a technical assistance service (which, by the way, every CAD software developer offers somewhere else).
Critical Mass
The most successful discussion forums strike a balance between being too general and too specific. An architect using DataCAD, for instance, simply doesn't want to join a discussion on CAD and wade through dozens of messages about how to draw machine parts or comments on workarounds in countless other CADD packages. Similarly, topic areas that are just too specific may never get that critical mass to ignite a continuing discussion. A question posed on an obscure issue may go unresponded to for months.
In the types of discussion forums that are posted in a place that is accessible permanently online, there is the hope, however, that eventually, even if it is 10 months later, a response to that obscure question may be posted. On such discussions, that is usually the end of it--a question and an answer, maybe two. This is why this type of forum, usually called a newsgroup, frequently consists of thousands of single header question/messages, most of which have no replies. Occasionally there will be a discussion thread--a whole cluster of responses and responses to those responses. Participating in a newsgroup type forum is not quite as dynamic as email forums because it requires that you seek out the discussion area (with either your Web browser or newsgroup reader software), wait for all the message headers to come up on screen, and click to read a message on a topic that looks like it may be of interest (and then find that it is actually just a question on the topic, with responses that are more people asking the same question, and not a useful answer).
Email Forums--A Live Radio Call In Show
Another type of discussion forum puts a message directly in your face by putting it right into your email inbox. This type of email forum can be extremely dynamic and extraordinarily engaging since everyone in the group sees every message immediately. An email forum is sort of "live"--analogous to a radio talk show, as opposed to a newsgroup which is closer to a "letter to the editor" type forum printed in a newspaper.
The radio analogy goes further in that if you are not tuned in by being subscribed at that point, you can actually miss a discussion. This immediacy can actually boost the forum, prompting people to respond right now because that is the topic of discussion, whereas on newsgroup forums they may put off responding for a week or two. Once a person is hooked on this type of forum, they really miss it if they are cut off for some reason, witnessed by the occasional request to have someone forward a previous discussion.
Some of these email forums are archived somewhere, accessible through a Web site, so that a person can go back and read or catch up on previous threads, or, perhaps, scan with a keyword for comments on a particular topic to find recommendations and solutions to a problem. Reading the forum from the archives, though, removes you another step from the immediacy. In fact I once was scolded by a forum-master for being too far behind in responding to questions I had read in the archives.
An obvious problem with email forums, is that you are putting even more messages into your critical working email box along with important notes from clients, employers and colleagues. This forces you to scan through and selectively read even more each morning. A good partial-solution to this, for those of us who already have dozens of critical messages coming in per day, is to subscribe to a "digest" version of an email forum. Forums having this option compact all the day's (or the week's) messages for that forum into one nicely labeled packet, easy to postpone reading until, say, during lunch. The digest versions are also one level removed from that live show, so that if you do indeed post a response message, there is a delay, and probably other messages in the interim, so that you risk looking a little bit slow; however, since a lot of busy top experts subscribe only to digest versions, your fellow forum users usually will cut you some slack.
Just about every major CADD software has an email discussion forum, as you can see from the list of links below. Frequently, the most successful of these are started or run not by the software developers but by groups of actual users, where they not only share tips and tricks, but also comments on better sources of support, and alternative CADD approaches, that no CADD company would ever post themselves. In my opinion, one of the best email discussion forums in the industry, with the most dynamic participation, continual help, and family spirit is the dbug@world.std forum started by architect Evan Shu initially to post meeting announcements for the Boston DataCAD users group. The dbug forum now has dozens of messages each day, with at least four or five thematic threads going simultaneously, submitted from the several thousand daily reader/members from over 20 countries. Besides serving as a model forum for many other CADD competitors, dbug@world.std has resulted in at least four "spin-offs" in other DataCAD related areas. In fact, the dbug forum, despite the "Boston" in its name, seems to have pulled together the DataCAD users in Australia and New Zealand more than any other magazine, association, company, or user group ever could have.
There is no question that the dbug forum has achieved the critical mass that all forums strive for, where discussions continue and new ones start on an ongoing basis. Running such a forum is somewhat like being a host trying to get conversation going at a party of strangers. Evan Shu says that, in the very beginning (almost a decade ago) he found he had to plant seed questions to try to get the comments going (an important trick to note for anyone trying to replicate his success). The discussions are now so dynamic and varied that I know a number of people subscribe to the forum who do not even use DataCAD.
What I like in particular about the dbug forum is what I would call a family spirit. There is a tone of collegial familiarity, where members seem genuinely to regard other members, possibly people on the other side of the world whom they have never actually seen, as friends. Not only are they helping each other selflessly in messages, say, recommending plotter pen settings, but they are sharing bits of their lives with after-comments about their rugby teams, advice and experience about designing certain types of buildings, and opinions on how to deal with employers/employees and engineers with certain attitudes. In using internet forums over the past 26 years I have seen helpful friendly forums many times before, but never like this.
Another extremely successful email forum is the Archi-Talk forum run by Graphisoft. Despite the fear that a forum run by a software developer could be inhibited either by people wary of speaking up and potentially jeopardizing their relationship with the company or the possibility that seriously negative comments could disappear with some invisible editing hand, the Archi-Talk forum has flourished, specifically because the company takes a hands-off approach. The occasional negative comment bears this out and in the long run makes the forum stronger. In fact the independent alternative forum, which I started in the dbug forum model before archi-talk existed, will soon be discontinued since archi-talk is all it needs to be. With archi-talk, architects, builders, and other designers are sharing information about plotting and modeling techniques, advice on customizing the software and setting it up in different kinds of design offices, and so on. As with the dbug forum, the discussions go way afield of ArchiCAD, to things such as sharing advice on design of roof dormers, building codes, doing contracts in a profitable way, and, again, rugby scores seem to pop in there occasionally too, all of which helps make for a camaraderie and helpful feeling which makes you actually want to "tune in" every day.
The Good
Obviously, the purpose of such forums is to share tips and tricks on your favorite CADD software, and, indeed, the majority of messages are shared tips and tricks. The amount of time some people put into this free resource is amazing. An extraordinary and wonderful effort to mention is that of James Horecka, AIA, who started putting a tip of the day on the dbug forum. This generated even more discussions on many of the tips, frequently leading to experiments and discovery of even better approaches. It also reinforced the atmosphere on that forum of sharing and learning (wonderful, really, when you think that we could consider our colleagues as competition rather than collaborators) and, perhaps also indirectly helped to land him a seat on the DataCAD Team in the Designers 3D CAD Shootout in 1999.
I hear from a lot of architects who tell me that the online email forums erase the remoteness they used to feel, that is, being the only xxxCAD user in their state or being so far west in the mountains of Massachusetts, or Oklahoma, or Australia, that they could not get to user group meetings. The forums create a kind of global village with a family spirit and lots of selfless help.
The Bad
I suppose partly good as well as bad is the fact that usually there are multiple topics going on at the same time on any given forum, in that, probably at least one of the current discussions is interesting or truly relevant to oneself right now. The bad part is that you have to keep track of threads in your head. For example, one message might be about how to draft details, the next about doing 3D dormers, the next advice about recommended video cards, the next about 3D dormers, the next about putting details drafted onto plot layout sheets, then back to video cards. It's not too hard to keep it straight, but it can be a challenge. A better way to glean a lot from these forums is to quickly scan every thread, only pausing to actually read the messages which have actual solutions to problems. Some people prefer to follow threads if their email reader supports them and some people archive the forums to use search/scan to find solutions for future problems.
Probably the most mentioned bad thing about such forums is when they get seriously OT--off topic. Threads sometimes get far afield of where they started. Someone tuning in late to a thread may wonder why a thread titled something like "Transferring DataCAD to DWG" could have a vigorous discussion going on about mothballs, furry animals, and ozone generators (this really happened). It is actually interesting to see how these discussions take twists and turns, and CADD forums, as is the case with all forums, frequently will devolve into totally off topic debates over things such as whether when referring to more than one email forum one should mysteriously shift into Latin conjugation rather than English (that is, fora, fori, forai, forums and so on). Worse yet, is when someone actually starts a discussion on an off topic note, perhaps figuring that, as a pool of knowledgeable engineers, architects, builders and xxxCAD users, it makes sense to ask their opinion about something such as how many links in a chain (this happened), or what cities to visit in Italy (this happened, too).
The Ugly
Online forums are famous for getting very ugly. The term flaming was coined to describe diatribe rants that can sometimes occur. Fortunately, all of the CADD email forums are generally far more civil, and even the pejorative software term RTFM is almost never heard. There are, however, negative tones that pop up occasionally, usually due to CADD evangelism and platform snobbery. To be expected, any newcomer asking what software to use will be told about how superior that forum's CADD software is and how terrible the other stuff is (frequently based on outdated information about the other software). Similarly, discussions have turned ugly when some well-intentioned person puts a wish-list on the forum. Occasionally, forums for software that is used by builders, as well as architects, or engineers, may devolve into sophomoric debates about how "our" experience/education is superior or "we" have to do CADD better because we are more liable and so on. The worst is when forums for CADD software that runs on more than one platform go virtually ballistic when a newbie asks whether they should buy a Macintosh or Windows machine--a discussion that always devolves into a adversarial tone, sparking an age-old emotional near-religious feud.
Another, unavoidable problem, due to the fact that all such forums are open to everyone worldwide, is the issue of different prices and dealer channels in different countries so that every time someone mentions the price of their software, it creates a stir in every CADD forum. Just imagine if such an open discussion could occur on your next plane flight about what prices people paid for their tickets.
All these pejorative issues seem to be periodically rehashed in waves alternated by periods of peace and sharing. A given person may adamantly argue the same points in two or three iterations of these waves, and then lurk behind and let others argue those same points when those same bad issues come around yet again.
The Amazing
Sometimes I am astounded at the length and comprehensiveness of a particular person's response, with my first reaction being, "Wow, they must have spent at least 40 minutes typing all this in" and my second reaction (which I frequently try to repress, since I am busy enough) is "they are GIVING away information that people like me need to sell in order to keep being the experts we are." A third reaction is usually "Wow, this is generally pretty good accurate advice." Personally, I usually let those long treatise responses stand (maybe it is that "second reaction" kicking in again) unless there is something glaringly incorrect about it.
A number of people on any given forum actually have stuff to sell to the forum, whether they are software dealers, plotting services, or have books, videos, or symbol libraries to sell. And an amazing thing is how reasonably restrained the advertising is. They tend to let us know periodically about their products or services as they come out or are updated, but the email discussion forums, unlike other media, including regular email, are not saturated with ads.
In fact the general tone is really quite polite and respectful with a family culture, sharing football scores, advice on architectural design, and hardware. You can tell the old time kama'aina of the Internet by their use of the old polite UNIX protocols of academia such as including very brief excerpts of the message they are responding to <<<..in brackets..>>>, never using caps unless they REALLY mean to shout, and creating tiny pictures completely out of ascii characters.
I encourage you to join the discussion forums for the software you use or are considering supplementing, so that we can all benefit from your participation.
The Links
Architectural CADD Internet Mail list Forums:
http://www.architecturalcadd.com/weblinks1a.html
The BSA Committee on Design Software - Forum:
http://www.architecturalcadd.com/bsa/designsoft.htm
DataCAD Boston - dbug@world.std.com:
http://www.world.std.com/~eshu/dbug/dbuginfo.htm
ArchiCAD - archicad-talk@graphisoft.com:
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/news/actalk/actalk.html
MiniCAD VectorWorks Forum:
http://www.diehl-graphsoft.com
AIA I-talk forum :
http://www.aiaonline.com
AllPlan Designers Mail List Forum:
http://www.shore.net/cgi-bin/lwgate/allplan
BSA ArchiCAD archicad@shore.net Forum:
http://www.shore.net/cgi-bin/lwgate/archicad
AutoCAD-BSA Mail List Forum:
http://www.shore.net/cgi-bin/lwgate/autocad-bsa
AutoCAD ArchitecturalDesktop Forum:
http://www.autodesk.com
MicroStation-BSA Mail List Forum:
http://www.architecturalcadd.com/bsamicrostation.html
IntelliCAD User Grou :
http://www.icadusersgroup.com
Cadvance Forum:
http://futureswest.com/discus/board.html
DesignWorkshop Discussion Area:
http://www.artifice.com/support/wwwboard.html
Designers 3D CAD Shootout Forum:
http://www.architecturalcadd.com/cup/98/98webcomments.html
About Geoffrey Moore Langdon, AIA
Prof. Langdon is a registered architect and is the principal of Architectural CADD Consultants, a firm that specializes in helping architectural firms with computing and CADD. He has taught Design, Solar Energy, and Architectural CADD at a number of colleges in the Boston area. He is the author of Architectural CADD: A Resource Guide to Design and Production Software Appropriate for Architects, a guest speaker at many AIA events, and the founder and organizer of the Designers 3D CAD Shootout competition. contact him at aectechnews@architecturalcadd.com, or through his website: http://www.architecturalcadd.com
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