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You'll learn more if you do the research

by Steve B
19 replies
Am I becoming intolerant in my old age or are more and more members of this forum simply being lazy about doing their own research?

If you want to know if Amazon allows it's affiliates to do something, why don't you ask them yourself? Or review their terms of service for affiliates, or send them a support question?

If you want to know how much hosting at HostGator costs, why not do a little research on your own?

If you want to find a free WordPress theme for a hamster web site, why don't you use the search engines and find one for yourself?

It seems to me that many people lately (more than I remember from years ago) are starting threads asking questions that they could easily find answers to if they would just spend a few minutes looking online.

Now if you are really stuck and have tried hard to find an answer but can't, then by all means ask away. Or if you are asking for member's opinions based on their experience, that's fine. That's not what I'm talking about.

If you haven't lifted a finger yet to do your own research, IMO you are wasting the time of members here.

Don't say "just ignore my post if you don't want to help me." Or "it's not hurting anyone."

I for one, think this forum would be much better off if all such threads were never posted in the first place. There are so many pointless threads one has to wade through when searching on a specific topic - it takes forever these days.

Steve
#learn #research
  • Profile picture of the author magneticweb
    I quite agree.

    There's a terribly good search engine called, er, let me think now, oh yes! - Google. And on it you can find out about almost anything you could think of, and plenty you couldn't.

    And if you want to find the best ways in which you can access information using Google, then just search on it for Google help, or go to support.google.com, or search on YouTube for "how to use google", where there is at the top of the listings a 5 year old video that has received over 5 million views.

    I hope this helps to reduce the number of threads here that are so unnecessary.

    Philip Gegan
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  • Profile picture of the author Joshua Lowenthal
    I think the great divide happens when there are individuals who have dove into IM or other Business but don't have the foundation skills to support it. So they find themselves understanding the concept but not the details.

    I'll admit I have taken on multi-thousand dollar projects in particular markets, and found myself googling dumb questions late at night because I am just at the point of stuck on something. Usually something minor too.

    With that being said, I can see why a lot of basic questions do pop up but I guess in the end all that can be said is if they could find that key one their own they would. Posting in a forum can actually be a pain sometimes when you know what you are asking is small and probably easily worked out. But we get stuck, it happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    Yes, a forum works like a school, but it’s basically a place for discussions. If you open a tread asking others basic things you should learn by yourself, this means that you are using this forum to find basic answers faster, instead of looking for basic answers yourself. In other words, you are looking for free mentors.

    I found a thread here at a few days ago about free traffic generating methods. Someone had asked the classical question ‘how to drive traffic to your website for free?’ He started having many answers because this is a nice topic.

    However, in the end he asked someone: ‘what is SEO? I’m a newbie.’

    He had opened a thread about ‘how to drive traffic to your website’ without even knowing what a website is…











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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Some of the really, really basic questions aren't because someone is stuck. They're posted to generate eyeballs on a sig offer. They don't care if you clicked the thread to flame them or help them, as long as you keep bumping that thread back to the top of page one.

      Here's an idea...

      Rather than regurgitate the same answer that's been given a dozen times to get your own sig in there, just thank the first instance of the answer you would have given. Let the thread sink on its own.

      Have a question about another site's terms, pricing, etc.? I have an idea - it's a crazy longshot, but it just might work. ASK THEM! That's what they are paying a support staff for. Just because you don't get your answer in a few seconds doesn't mean run over hear and post your support question, claiming that you asked and never got an answer.

      Guess those crabby flakes are kicking in again...
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      • Profile picture of the author Allan_Gardyne
        Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

        Some of the really, really basic questions ... They're posted to generate eyeballs on a sig offer.
        True.

        So advising them to do research won't help. They won't take any notice of that because they aren't actually looking for help.

        So this really needs to be a discussion about how the moderators should deal with oft-repeated basic questions.

        I face the same challenge on my own forum. There, we're gradually getting tougher, dumping stuff that looks like sig-flashing rubbish, which wastes everyone's time. Unfortunately, we seem to be losing the battle, because we weren't tough enough early on. I hope this forum doesn't make the same mistake.
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        • Profile picture of the author butters
          Originally Posted by Allan_Gardyne View Post

          So this really needs to be a discussion about how the moderators should deal with oft-repeated basic questions.
          It is impossible to moderate, some are genuine questions I am sure, some are for eye balls to the sig, either way you can't tell the two apart in terms of moderation. While mundane boring questions which are easily found through a quick Google search are annoying, we as members have to leave them to sink below. You can't penalize someone for asking a question unfortunately (Aslong as it doesn't break the forum rules) because you would be penalizing genuine people at the same time. While I am all for it, I can see why it can't be done .
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          • Profile picture of the author Joshua Lowenthal
            That's a good point. Sometimes people just post generic questions simply to drive traffic to the thread and hopefully to whatever links may be present there. So there is a fine line between genuine interest and questions, and simple IMing. Moderators on fine sites like this and similar sites elsewhere usually have a pretty intelligent and sensible userbase and staff. So honestly I would have to say that the junk will naturally sink and the quality stuff will shine through. Through moderation and the system in which a forum board works to begin with. Maybe just ride it out use that obvious spam thread to get a few post counts in, use it to ad your own Sig. I mean we do all advertise in our sigs for a reason don't we?
            Okay so the non-stop crap threads that don't offer anything and suckle on our ideas and tactics like leeches, or at least want to if we let them, can be annoying but then again there is nothing like helping someone out when they truly are in need and just need a nudge in the right direction.
            People like that are one of the strongest friendships you can make. Granted you may not be able to charge them for helping them out, but they will remember you if you do, and besides no one said you HAD to give them the business for goodness sakes.
            Live and let live. Sometime you never know when you got 24k or fools gold. But don't go throwing the stuff out either cuz, well, you just don't know. But the junk will always dissappear and the good stuff will always be around if you can get it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    I like research a lot!
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  • Profile picture of the author Rbtmarshall
    People who post newb questions, and those who rant about it.

    Whats the difference?
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Ambitious newbies do research on their own. Lazy newbies ask the simple questions on the forum. Both kind of newbies are born everyday. Just the nature of the business - it wont be stopped.
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  • Profile picture of the author Auctiondebteliminator
    I for one would rather draw attention to my signature by having a GREAT post rather than a NOOB post being bumped all of the time.

    I think that is the concept WF is going for in the first place.

    The higher quality the content, the better the traffic, reputation, and user experience for the contributors.

    I'm here to contribute on what I DO know (eBay and teaching people that skill),
    Internet marketing and website construction,
    And to learn what I don't (Expand my product on CPA networks - still way in the dark about that)
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    • Profile picture of the author RobertoM
      It seems to me that some folks are trying to set a kind of censorship here. If you don't like the thread subject or question, just switch off and life still goes on. Let people ask whatever they want even if they are in the lazy mode. Newbies may find a quick answer or at least a tiny golden nugget that may turn on their engines specially if they loose the right path. Nobody will get hurt. I don't like dictators
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    It seems to me that some folks are trying to set a kind of censorship here. If you don't like the thread subject or question, just switch off and life still goes on. Let people ask whatever they want even if they are in the lazy mode. Newbies may find a quick answer or at least a tiny golden nugget that may turn on their engines specially if they loose the right path. Nobody will get hurt. I don't like dictators


    I believe that we need some rules if we want to be well-organized and have better discussions. A forum is a place where we discuss our points of view, we talk about the solutions we found, or we ask for solutions to problems we are unable to solve alone after having tried to.

    I don’t think that the intention to maintain our conversations at this level should be considered oppressive.




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  • Profile picture of the author dsouravs
    I think they know the answers. They just start a thread either for fun or to see what others say or they are bored so they need some talking or they try to know some new out of the world thing...

    sorry I am not harsh...just saying
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Originally Posted by Steve B View Post

    Am I becoming intolerant in my old age or are more and more members of this forum simply being lazy about doing their own research?

    Steve
    Why don't you Google that?

    George Wright
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    • Profile picture of the author ExRat
      Hi,

      I'm sure a lot of it is due to sig file exposure, but if you're not sure and it's the type of question where the asker will benefit from being encouraged to research it themselves, utilise lmgtfy.com, like this -

      Their question - What is an affiliate marketer?

      Your answer - THIS might help you (in more ways than one)

      Tough love works.

      Hi RobertoM,

      Originally Posted by RobertoM View Post

      It seems to me that some folks are trying to set a kind of censorship here. If you don't like the thread subject or question, just switch off and life still goes on. Let people ask whatever they want even if they are in the lazy mode. Newbies may find a quick answer or at least a tiny golden nugget that may turn on their engines specially if they loose the right path. Nobody will get hurt. I don't like dictators
      I don't like dictators either, almost as much as I dislike those who twist the obvious truth in order to arrive at a fallacious conclusion designed to enforce their wishes through guilt implication, emotional blackmail or political correctness.

      The wishes expressed in this thread clearly have nothing to do with censorship or dictatorship and you're not helping or defending newbies with your distortion.

      You'll notice the OP said -

      I for one, think this forum would be much better off if all such threads were never posted in the first place.
      He's appealing to the people who create those threads to think about taking a different course of action for logical reasons. He's not suggesting they are silenced, censored or banned.

      Also, you'll notice my motto is 'dare to be different' but I wouldn't choose to defy convention by using unnecessarily disruptive communication methods to try and get my point noticed because it weakens my argument and is likely to lead people to ignore my words. I'm talking about this kind of stuff.

      It's ultimately self-defeating because it weakens your message and gives off the wrong signals.
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    • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
      Originally Posted by George Wright View Post

      Why don't you Google that?

      George Wright
      Exactly. Why not just ask Google instead of having a discussion about it? LOL
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      • Profile picture of the author RobertoM
        Hi ExRat,

        Your post is very good expressing your point of view which I accept but do not share.
        Don't want to begin an issue with you and I only want to point out some previous comments of this thread that motivated my post and by no means it tried to "twist the obvious truth in order to arrive at a fallacious conclusion designed to enforce their wishes through guilt implication, emotional blackmail or political correctness." You are mixing up the things using the terms "fallatious conclusion, emotional blackmail and political correctness".
        When I read affirmations like:

        "I for one, think this forum would be much better off if all such threads were never posted in the first place."
        "I hope this helps to reduce the number of threads here that are so unnecessary"
        "Guess those crabby flakes are kicking in again."
        "There, we're gradually getting tougher, dumping stuff that looks like sig-flashing rubbish,
        which wastes everyone's time".
        My feeling was that if these folks would have had the power, they surely would precluded this and other similar threads. To me it is a kind of implicit/subconscious censorship. I admit that the term "dictator" has been excessive, and I gladly withdraw that inappropriated term. Sorry for that.
        I think I have the freedom to say what I think, just as you and everybody else in this Forum including the "naive questions" guys or gals, as long as we follow the rules.
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        • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
          Originally Posted by RobertoM View Post

          Hi ExRat,

          Your post is very good expressing your point of view which I accept but do not share.
          Don't want to begin an issue with you and I only want to point out some previous comments of this thread that motivated my post and by no means it tried to "twist the obvious truth in order to arrive at a fallacious conclusion designed to enforce their wishes through guilt implication, emotional blackmail or political correctness." You are mixing up the things using the terms "fallatious conclusion, emotional blackmail and political correctness".
          When I read affirmations like:

          My feeling was that if these folks would have had the power, they surely would precluded this and other similar threads. To me it is a kind of implicit/subconscious censorship. I admit that the term "dictator" has been excessive, and I gladly withdraw that inappropriated term. Sorry for that.
          I think I have the freedom to say what I think, just as you and everybody else in this Forum including the "naive questions" guys or gals, as long as we follow the rules.
          Yup, suggesting people not post redundant answers for sig exposure and contacting someone in a position to actually help, as opposed to treating this forum as the universal support area is a really dangerous form of censorship...

          As my mother says, "Some peoples' children..." :rolleyes:
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