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fermenting question
Alex,
I understand your position, I just have a difference of opinion. If people can't take out 2 minutes (or less) to search the archives, why have them?
I want to use a possibly poor example. I am a Unix/Linux network administrator. When I started learning Unix a number of years ago, newbies were LUCKY to get a regular system admin to give as much advice as people get here. If I asked a question like "how to I compile software?", 99% of the time, that person is sent a link to the archives. If the question has been covered 40,000 times, again, a link to sent to previous discussions. If I said "I don't get it, can you explain it to me?" They wanted SPECIFICS, what EXACTLY is the problem? Otherwise, it was obvious I just wanted my hand held, I didn't want to give any effort, so I was sent back to the archives.
Why? Because, frankly, the admins were tired of newbies taking the easy way out. The would rather rehash a question than take out a few minutes and LOOK FOR IT. Essentially, it was "oh just do it for me" rather than "let me help myself".
Does this sound nasty? Yeah, probably. Do I mean it to? No, I don't. Myself and many others take time out of our day to help lots of newbies out here, then another newbie comes along and asks the EXACT same question, even though it was answered 3 days earlier, and is still fresh in the list! To me, that means that person was just too lazy to bother searching.
Again, does it sound nasty? Probably. But I don't mean it to.
In my opinion, if someone just asks the question and can't bother taking the time and research the problem, they appear to just want nothing but hand holding. Hey... believe me, I enjoy helping others, I really do. I enjoy teaching others how to brew. But I only want to type the same message 15 times before I get burned out on it. Maybe others here LOVE to rewrite the same thing every day over and over. Good, I'm happy for them. I don't. I want people to use their resources. The archives here are excellent. We did the work for a reason.
If you look and can't find your answer, PLEASE ASK! I am happy to tell what I know. But this junk of asking 8500 times about sanitizing... good lord... we have discussed this!
I want people to use the archives. There is so much to learn. Not only that, you may stumble across extra information the other person asked that you may have not thought about.
No this isn't a personal attack. Not at all. I just want others to use what we already have. There is so much valuable information available here if people could take 2 minutes and look around.
Please, use the resources here. I will help people the best I can as long as I see they are doing what they can to help themselves.
Anyway, I think this has been covered pretty well. Time to move forward.
I took a look at the links you posted, do any of those people still post on here,
or, have they left?
Come on man lighten up.
This isn't doing the board any good.
Maybe the new guys are just excited about brewing, I know I was.
You don't have to post an answer, I could have handled this one, I don't mind helping out the new guys, it wasn't that long ago I was one of them.
True my experience is limited, but there are more advanced brewers here that are willing to help them out as well.
It helps them and it helps the board to get, and Keep new members.
I am sorry, I know that I should probably let this go but I have to put this out there. If I were new to homebrewing and finally got the nerve up to post my mistakes/doubts/shortcomings on a website with a bunch of experienced brewers on it, and the first thing that I was told was to "check the archives, we're not going to answer your question about sanitizing your primary because it was covered two months (or two days) ago." I would be out of here, Period end of question. There are a ton of forums out there and I am sure that I could get my question answered on one of those just as easily.
I know that when I started brewing I had a lot of doubts about what I was doing. And most of the time all I needed was my ego stroked and to be told that I was doing everything right and that I should just "relax and have a homebrew". I am sorry but you are NOT going to get that kind of comfort and reassurance from reading the archives. So i say post on new brewers, i will be happy to answer ANY question that you have, no matter the topic.
Again I will put it out there if you don't want to post to a thread because the topic has been covered in the past then don't post to that thread, skip it and move on to the next one. There are enough people here to cover all the questions. And eventually the "newbies" will be the ones answering the "My airlock stopped bubbling" questions. Because afterall the best way to learn something is to teach it. Then we can all sit back and wax intulectually about the perfect yeast strain with the perfect attenuation and superb flocculation, or the perfectly balanced IPA. Or better yet work on a beer exchange program.
I do agree though that people should read the archives to gain knowledge and insight, but don't rely on that as your only source of info.
I am sorry, cubx, that you where treated the way you were at your place of employment but don't take that out on everyone here. I was in the Navy for Five years and I hoped that my new guys would ask me the same questions as the person standing next them, because in our job if you had doubts about what you were doing, planes didn't fly and people could die. Bit of an extreem example but since we are throwing them out there.
As always Cheers and happy homebrewing.
Hey all - relax, have a homebrew. 
My opinion on this? Yes, people should do a search - I have to make that feature more readily available. At the same time, if someone asks a question that has already been answered, and if someone who has provided as much input as cubx has answered the question before (possibly repeatedly), then those of us who have been around for a while need to step up and answer the question.
I am still a newbie at this brewing stuff (although I'll have to tell you about my next brew - I'm really excited about this one), but having encouragement from people definitely is helpful.
You guys are more than welcome to address these topics through the private message system with me personally. I would prefer if we didn't go through these arguments in public like this...
alexr, everything sounds like it is going well. As someone else mentioned just wait 10 - 14 days to get it go. I honestly never check my gravities, except maybe out of curiosity to see how much alcohol I can expect and to see if I hit my proper gravity on the front end. If you give a bit of extra time on the yeast, you will clean up the beer and put it on its way to maturing a bit better.
Each of my brews spends two weeks in each fermenter, two weeks primary, two in the
secondary two in the bottles.
I don't even check gravity till then. Except to see where it started.
Be patient.
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