In between my pizza-delivering hours, I do some work as a freelance writer. There have been a few times that I’ve been doing research where my Google-Fu wasn’t up to the challenge, or I simply needed a few more ideas and wasn’t sure where they were going to come from.
I have been tempted in this situation to ask the Board, but I’ve held off because it seems a little… exploitative? Obnoxious? User-ish?
That said, when I put myself in my regular Doper shoes, with no deadline hanging over my head, I feel like I wouldn’t have a problem tossing a few ideas to a fellow Doper in the same boat. After all, if I don’t want to help the guy or gal, I don’t have to.
So: is it permissible (and more importantly, polite) to post a query along the lines of, “I’m working on an article, and I need an example of a dwarf who was a noted ladies’ man?” (That’s not something I am looking for, just the first thing I could think of.)
I’ve seen a lot of threads along the lines of, “hey - I’m writing a short story, and need some input. How would this person react in this situation?” or “my character is an expert in _____ - what she say/do here?” The SDMB is a great crowdsourcing resource for stuff like that.
And I don’t see anything wrong with that. Wouldn’t you also ask your friends in real life? And for any other type of research, wouldn’t you use us?
The only reason we don’t want to help people with homework is that part of the purposed of homework is to teach yourself and give yourself experience. We don’t want to cheat your learning.
But for writing a book or article? Nah. If we would want credit, we’ll either ask or not answer. So have at it.
Just ask away. If people feel like you’re asking them to do too much work, they just won’t reply. Experience suggests that plenty of people here love the challenge of a little research.
As for the “homework” thing, i’ve always been opposed to the “no homework” rule on the Dope.
Firstly, while i agree that the idea behind it (that people should do their homework themselves) is valid, i think it’s stupid to enforce it as a board rule. If someone comes in and clearly just wants the membership to answer his or her homework questions, most people will tell that person to take a hike anyway. It should be left to each member’s choice whether or not they’re going to enable a lazy student.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, all the “no homework” rule does is weed out people who aren’t creative enough to frame their inquiry in a subtle way. I can think of plenty of ways to ask a homework question that would escape notice of the moderators and the membership.
Finally, the silliness of the rule has been driven home on a few occasions by moderators who have shut down perfectly reasonable threads—where the OP was not simply asking for answers—with the argument that the threads were just homework. The first one that comes to mind is this one. the closing of that thread was discussed here.
That’s awesome! Now I kinda DO want to do a story on vertically-challenged Casanovas. Don’t be shocked if such a query turns up in GQ in a few days, after I do some research of my own.
I feel like what I would want to see from somebody asking me for help is some proof that the questioner has already done some work on the topic, so that’s the standard I’m going to hold myself to: “Here’s what I’ve been able to find out so far; any other ideas would be welcome.”
Remember that Creative Loafing jointly owns the copyright of all posts on the SDMB, so if you’re using info posted on the SDMB you need to get permission from the OP and Creative Loafing.
Yeah, if you’re quoting posts in full – but if you’re taking information contained in those posts as a starting point for your own research, that’s not relevant.
I think you will be just fine with that. Remember that in this board’s infancy its sole purpose was to answer questions that people couldn’t find any where else. That’s what Cecil’s columns are about, and that’s what GQ is about (or at least it’s supposed to be about that). Ask away, even if it is related to something about work.
One thing though, if you do sell an article about a dwarf who woos tall ladies, I’m going to want a check.
Not at all. As others have said, ask away. I’ve actually started several threads to bounce ideas for short stories off of the 'doper community, even though I didn’t explicitly state that was the reason for the threads. In my experience, 'dopers LOVE to answer questions and just shoot the shit and speculate about stuff, and a lot of the times they will either think of things or go in directions I never anticipated, or will shoot holes in my lovely plot lines or find aspects that are flawed. I don’t intend to ever publish any of the stuff I write, personally, but if I did I’d simply put in something that gives credit to the board in some way if I used ideas from a thread I started.
