I’ve seen that attitude a lot from people who have set themselves up to be educators or intellectual authorities lately, mostly on the internet. I’ve encountered it here at the SDMB a very few times, and it is disheartening.
I actually understand why people resort to that kind of response sometimes; as a former creationist and current card-carrying advocate of evolution in all of its glory, I’ve tried to combat what I take to be ignorance in the form of certain creationist arguments on various message boards, and it gets tiring to finish one argument only to have another person come along and start up the same argument all over again. But if I really think about it, and I really want to help people to overcome a lack of understanding about a subject, I have to consider that not everyone has the same experiences and background as myself; simply telling someone that they should read Gould or Ernst Meyr and leaving it at that may make the conversation easier for me, but it leaves the reader frustrated. And if I choose to tell them to check out certain books by saying, “Go to Amazon.com and do a fucking search and just read books,” again that is an easy answer for just about any question that comes my way, isn’t it…? But what good does it do for the person who asked the question? It just makes the querant wary of asking any more questions of me, lest I berate them for having asked. I think this is a very poor attitude to take if one wishes to encourage other people to educate themselves.
…
This is probably the tamest BBQ Pit post to come along in a while. Maybe I should add a few ‘fucks’ in here to legitimize it…
I’ve seen the thread and post that probably inspired this ‘rant’ (it is a bit tame, but I don’t mind ), and agree that this is hardly an inspiring or ingorance-combating way to contribute. A poster should state what he says and be prepared to back it up or at least give some pointers, or should just stay out of the thread. No-one is forcing you to enter a thread. I will admit some leeway in case you have a reason for being brief or vague (I’ve used the excuse of being at work and/or not having reference works by hand), then if someone asks for more backup, you can give it at a more suitable time.
What doesn’t seem right is (like happend in that thread)
you ask politely for help because a simple search, with the terms the poster himself said would work, yields too many results;
then the poster starts yelling about doing an f***ing search. Granted, I’ve seen far worse, still it is intimidating for someone only asking for information or a reasonable debate.
To my mind you have behaved perfectly correct. Nothing in your posts warranted this kind of reaction.
I guess some people are simply irritable. There are a few of those around here (who compensate by on occasion having good info), luckily the vast majority of the posters are very helpful and polite. In case of this specific poster he might have a reason for is behaviour given his expertise (Middle-eastern political affairs, if I’m correct) and the current situation in the world. That however doesn’t improve his reaction. If anything he should have kept his nose out of the thread if he didn’t have the time or patience to give a proper reaction.
Good thing, though, that you started this thread instead of letting the original thread explode.
Thanks, TTT. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time, and that includes trying to be understanding when people come across as rude or condescending…but I’m human too, hence the great wrath and furious anger expressed in this diatribe.
I feel all better now; I won’t even have to pay a visit to the Stabbin’ Pillow.
Generally, the only time I really get cranked is when I plainly state “this is based on my own, personal life experience” and someone yells “CITE!”, which has happened to me once or twice. Excuse me? I just told you where I got the information.
But sometimes something is soooooo obvious, or sooooo easy to find, that the poster should look it up him or herself. Or if it’s a topic that’s been done to death, saying “look it up in the archives” isn’t necessarially unreasonable.
When I am speculating or not sure I do try to mention that in the post.
But sometimes the info really is from a book or article you read ten years ago and you just can’t recall the particulars. There are some people who come out here and expect others to do their homework for them. Sometimes, responders to your post will point you along the way, but not be interested enough to do the digging for you - in which case, if you really want to know, you’ll have to learn how to do your own research.
Broomstick, I can understand your position and may in fact have been ‘guilty’ of the same. We’re only human and may forget things, even while remaining firmly convinced of the correctness of our memory.
What irked Cuckoorex in this specific instance was that the other guy first said: search on terms X, Y, Z. When Cuckoorex replied that this got him too many results and politely asked for a bit more aid in the search, the guy gave a rude dismissive answer. If he had said: “I’m sorry but I’m pressed for time”, “I can’t remember exactly anymore” or something like that, that would have been different. Now he only tried to make Cuckoorexfeel like an idiot, which surely is unwarranted now that he has rejected creationism ;).
In retrospect I probably should have done a more comprehensive search…though, quite honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if there are any unique debates going on in GD aside from ones regarding current events, and if a good percentage of new debates in that forum might be circumvented by advising people to simply look for the threads that covered the subject in years past or telling them to go read books instead.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone poses a question and I go to Google to check some facts, and it pops up with pages and pages of relevant, comprehensive and reliable information. Mind you, I don’t normally use any special search techniques the first time around, only when I have trouble finding something in particular. In other words, nothing the OP couldn’t have found with less typing than he/she used to pose the question in the first place! Arggghhhhh! Look, I don’t mind doing web research. I rather enjoy it, actually; but at least make a rudimentary effort first.
Here’s my take on this - if I post a question, I want YOUR answers. If your answer happens to be a cite, great, I’ll go read it and see if it works for me. Some questions have definite factual answers - GQ stuff. In those cases, it’s likely that I already TRIED to look up a factual answer with no success (or as mentioned, so much success that it’s not possible to sort through all the answers.) But if I asked in IMHO or CS or MIPSIMS (or GD, although I never go in there) I’m asking Dopers what they think about something.
If you don’t have an answer, that’s OK - and I don’t mind if you pop into the thread to share an anecdote or even a wisecrack. But I think it’s just plain rude to pop in and say “neener neener, I know the answer and rather than telling you what it is, I’m going to make you look like an ass for not knowing it too.”
I think starting a new thread on an old subject is no big deal. New people come or old people come back and nobody really wants to see an old thread bumped just because someone had another question on it.
But this time and in this instance the last race thread had dropped to page 2 in GD one stinking hour ago!!! It was right on page one at 9 am eastern. There wasn’t any need to search, just read the damn front page of the stinking forum you’re posting to.
Sheesh!
Cuckoorex, honestly, there’s is some REALLY good stuff on race in our archives. You’re not asking anything particularly original in your OP, though if you read the other threads, you might come up with more questions or a different angle to discuss.
People have spent a great deal of time crafting responses, detailing arguments and providing cites, should they do it all over again just for you? Collunsbury could have been more helpful and provided links like Biggirl did, but seriously, reading those threads would give you lots of stuff to think about.
Since I’m not aware of what thread (or threads) inspired this one, I was just commenting on the OP itself. It doesn’t seem to me that Cuckoorex was “calling someone out” - it seemed to be a complaint about a general trend here…and one that I have noticed, too. I started a recipe thread this morning looking for two specific recipes, and got in response one link to a recipe search engine (no shit, I COULD have done that myself, but I was actually hoping to initiate some tried-and-true suggestions from people I “know”) one wisecrack (which, as I said, I always welcome just because I like to read and I like to laugh) and one actual answer to part of my question.
People who post questions here deserve answers, or at least to be politely pointed in the general direction of possible answers. Providing a link (without an explanation of why you think the link is relevant) or a stern “google it yourself, I’m not here to waste my time” type answer is both fruitless and in some cases just plain rude. If you have no constructive answer to give, or you’ve got a problem with the question (as I suspect is often the case in GD) YOU’RE NOT REQUIRED TO GIVE THAT QUESTION ONE SECOND OF YOUR TIME.
Cheesesteak, if you were to enter the word “race” into the SDMB search engine, how many threads do you think would pop? The OP has a relatively small number of posts, which indicates he or she may not often read here or post here, and may not be aware of ongoing discussions, or who would be best to ask. What is so hard about posting a polite “We’ve been discussing this topic in this thread and you might find some good answers there” ?
Like I said in the beginning of my post-- there’s nothing wrong with asking a question that has already been asked. But in this particular case there was already a thread on the front page titled “Race Debate (continued)”-- there was no need to even do a search.
So I guess I can see how the OP would be upset about being asked to search the subject when it took too much effort for him/her to read the first page of GD and find THE EXACT SAME QUESTION ALREADY UNDER DISCUSSION.
LifeOnWry is right on target regarding my reason for posting this; the thread that everyone is referring to might have been the specific catalyst for this thread being made but it is the general attitude that I’m really referring to, and it’s not limited to the SDMBs.
Biggirl: I completely overlooked the thread that you mentioned until you pointed it out in this thread. Thank you; that thread in itself was very informative. But get this, here’s part of my point: what you just did is EXACTLY what would have sufficed to point out the error of my ways and avoid any hard feelings all around. Instead I was greeted with a condescending attitude and no real useful information. Seriously, if Collunsbury had said, “check out the thread called “Race Debate (continued)” somewhere on the first few pages of GD,” I would have just used one of those ‘smack myself in the forehead’ graemlins and said, “thanks, I sure feel foolish now for starting a new thread for it!” The point is that he didn’t have to come in there AT ALL, but when he did come in, he had to be an asshole about it.
All that being said, I do feel that I blundered by not noting the most recent thread that you were referring to. I have no good excuse for that other than human fallibility.
), and agree that this is hardly an inspiring or ingorance-combating way to contribute. A poster should state what he says and be prepared to back it up or at least give some pointers, or should just stay out of the thread. No-one is forcing you to enter a thread. I will admit some leeway in case you have a reason for being brief or vague (I’ve used the excuse of being at work and/or not having reference works by hand), then if someone asks for more backup, you can give it at a more suitable time.
