[sjb]

I concede .  But somehow, I have this feeling orgostudent may not have learned fischer indole synthesis.

You raise an interesting point (as you have to several of my posts over the last few days and weeks, so thanks), and have got me thinking.

How much should answerers assume questioners know? High school, college, university syllabuses vary quite a bit so it might be that hydrazone formation is the desired answer here (hydrazine + ketone with H⁺ catalysis gives what?), just as the "add 1 equivalent of Grignard to ester, get ketone" was the answer to that question a few weeks back.

After all, anyone can post in any forum so far as I know - there is no need to flash an ACS, RSC, or GDCh (for instance) card to gain entrance to the "(insert speciality) forum for Grad students and Professionals", and perhaps people would lose out on a lot if that were the case. I'd like to think that by posting here people are more motivated to learn about chemistry, rather than seeing it as a "help help gimme gimme" thing, so the extra detail doesn't bother them, but perhaps I'm a bit naive here.

This is perhaps one of the skills of a teacher, being able to tell white lies about subjects and giving a student what they what and need to know without giving the whole story away in the case of complex subjects.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

(Note to mods, if you want to move this elsewhere, feel free to do so - it was going to be a reply in Organic Chemistry, but I thought it might be better in here  - could still be wrong  )

S

[macman104]

After all, anyone can post in any forum so far as I know - there is no need to flash an ACS, RSC, or GDCh (for instance) card to gain entrance to the "(insert speciality) forum for Grad students and Professionals", and perhaps people would lose out on a lot if that were the case.

Indeed.  However, I am suprised occasionally at the lack of knowledge that seems to be possessed by some of the people that make their thread in the Organic Professional forum (maybe they think they'll get "smarter" people?)

I'd like to think that by posting here people are more motivated to learn about chemistry, rather than seeing it as a "help help gimme gimme" thing, so the extra detail doesn't bother them, but perhaps I'm a bit naive here.

I'm not even sure it's really about whether they *want* to learn more, but I answered that question from the perspective of how much extra information is too much to cause confusion.  It's quite possible that your suggestion for the fischer indole was perfectly understood.

If the poster is completely new, and the post is put together coherently I usually assume a basic knowledge of whatever it is they're asking.  If I go to far and confuse them (like I did in that one thread where I suggested gatterman-koch and they said they hadn't learned it), then I back off and go slower.  However, I don't think there's any harm in too much information intially.

This is perhaps one of the skills of a teacher, being able to tell white lies about subjects and giving a student what they what and need to know without giving the whole story away in the case of complex subjects.

I agree.  I mean, frequently, you learn something in a lower level course, and then you later learn in a more advanced course that what you were previously told wasn't completely true, and that there are actually considerations of x,y and z to take into account.  I don't see it as deceptive, but merely as giving out information and distilling a concept to the most basic parts for a student to process at the time.  Later on, should they pursue more, they can realize that "gee, there are also these other pieces that I should consider".  Like you mentioned above, the whole ketone grignard thing is a good example of this I think.