There are a couple of points raised:-
1) Where the forum is designed for the trade should ordinary persons be allowed on the forum as the answer could be aimed at tradesmen and miss lead ordinary persons where we use correctly phrases like “Low Voltage”.
2) There is normally nothing which identifies on DIY web sites those who are in the profession to those who are other DIY’er some sites do monitor all replies before they can be seen and some flag the professionals but even then there are errors with a pro in one trade answering questions from another and dangerous replies getting past the Sysop.
Where the forum is designed for the professional like the IET or
Screwfix site then I would consider any ordinary person who posts a question must expect to get sarcastic answers etc. This does happen with the
Screwfix site but the IET site seems quite good at not going OTT with comments.
As to if you should answer or not I would think most DIY people are going to do it anyway if you don’t answer and to answer showing a safe method must be best option.
As to the DIY forums DIY doctor does not release any answers until they have been inspected by the Sysop and there are very few bad replies. DIYfixit however has no such system and very few users so if someone give an inappropriate answer it could be the only answer the person posting gets and the Sysops don’t do a very good job as adverts for watches appear in plumbing section as replies and the Sysop seems to rely on some one reporting the inappropriate entry.
On this forum there are a host of electricians and any inappropriate entry would soon be picked up and a correction posted and with the name DIYnot I am not sure if this is designed for DIY or Pro users. But if you read the Welcome page it does seem to suggest that the expert team answering the questions are in the employ of DIYnot.com maybe some of you are? But I would think most of us just idle away some time on site and receive no payment and have never had out credentials checked to see if we really know what we are talking about. If one reads carefully it only really says the “information pages” are done by their expert team but I would not think many read it that way.
And I can see there is a problem where this site to quote says “Why not Do It Yourself?”.
Having said that I will answer questions where I think I can help. I will also make mistakes both in the way I have read the regulations and with typographical errors some things I will not answer for example intruder alarm information.
In general I think these sites instruct the ordinary person how to do the job safely and without these site many ordinary person would not know Part P, M, L1 existed and would also be unaware of the changes to BS7671 and on balance I would consider makes the DIY job safer. But maybe there should be a better explanation of where the replies come from and maybe like DIY doctor replies should be released after vetting not before as on this site?
Eric
