Jester's How To Guide: Episode II- Soliciting Assistance

[Jester316]

Welcome to Episode II of Jester's How To Guide. Today we will be covering how to solicit assistance in an online forum. Utilizing my previous breakdown style, I will cover some of the key points and concepts to getting the help that you so desperately need.


When you identify a problem that you are unable to fix on your own, there are a plethora of things you can do. Depending on how complicated the issue is, you can deal with it yourself, or take it to someone who gets paid to fix that sort of thing (example: car-mechanic, toilet-plumber, computer- Bad Karma,...). Generally, this is the easiest way to get something fixed, but can lead to large bills that you don't have the money/ don't really want to pay.

If you decide to fix something for yourself, there are a few things to think about. Do you really know what you are doing? Are you going to hurt things more than help things? If you are set on doing it yourself, have fun. Fixing something that is broken is a very rewarding experience.

If you want to fix something yourself but don't know what to do, you can come to the hive-mind that is airsoftpacific.com. Doing so will greatly increase your chances at a first round fix to most any problems you can have. However, when asking for advice there are many things you need to inform the masses of. I will go over the important ones in depth.

Issue
It is important to give as much detail about the specific issue as possible. Telling us that the "gearbox won't cycle" is no where near enough information. Airsoft guns are complex things that have many tight junctions. Any one of the pieces could be the culprit. Giving us as much information about the specific problem will allow us to serve you to the best of our ability.

Bad Example: Gearbox won't cycle properly.
Good Example: When pulling the trigger, the piston is slow to come to the rear of the gearbox and stops before it is released. The motor has a loud whine to it, and there is an abnormal smell coming from the pistol grip.

Given that example, we would tell you that your battery is probably underpowered, and you need to get/try a higher voltage.


Brand
Brand is important in that if we need to give you advice on replacement parts, we can offer high priced replacement, or cheap OEM. It will also help us understand the quality of the parts you have. Sure, we may flip you shit for buying a Crossman R6 and wanting to fix it, but it's because we don't like to see people asking for help repeatedly.


Upgrades
Upgrades are also important in that some things don't play nice with others. It's good to know when you have an m140 spring being pulled by a stock JG motor and you aren't getting the rounds per second you were hoping to on a 8.4v NiCad battery. Along with upgrades, it is imperative that we know WHO installed them. You don't have to name names, but we need to know if they were professionally installed, or did you or someone with little to no experience try to put them in.

What have you done up to this point to "fix" it
In the EMS world, we call these interventions. Everyone tries something. Rarely will you find someone who encounters a problem and immediately takes it to the qualified technician. Letting us know what you have done (or anyone else up to this point) will help us to determine if there are more underlying issues besides your main one.

Example (see above example for information): I tried to shoot the gun in full auto to see if it would cycle, but now it doesn't do anything. (At this point, again give as much information as you can about the circumstances that led to this issue; such as holding the trigger down for 60 seconds while the gearbox wasn't cycling...).

Any other pertinent information
This is the point at which you should tell us anything else that you think may be important to solving your issue. Hopefully you've already given as much as you can, but there may be that one little thing you forgot to mention. This is also the place to put pictures if you have them. GOOD QUALITY pictures help us out more than you can imagine. Because we can't look, see, touch, smell,... what you are, a picture gives us a little more to work with.




So, now you've requested help in the best way you can. You've given all the information you can, and are waiting for assistance. At this point, understand that people need time to think. Responses may take anywhere from 30 seconds to days. Be patient. Some of the people on here are even so in depth as to take their own replicas apart to help try to diagnose the issue. Sit back, relax, and wait for the reply's. When they come in, be courteous, and listen. Remember that many people will give you advice. Some people will attempt to give you advice even though they don't know what they are doing. Your job will be to weed through the good advice from the bad, and listen to the knowledgeable people and not the 15 year old kid who doesn't know what they are doing.

[Limpy]

Sticky demanded!

[Blender]

Wow, that is alot of reading.

But very helpful

[Bad Karma]

Thanks for the shout out

Great guide, to boot.

[Jester316]

Episode I can be found here: http://airsoftpacific.com/viewtopic.php ... ght=jester

[Switchback]

Sticky demanded!

But then nobody would read it :/

Good work, Sir. Extremely helpful; I think it should be added to the "Forum Rules". We could avoid many "muh gun iz brokzorz" threads.