I assume you refer to wring’s linked thread. I was not aware of it at the time I began defending him. Further, I don’t see myself as specifically defending handy. I know very little about handy, and must have rarely encountered him (does he post a lot to GD?). I have no personal knowledge of his being a drive-by poster, or a rude obnoxious poster, and relied completely on descriptions of him in this thread.
My point was a general one. I believe that a person who is deaf is entitled to some leeway with regards to the overall quality of their posts. At the time that I posted this, it applied to handy with regards to the specific allegations being made against him in this thread. It was, again, not intended as a overall all-purpose defence of handy against any and all allegations.
wring, I got the joke, but didn’t think it made sense unless there was a presumption etc. I guess not.
I strongly suspect that what handy does is to read the OP, but little or none of the ensuing replies in the thread. Hence we get stuff like this. He’s done stuff like this in other threads, and it always baffles me why he does that.
Personally, I just regard him as part of the background noise here on the SDMB. He isn’t in the same category as some of the posters we get here from time to time, the ones that are barking mad. So it hardly is enough for me to lose sleep over.
But it is enough to irritate. I once heard someone coin the word “logorrhea” to refer to someone with verbal diarrhea, where they just talk incessently while never saying anything of value. Is there a word for diarrhea of the keyboard? If not, perhaps we should coin this word, so sadly lacking from our vocabulary.
Well, I for one felt like cheering and/or bursting into song when I read that thread. I’m sick and tired of reading post after post by handy that contains incorrect or at least misleading information. Invariably someone will come along to defend him by saying “Oh, he’s sort of right, look here, this sentence sort of makes sense.”
Yeah, well, this is the Straight Dope, and in GQ, if you don’t have a good, solid, factual answer to a question, you should simply refrain from posting. Posting what you think you read in some magazine article, or what you vaguely remember from a conversation you had two years ago, or an urban legend that you read somewhere but didn’t bother to verify, or whatever, is totally inappropriate. And yes, other people do it too, but handy does it more.
Anyway. As could probably be guessed by the fact that I’m the OP of this thread, this is sort of a sore spot with me. I’m just glad handy has been prevented from providing incorrect info in at least one topic area.
I’m not defending him because he’s “sort of right, sometimes”, I’m defending him because I detect a posting style that doesn’t lend itself to solidly Googled factual answers. He’s the kind of guy who tosses answers off the top of his head–I know plenty of people IRL just like him. Not all of us pause to give careful consideration of what we’re going to say before we say it.
So, what? Maybe he should just stay out of GQ? Maybe. But there are times when other people give “wrong” answers in GQ–I’ve done that myself. And nobody jumps all over them.
It’s not like we’re writing Holy Internet Scripture here, and it absolutely has to be “inerrant”.
I’m just saying I wish people would ease up on Handy and go look for worthier targets. Who’s our Racist in Residence at the moment? Go hammer on him for a while…
The problem, DDG, is the sheer volume of handy’s blatant misinformation. Others do it occasionally, or make an honest mistake, but handy just doesn’t care. I view handy as a definite detriment to GQ - he wastes other people’s time in refuting his nonsense. (Handy alone probably exceeds any 10 other individuals.)
Banning might be too severe, but I for one would be quite happy to see handy forbidden to post in GQ at least. However, given the fact that he also regularly posts sexist, and occasionally racist, remarks (as the one linked above), I wouldn’t regret it if he did manage to get himself banned.
The problem is the standard, alievation of ignorance. When someone, over a long period of time continues to post ignorant bullshit, which he has already been called on that rather indicates he’s not learning, is not interested in learning and is just engaging in a form of low-grade mastubatory trolling.
If it were occasional, fine. But it’s 100% of his particip. Not only that, he’s got a dumb fucking attitude about it, rather than knowing when to take correction. When Manhattan and Lynn tell you you’re a fuckup it’s time to straighten up or …
I see every reason for people to call him on it and no reason to continue cutting slack.
MPSIMS or IMHO are forums for “I heard” and “maybe this will work” or “one time an alien told me” solutions. GQ is the place for FACTS or at least verifible advice. handy has provided droves of misinformation that drives me batshit. Why? Because despite the board admonition to be wary of what you read on message boards, people may believe that he is giving out correct information, and he rarely does. His consistent posting of misinformation boggles the mind. Why post if you DO NOT KNOW the answer? Leave it alone and move on to another post.
I’m with DDG on this one. While Handy is being dealt with by the proper people some posters here should just lay off. This thread reminds me somewhat of a few ugly incidents I witnessed in school. Somebody becomes unpopular for whatever reason and everybody feels like they can get a free dig in.
For what it’s worth, I have had a healthy dislike for handy LONG before I realized the sentiment was shared by others on the board. I’d be reading a thread in GQ, see a post by him, and think, “Wow, that was distinctly unhelpful.” Next thread, same thing. Next thread, same thing. Or, “Geez, that wasn’t just unhelpful, that was WRONG.” Finally I got so fed up that I went to the BBQ Pit to start a thread about it, only to do a search and find that several people already had.
As other people in this thread have pointed out, we all make mistakes sometimes, and we all occasionally screw up when posting to a GQ thread. But the vast majority of us do it unintentionally, and are genuinely trying to help. handy is apparently just trying to boost his post count by posting whatever random thought comes to the top of his head after reading the OP. I’m just really, really tired of it, and it gets really old to continually warn newbies that most of the time when handy posts advice/comments/what have you to a thread, he doesn’t have a clue in the world what he’s talking about, and you should probably disregard his post.
I’m really sorry if anyone thinks I am unjustly picking on handy for whatever reason, but I think that my reasons for starting this thread – namely, that handy continually and unapologetically posts incorrect and misleading information in GQ threads – are totally valid.
Handy is presumably an adult and can defend himself, if he chooses to. He has chosen not to, again and again and again and again. He has chosen to continue posting to threads without regards to whether the information he posts is factual or correct. So I have no sympathy for him. Yeah, it might look like people are “piling on” handy, but that’s because he has pissed off so very many people with his posts. I’ll stop being pissed off and irritated at handy when he stops posting crap in GQ.
Okay. I’m not interested in taking this to the mattresses, I just dislike pile-ons.
I still maintain that I don’t think he’s being “wrong” or “unhelpful” on purpose. I see a difference between, “Oh, I see an OP about which I think I know something, so I’ll go ahead and post something that I think is helpful”, and,
“Oh, I see an OP about which I know very little, but I’ll go ahead and post something off the top of my head, and if it’s wrong, so what.”
I think Handy’s style is the first. Other people seem to think it’s the second. [shrug]
And I definitely don’t think it’s a kind of trolling. He is what he is.
And–I don’t think it’s relevant to say, “Oh, Handy never shows up in his Pit threads”, like that proves something about his character (“too cowardly to defend himself in the Pit?”). There are other people don’t show up in their Pit threads.
