# GQ is for factual answers, not WAGs. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 15, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701 "2011-10-15T02:28:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/61 "2011-10-17T17:49:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I can’t help it. I’m from Rhode Island. 😃 Hope you let me know if you visit some time. We can go to Al Forno and get some half decent pizza. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/62 "2011-10-17T18:07:12Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > 😃 > > Hope you let me know if you visit some time. We can go to Al Forno and get some half decent pizza. Did you see what I posted in the CS thread about Pizza? I haven’t been back in years, but I’d love me some AF Pizza. Is The Hot Club still there? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/63 "2011-10-17T18:16:17Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Most of those people don’t know about phishing. If you asked someone if they were sure it came from their bank and wasn’t a phishing expedition, you would be able to tell if they understood the concept. That’s kinda what it looked like in the thread in question, because the OP decided to be terse, then shirty. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/64 "2011-10-17T18:43:10Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > Yes, they do, but only when the truck What is this I don’t even ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/65 "2011-10-17T19:12:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Did you see what I posted in the CS thread about Pizza? > > I haven’t been back in years, but I’d love me some AF Pizza. Is The Hot Club still there? Yes, thus the HALF-decent jab. I believe the Hot Club is the place on the waterfront they are tearing down as we speak. ETA: I may have the Hot Club confused with something a little further down the waterway. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/66 "2011-10-17T21:30:06Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Yes, thus the HALF-decent jab. I believe the Hot Club is the place on the waterfront they are tearing down as we speak. > > ETA: I may have the Hot Club confused with something a little further down the waterway. It was used as the bar scenes in _Something About Mary_. When I lived in Providence it was run by the same folks who owned Al Forno, or at least the kitchen was run by them. Same pizza. Best in the world! ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/67 "2011-10-17T21:50:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It was used as the bar scenes in _Something About Mary_. When I lived in Providence it was run by the same folks who owned Al Forno, or at least the kitchen was run by them. Same pizza. Best in the world! Thinking all the way back to a week ago when I was out on the water, Hot Club is still there. A place most recently called Shooters is being torn down to put up some condos. Now that the I195 and India Point projects are done there’s going to be a lot of construction around there. I can find out who’s running the kitchen at Hot Club if you’re interested. BTW: Would you feel safe driving over a bridge built by the NIROPE brothers? I wouldn’t trust them to deliver a couch. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/68 "2011-10-17T22:02:52Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > That’s kinda what it looked like in the thread in question, because the OP decided to be terse, then shirty. Shrug. I was able to see that he understood what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/69 "2011-10-17T22:44:43Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Shrug. I was able to see that he understood what was going on. I wasn’t - at least, not straight away. I’ve never heard of the validation scheme he’s talking about, so as far as I could see (and clearly I’m not alone), it looked like someone who was being phished. Subsequent posts by the OP in the thread didn’t add anything of substance to put that right - so everyone continued their panicky warnings. Interestingly, none of this has anything to do with WAGs. You don’t know what you don’t know - It’s not even as if the folks who posted early in that thread _could have_ known to hold back. There’s no way to tell the difference between things you know and are right about and things you only think you know, but are wrong. I didn’t post in the thread, because it had all happened already by the time I saw it, but I’d have made the same mistake as all the others - because the sketchy OP would have fit the picture of someone being phished, and because I’ve never heard of the password validation the OP meant to be talking about. My earnest, urgent response would have been “stop what you’re doing! - you’re being scammed!” - _and there would be no way for me to have known in advance that I’d be wrong_ ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/70 "2011-10-17T23:12:32Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I didn’t post in the thread, because it had all happened already by the time I saw it, but I’d have made the same mistake as all the others - because the sketchy OP would have fit the picture of someone being phished, and because I’ve never heard of the password validation the OP meant to be talking about. My earnest, urgent response would have been “stop what you’re doing! - you’re being scammed!” - _and there would be no way for me to have known in advance that I’d be wrong_ I think that’s the issue that the OP had - the assumption from little evidence that he was enough of a twit to not know what phishing is. As I said before, it wasn’t “are you sure you aren’t being scammed?”, it was “obviously you don’t know enough about the internet to know about phishing”. Not in those words, but that is essentially the message, and no one likes it when people assume they are stupid. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/71 "2011-10-18T00:16:05Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > _and there would be no way for me to have known in advance that I’d be wrong_ Except, of course, if you knew anything at all about what the thread was asking. The people who had done this in the past knew exactly what I was talking about. **curlcoat** is right. This is more about attitude than content. If someone had posted “I’ve never heard of this before, are you sure you aren’t being scammed?”. Fine, I’d have explained it. But coming out with definitive statements when you don’t know what you are talking about is annoying as shit. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/72 "2011-10-18T00:55:38Z")
It was definitively a case of phishing. ---
**Author:** ![Amblydoper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/73 "2011-10-18T02:29:13Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Except, of course, if you knew anything at all about what the thread was asking. The people who had done this in the past knew exactly what I was talking about. > > **curlcoat** is right. This is more about attitude than content. If someone had posted “I’ve never heard of this before, are you sure you aren’t being scammed?”. Fine, I’d have explained it. But coming out with definitive statements when you don’t know what you are talking about is annoying as shit. treis, why did you phrase your OP in a way to make people assume that you didn’t understand anything about the topic you were asking about when you clearly did? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/74 "2011-10-18T03:57:10Z")
> [@Amblydoper](#): > > treis, why did you phrase your OP in a way to make people assume that you didn’t understand anything about the topic you were asking about when you clearly did? It wasn’t phrased that way. People who had experience with the matter knew exactly what I was talking about. Generally GQs aren’t written so that every Tom Dick and Harry with no knowledge of the subject matter can understand them. The point was to get an answer to my question, not provide a lesson on bank verification techniques. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/75 "2011-10-18T06:06:16Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Except, of course, if you knew anything at all about what the thread was asking. The people who had done this in the past knew exactly what I was talking about. right. And to the others who couldn’t quite read your mind, it looked like you were describing phishing. And they had no possible reason to suspect anything else. That’s the crux. Yes, they didn’t know - but they didn’t know that they didn’t know. They answered in good faith. > [@](#): > > **curlcoat** is right. This is more about attitude than content. If someone had posted “I’ve never heard of this before, are you sure you aren’t being scammed?”. Fine, I’d have explained it. But coming out with definitive statements when you don’t know what you are talking about is annoying as shit. If you ask someone who is being scammed whether they’re sure they’re.not being scammed, they’ll most likely say they think it’s legit. I think we’ve even seen that happen in GQ. And what you perceive as arrogant, definitive statements can be just as easily interpreted as arising out of urgency and great concern. Seems like you knew there would be potential for confusion, but didn’t disambiguate your question. You got the wrong answers for reasons you could easily have curtailed. Even when you responded to the wrong answers, you didn’t really provide clarity. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/76 "2011-10-18T06:14:18Z")
> [@treis](#): > > It wasn’t phrased that way. People who had experience with the matter knew exactly what I was talking about. Generally GQs aren’t written so that every Tom Dick and Harry with no knowledge of the subject matter can understand them. The point was to get an answer to my question, not provide a lesson on bank verification techniques. Agreed that generally, they’re not written that way, but this one should have been. The problem isn’t about who knows the exact answer. The problem is that to a whole bunch of other people, it looks like a different exact answer. Misidiagnosing something is not the same category of error as guessing at it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/77 "2011-10-18T06:17:04Z")
Or to put it more simply: the thread you’re complaining about is not a supporting example of the phenomenon you’re complaining about. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/78 "2011-10-18T07:03:02Z")
**OP:** Sometimes when you win the Nigerian lottery, they let you pay the taxes in advance by Western Union. How does that work? **Poster A:** A criminal falsely claims you have won the lottery, and tricks you into wiring them money, which they then pocket. **OP:** No. This is a legit lottery like the National Sports Lottery Nigeria. **Poster B:** No, they are only pretending to be a real lottery in Nigeria. No legitimate lottery is going to ask you for the taxes in advance. If you have made a wire transfer already, try to cancel it immediately. **Poster A:** Not only that, but you should report this to Western Union so that they can trace the thieves. **OP:** I’m not a moron. Fuck off. [Poster A does some research and finds, improbably, evidence that the National Sports Lottery Nigeria really does require advance payment of taxes by wire transfer.] **Poster A:** Hm. It seems that the NSL really does require advance payment of taxes from foreign residents. This is such a bad idea, because 99% of the time this scenario is a scam. [later, in the Pit] **OP:** Waah! GQ is full of morons who are just **guessing** at answers to my questions! Even after I **told** them they were morons they continued to provide me with misinformation! Obviously they **don’t know anything** about how lotteries or wire transfers work. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/79 "2011-10-18T07:16:09Z")
Exactly. The most straightforward, common, factual answer based on a plain reading of the question, happened to be wrong. It’s annoying when people just guess at answers in GQ. That’s not what happened here. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701/80 "2011-10-18T19:13:31Z")
**Psychonaut and Mangetout** , it’s still obvious you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. The key difference that you all are overlooking is that the Nigerian scams and phishing come unsolicited. The verification process that **treis** is talking about is something **you initiate** with your bank and the other party, like a brokerage firm in order to link the accounts so you can transfer funds between the two. **You** start the process and only then do they ask for your bank info. I knew exactly what **treis** was asking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-is-for-factual-answers-not-wags/599701.md?page=5)