My pet peeve here is people who take up a whole paragraph without even mentioning why they're posting.
I know a lot less electronics than most of the gurus here, but I have a lot of expertise on alarm systems that most electronics gurus don't have. So I look for posters with an alarm system question/problem. Don't take this the wrong way, but all the electronics training in the world won't help if you don't know how alarm systems are assembled or what protocols the various systems use, and by their nature, they are all customized. You can't buy an "alarm system" and take it out of the box to install. You buy the components, and install it in your home (or other premises) before it's a
system; and there are a myriad of ways the same components can be assembled, so I often have to ask for clarification before I can diagnose the problem.
So I feel I have a contribution to make here, once in awhile. I spend most of my Net time on DIY Alarm forums, but I like to check in here.
They way I search the threads for alarm system questions/problems is to hover on the subject line to see the first few lines of the post. Consider this recent post:
"
Hi everyone. My electronics experience doesn't extend much beyond an electronics kit as a child and what I learned in college physics and computer design courses, so I'm a complete beginner here - go easy on me "
So to see if he was posting in about a problem I could help with, I had to open the thread and read beyond his introductory lines. When I'm trying to check all the new posts, that's a bit of a bother. Like donkey, I would really appreciate it if new posters would name their question/problem right away. Or even better,
put it in the title.
Oh, and my favorite Title Line? "Please Help!!!!" For all we know, poster wants help getting gophers out of his lawn.
Or maybe has an abusive boyfriend.