Oh, okay. I ran across one of the posts you were trying to tell people about the dust threshold. If I remember right, their reactions were more to them self-upvoting, which wasn't your point. Oh, well. What can you do? If people don't want to listen, or misunderstand, there's only so much time you can spend explaining yourself.

Play it by ear? Or judge, jury and executioner? Play it by ear is actually related to music, which makes sense. Being able to play based on what you hear rather than by notes. I looked up the origination. Looks like it was first used in 1839 in a newspaper comparing two women (not sure what they were doing, but apparently something to do with music), while the wider use of it didn't come into play (literally and figuratively) until maybe the 1930s, in another newspaper talking about the Brooklyn Dodgers, whom the writer thought 'played by ear' as opposed to, I guess, playing with a plan. :)