dbstealey
dbstealey
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Sep 4, 2008 (17 years) |
- | 5 | 10 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Sep 4, 2008 (17 years)
- Last activity
- -
- Topics created
- 5
- Replies created
- 10
Bio
Enlisted in the USAF in '66 [low draft #]; deployed to Viet Nam <--[old timey spelling]. Re-deployed to Thailand before it was discovered by tourists [from hell to heaven!] Honorably discharged in 1970, IIRC (or maybe 71; memory is like Swiss cheese now).
Following discharge in '71 I worked at Applied Technology, on the same Launch Warning system I'd installed in dozens of F-100's, F-4 Phantoms, C-130 Hercules, and B-52's in Viet Nam. Paid $3.44/hr, but worked six 12's and an 8.
Next job was at Lockheed, where I stayed for 30+ years, working in their Metrology [science of measurement] laboratory. Job duties included the design, testing, calibration, and repair of instruments used to measure and record weather-related parameters: temperature, humidity, dewpoint, wind velocity, and other adiabatic-related wx instruments, using dataloggers, type-R, S, B, G, J thermocouples, and various other weather-related test instruments with calibration that was traceable to NIST, to primary physical standards like the triple point of water, &etc.
In 1974 I met an old real estate broker who thought I could sell houses; I didn't believe him at first, but I got a sales license anyway. After that I sold an average of 2X houses a month, for many years – part time. I got a broker's license two years later, and kept it active for more than twenty years. When I retired from Lockheed (Lockheed Martin by then), I also hung up my broker's license.
I never saw a female real estate agent in the early '70's, when I started selling. Of course, that was some time after the Civil War, when deposit receipts (contracts) were only one (1) 8 ½" x 14" page long, with no addendums. (They said everything today's 80 page contracts say, they just said it in fewer words. Lawyers... *sigh*).
Got married in 1983, terminated same in 1995. Matured, then married again in 2003; a triumph of hope over experience, as they say. But I got lucky the 2nd time, after learning what to look for [character matters!] in a wife. Avoided errors made in my practice marriage [but my 1st spouse was a great housekeeper; when we divorced she kept the house. But now I've got a happy wife; happy life.]
From the mid-1980's – 2003 I tested and calibrated the extreme high temperature [±2,500°C] furnaces Lockheed used to bake various iterations of the Space Shuttle's re-entry tiles. I retired from Lockheed Martin in 2003, after a 30+ year career.
After retiring from Lockheed and real estate sales I had time to kill, so I volunteered at thde Humane Society for several years. I also moderated a couple websites, including a science blog that used up every extra waking hour, for 8 years. At its inception that blog attracted about ≈20 reader comments a month.
But the site's owner was fortunate; he started it at a perfect time, and he was knowledgeable, interesting, and experienced in radio and television media. Plus, he was a great writer, so the blog prospered.
Eight years later we were getting inundated by thousands of reader comments each month, and the blog appeared regularly on the WordPress list of its "Top Ten" blogs; the 10 websites with the highest blog traffic, per Alexa.
That's my CV. Now for a personal note to blog moderators everywhere: Please clean up your act!
Some blogs still have good moderation, but many others have moderators who engage in partisan politics. That can't help your traffic numbers. How could it, if they regularly insult half your audience?
We didn't go from zero comments to thousands per month by allowing flame wars to start. And we never, ever deleted someone just because they expressed a point of view we disagreed with.
Deleting someone's comment — or worse, using software to make them think their comment was posted, when only they can see it — is guaranteed to reduce your Alexa numbers, and those victims will never trust your blog again.
The Golden Rule applies in moderation like it does anywhere else: Treat your commenters like you would want to be treated. This goes even further for moderators: if you have an Edit screen, you need to control bad behavior.
Never let one commenter attack another. That will either start a flame war, or it will drive off the one being attacked. Either way that will negatively impact your numbers. And NEVER delete a comment just because you disagree with it. That' s just bad karma (remember, I'm from the sixties!)
If you want to monetize your blog (and who doesn't), always keep this in mind:
Eyeballs = Revenue.
A word to the wise is sufficient: Monetize!
...Gnome sane, compadre?
~⸨}𒑱𒑞^/⫸
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