First of all, I don’t need a bunch of people to jump on the bandwagon and tear the guy down. That’s not the purpose here. One purpose is simply to get this off my chest before I explode. Another purpose is that I think this needs to be aired out a bit in public for it to be effective.
handy, I’ve met you face to face and I think you’re a decent enough guy. You generally seem to be friendly and it seems that your intentions are good. But…
I swear to god I have never seen anyone spew so much bullshit and misinformation in my whole life as you do. Now, I realize that this modality of communication is a special one for you, due to the fact that we can all stand equal as far as hearing’s concerned, and I respect that. SO DON’T FUCK IT UP BY BEING A MORON! Don’t you see that almost every one of your posts is followed by someone correcting you? Do you think it’s a coincidence? The ironic thing is that you’re doing this on a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance. Anywhere else, it would be at least tolerable. But it certainly is not tolerable here. Frankly, I don’t know why the mods haven’t done anything about it. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re trolling or not, but it sure seems like it sometimes.
I guess I’m just sick of reading through a thread where people have submitted answers based off of experience or reasearch and you just come on in and stick in some made-up bullshit and expect people to believe you. What’s worse are the people who don’t know you and might actually believe something that you say.
It’s been said before, and will be said again. I asked for moderator action before because of one of his posts in the middle of a GQ question (he posted a song, if I recall correctly. The topic was tenant rights) Nothing was done, so I just stopped reading his misinformation. I find it sad that people that don’t know better may take his advice.
Hey! I’m not going to defend handy, but myself, I spew just as much BS–look around at my posts. I may not get corrected as much, but I say even more (untrue) junk as a normal 14 year old guy.
And handy, once and for all, as I post reflexively in EVERY “CD Burning problem” thread you have EVER posted in, burning to a “music” CDR on a PC or Mac based burner (as opposed to a stereo component burner) will NOT improve the audio quality. So stop suggesting that it might.
Don’t get me wrong. I spew just about as much bullshit as the next guy, but I try to keep it in the proper place. I’d say about 85% of my posts are comprised of conversational garbage. What I’m really getting at is when people have legit questions.
By nature I am not the kind of person who stays up all night researching a certain poster’s actions. This bitch is based off of a year and a half experience on these boards, constantly being bombarded by “handyisms”. ;)That said, let me quickly look for some cites here…
Here’s an obvious one. Either there is an executable program or not. Sorry, but there’s no “one chance” that he missed. How do I uninstall Win Me?
Add another “well said”, Demo. Handy has irritated me for quite a while. Although I have learned to simply ignore everything he posts, I am continually horrified when I think that some newer posters with less experience with him could actually follow some of his advice.
Amedeus, you wanted cites, and Demo, you mentioned a search. I did a “Since 5 Days Ago” search on handy, and found that there were 62 (!!!) posts active in the last five days on which handy posted. Let’s review the first ten of them:
The first listed was CnoteChris’s So I want to start a business thread. Handy posts a brief comment suggesting that he talk to an insurance agent and look for books by Nolo Press. Actually decent advice, though as a lawyer I’m a bit leery of Nolo Press.
The second was Dignan’s Ask the Paralyzed Guy thread. His comment, in response to a general discussion several posts up on the types of paralysis caused by different spinal injuries was, in its entirety:
His answer reveals that he knows little about spinal injury. It is my understanding that medical professionals number the cervical vertebra, and the location of the injury may be important in determining the severity of the paralysis. However, as Dignan explained just a few posts above this, the type of injury (spinal bruise or severing) can be much more significant than the location of the injury, and there is no “simple system” for determining the impact of the injury. Also, I seem to vaguely recall that the cervical vertebra are numbered from the skull down, so that an equivalent injury to a vertebra with a higher number would likely result in less severe paralysis. In any event, his posting his unsupported “guess” (without any further research) on a factual thread provides no help to those who seek information, and could be dangerous if it is wrong.
The question on the impact of the ADA laws on the lives of the handicapped is an interesting one. However, since handy has a physical disability, it would have been useful for him to have provided his views on the matter, rather than simply asking a short, open-ended question.
The third was UncleBill’s Doctors? Sunburn and little white bumps, where UncleBill requested medical advice on a severe sunburn he recently suffered. Handy’s response, the second post in the thread, is a quotation of part of a webmd.com article which discusses the trend toward the use of Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs) “to reduce wrinkles, spots, and other signs of aging, sun-damaged skin,” and summarizes medical concerns about their safety. Unfortunately, the quoted article has absolutely nothing to do with the posted question, which asks for a medical response to a current, acute condition, rather than the impact of AHAs, or any other treatment, on chronically sun-damaged skin.
The fourth thread on the list was jarbabyj’s Naughty Naughty Nutmeg thread, which addresses the hallucinogenic properties of nutmeg, and includes a, aside on the sexual practice “teabagging.” Handy’s response, after pulykamell’s anecdote on a friend’s accidental overdose of nutmeg and the mild hallucinations that resulted, among other severe reactions was:
Although his affirmation of the effect of nutmeg is nice, he provides no information on the source of his authority (personal experience, medical knowledge, prior research, ???). His “I don’t think its like acid though, nice try” comment is utterly useless and snide besides. Similarly, his teabagging comment provides no information on what “teabagging” refers to in gay bars, so somebody may make a comparison of possible other understandings of teabagging. Later in the thread, he provides a useful quotation (without link) from webmd.com about the effects of nutmeg.
The fifth thread on the list is brother rat’s Relation Hall of Shame which wondered about the average closeness of familial relationship between SO’s (i.e. how distant cousins average spouses might be). Handy’s contribution was:
Yes, much of Europe’s royalty is related through intermarriage (see a family tree of Queen Victoria’s descendants, for example), the idea that entire European populace is of common descent is preposterous (even considering that some believe that we were all can trace our original descent to Adam and Eve or Noah’s family). Coldfire quite appropriately lampooned this: “handy’s right, as usual. Back in the day, two Africans took a stiff walk around the Mediteranean, settled in a place we now know as Grenoble, titled themselves “King and Queen of… hey, what the hell, Europe”, and started breeding like rabbits. White people are all descendants of those children.”
The sixth listed was an IMHO thread handy started himself entitled How many sex offenders are there in your city?, which brings up an interesting topic. However, the only source for finding the number of sex offenders he provides is abc7news.com, which has listings limited to the San Francisco Bay area. An OK start of a thread, I guess, but not one that contributes much to the overall discussion of this important societal issue.
The seventh listed was Esprix’s Blondes DO have more fun thread, in which handy had two short posts. The first, in response to a discussion of natural vs. dyed blond hair, was: “Eyebrows always tell the natural hair of the person. I always look at them to know whos got real blond hair.” Although a great disparity between the color of head and eyebrow hair may indicate a dye job, its absence indicates nothing because some people get their eyebrows dyed, too. The second was in response to brother rat’s jocular comment in which he discussed his “research” into whether blondes, nude women, or bald women had more fun. Handy asked: “brother, would you venture to guess which one of them has the highest thought of intelligence?” Putting aside the degree to which this may offend those who are concerned with the “dumb blonde” stereotype, it did set up a fun response by brother rat in which he hypothesized about the impact of differing absorption of microwave radiation based on hair color.
The eighth was Barbitu8’s general question on Webcam Causes Computer to Start, in which he inquired about how a webcam would make a shut down computer start up every 20 minutes. Handy posted: “Sure, obviously he set the web cam software to do something every 20 minutes. Like send a photo to a web site. So turn it off in the software.” However, it is clear from the OP that the computer user does not know if it is a hardware or software issue, and more clearly, does not know how to turn it off. Overall, an utterly useless post.
Frankly, this response is mind-bogglingly stupid. Everyone with any actual knowledge – from Coldfire, the mod responding on the thread, to TubaDiva to Ed Zotti to Jerry Davis, the Chicago Reader tech guy – has repeatedly pointed to the slow speed of the server in relation to the volume of traffic as the prime cause of the board’s sluggishness. Whatever handy’s speculative theories about the board’s slowness are (and he does not cite to them here), they provide help to neither the user who was concerned nor to the people trying to resolve the issue. His comparison of his ISP to the boards is laughable, revealing his failure to understand the differences in technology and economics between a large ISP server supported by monthly service fees and the small server for a single message board site generating no revenue for a free alternative newspaper.
Finally, the tenth thread is SNenc’s Long-distance relationship advice needed in MPSIMS. Mixed in among detailed posts giving advice based on the posters’ experiences with long distance relationships, handy throws in: “As usual, you make your decision what to do & take the consequences as they come SNenc. It would be interesting to see how far you’ll go for a woman.” Huh! That adds nothing to the discussion and is vaguely insulting to SNenc. Later handy adds, out of the blue: “One thing I like about LDR is that I can have a woman in each state.” Huh, again! This one is discordant and more than vaguely insulting in a thread discussing how to have a committed inter-state relationship.
I realize that this post is long and detailed, but unless you look at a broad sampling of his posts (or have seen him in action for a long while) it is difficult to realize how utterly pointless – when not positively injurious – his repeated drive-by posts are. It’s particularly jarring when his posts are entirely unresponsive to the OP and subsequent discussion. By spouting off his unsupported speculations in response to serious questions about medical issues, computer problems, legal questions, relationship issues and whatever else he stumbles onto on the boards, he can be a real menace. In his nearly ten thousand posts, the small handful that contribute to the fight against ignorance are overwhelmed by the vast majority that perpetuate confusion, bad advice, and misunderstanding.
Dear God, I’ve tried to explain this to him a number of times. I’ve posted several traceroutes to the server at different times to show the exact effects of network speed as opposed to server speed. I’ve discussed how a database works, the effect multiple user have on it, and how long a request can take. This thread is the most in depth example of several people trying to disabuse handy of the notion that the slowness of the board is generally due to something other than server speed. Note the dates as compared to the thread Billdo mentions.
Other than that, I generally like handy. I suppose with the number of people here who are experts in various different fields, there are going to be several who get annoyed at him for posting misinformation. But he just seems so easygoing and good-natured really that there’s no way I’m really going to be pissed at him.
My take on it is this: the difference between handy and the average poster is that handy posts the first thing that comes to mind, without thinking it over. Obviously, this leads to half-assed anwers based on something he once read or saw somewhere, and might misremember or mispresent now. NOT a desirable course of action.
In 99% of the cases, I just regard his posts as white noise. They add very little (although on occasion, he does seem to be on the mark regarding some computer-related questions. NOTE: I said SOME, handy. Some), and are generally not very well written. I’m fully aware that handy’s approach to language is different than mine or most others, so I’m not going to attack him for the way he posts. He could try and sound a little less condescending at times, though.
Why he seems to insist on his own theory regarding the speed of our server, rather than just accept the facts as we’ve presented them to him at least 40 times already, is completely beyond me as well.
There are times that I wish his SD handle will self-destruct upon reaching 10,000 posts, but most of the times, I just ignore him. Well, unless I point it out to him when he is (deliberately?) spreading misinformation again. I consider it part of my job to point that out to anyone, however.
I pretty much agree with the general tenor of Billdo’s observations but also see much merit in waterj2’s last paragraph. In other words handy’s posts do generate a very mixed reaction from me cos - although I like the bizarro, left field stuff - if the ultimate goal is to fight ignorance his contribution, though large, is not just lacking weight, it can be misleading. And the whole women thing (from his ‘experiences’ to his philosophy) is not particularly palatable.
It might be a bit of a stretch for some folk but I like to think of him as the Austin Powers of computer questions – at least in his own mind.
He did seem to make a more measured contribution after his last Pit Thread (in which I managed a passable impression of General Custer at the Little Big Horn) but things do seem to have deteriorated again. This is a real corker from yesterday from Relation Hall of Shame – a classic SDMB style thread:
Gotta love that stuff! (and Coldfire correctly stood on his fingers for that one)
But then on the Austin Powers theme, I found this extremely difficult to grasp in **Zyada’s **shagging thread :
I don’t like to dwell on someone’s handicap but it did leave me pondering for how long handy has been deaf.
In all, I say live and let live but it does sometimes seem he’s more intent on hitting 10,000 than in posting quality responses and, unfortunately, that rather undermines the purpose of the board.
shows exactly what I mean. I was stunned that he didn’t get a mod slap for posting garbage (a song, copywrite violation, probably) in the middle of a GQ thread, then he continues on with:
[quote]
How do you know they are on Welfare Eve? That’s my main picky point with you.
First of all & you should have noticed this too Zette, there is NO MORE WELFARE! Clinton dropped this program years ago!
Don’t you guys read the news?
Also, Zette, Im well aware of the HUD rules. I have been aware of them for 22 years & have plenty of their rule books.
[quote]
You can read my responses in that thread, but I just blew up. GQ is for asking and answering General Questions, not spewing half-truths and bullshit theories. Since that thread I’ve not spoken to him or read his drivel. I don’t care what he posts about, but when false information is posted in GQ with no cite to back it up, or when obvious insults or garbage are posted, I think the person should be warned about it.
[Minor aside] I imagine the phone call was via a textphone - minicom or somesuch.[/minor aside]
I’d like to add a “well-said”. In fact, i was just thinking last night of starting a pit thread about this very thing. Coldfire has it on the nose - I think Handy just doesn’t think before posting. It’s white noise and it’s irritating.
Since I doubt he’s actually going to come to the pit to defend himself, let me say that I have never been bothered by Handy’s posts, and sometimes his one-liners are funny.
I think its ridiculous to criticize him for not posting citations for every comment that he makes in GQ. Take a look at the average thread in that forum. More often than not people make statements there without backing it up with a reference to a specific source. If you have doubts about the information that someone gives you in GQ, its not too hard to verify it using something like Google. There are certainly worse offenders of this in GQ than him.
But Handy is probably wrong about his views on the server. I don’t doubt that doing searches on a specific poster’s name, just so you can nitpick them, slows down the server significantly.
You do understand the difference between posting bullshit compared to posting something that is factual. I don’t recall anyone demanding that he posts “citations for every comment he makes in GQ.” All that has been asked, is that he stop flooding the boards will bad information.
That, and the fact that his perception of women seems to be pretty screwed up.
