Posting wild speculation in GQ & citing "A friend who is usually right"

The BBQ Pit
1

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9036245&postcount=40

In this GQ thread, smiling bandit is the first responder to the OP, posting a claim which is frankly extra-ordinary, and cites “A friend who is usually right”.

When asked by me to provide better cites than that, he states he wasn’t making the claim, only reporting it.

Now to me, GQ deserves better, and I offered up that opinion. At which point I was invited by smiling bandit to take it to the pit, as he “didn’t have time to debate my 'tude”.

So here it is.

I deplore this sort of response in GQ, by smiling bandit or by anyone else. Extra-ordinary claims offered up as fact, and a total shirking of responsibility for what one posted. To me, it runs counter to what GQ at the SDMB stands for.

I’ve noticed more and more of this in GQ lately, and frankly I find it quite discouraging. While I enjoy the give and take that GQ affords, along with the opportunities to demonstrate one’s wit (or lack of it), the main purpose of GQ seems to me to be a place where folks with credible knowledge may address concrete questions. Not where folks can offer up very non-mainstream theories and then decline to retract or defend them.

That’s what I think about it, anyway.

Is it just me? Am I getting too cranky after over 7 years here, trying (and apparently failing) to fight ignorance? If the consensus of the Teeming Millions is that GQ should not be taken so seriously, then perhaps I would be best served not to hang out there anymore.

No, I’m not making threats to walk away and sulk, but seriously, GQ is all too often becoming a painful trial for me. I expect to be challenged there, and had better back up my assertions or be prepared to modify them at least. But I no longer have a taste for correcting other posters’ misguided assertions, even if I do have some useful knowledge in the area in question.

So let me know what you think.

2

Agreed. These days, there are too many GQ “contributors”, many with high post counts, who come from the all-opinions-are-equally-valid camp.

And god help you if you attack their views in GQ. It used to be okay to vigorously challenge nonsense there. Not any more.

3

According to an acquaintance of mine who is rarely incorrect and whose existence is beyond proof or falsification:

–smiling bandit’s friend is a babbling magpie whose last coherent thought was lost to humanity, being absorbed by his own rectum;

–human musculature did not exist until Charles Atlas’ first advertisement appeared in the back of Superhero Comix #9;

–you’ll never make the cover of GQ, so quit carping; and

–the other forums, whether their requirements are factual, logical, grammatical, or even merely entertaining, are declining just as fast or faster.

Sorry, Qadgop: with respect, I think you’ve discovered a suspicious mole on what may be a decaying corpse.

4

I agree QtM, in fact I would go so far as to say **smiling bandit ** compounded spreading ignorance with being a jerk later on. GQ does have too many weak WAGs and jokes in the early replies. We have plenty of forums for WAGs and jokes, it would be nice if GQ is kept to a higher standard.

I will ask, did you report his posts? You really should have, the mods do not have time to review all the threads without our help.

Jim

5

Remember, Doc, “it’s taking longer than we thought”.

You make far too many valid, interesting contributions to leave GQ. Most of us know the difference between unfounded and occasionally loony speculation and the quality data you provide.

6

I, too, agree. It’s nice to have a friend who is usually right, but if that’s your sole basis for belief, you’ve really offered nothing but an opinion.

7

I’m one who will throw a joke around in GQ fairly often, but it’s either obviously a joke, or I put a smiley on it. What **SM **did in that thread was quite different-- he was obviously posting on a subject about which he was quite ignorant. Using a “friend” as a cite is pathetic, especially when posting what you remember that friend might have said some time ago.

That said… I have yet to see a thread of this type (that involves human evolution or comparing humans to animals) that doesn’t attract a whole slew of idiots posting absolute nonsense. Grading on that curve, I’d say this infraction wasn’t too bad.

8

It isn’t just you. At an absolute minimum, it’s you and me.

Anyone who spends any time here at all should know that we have experts on evolutionary biology who post regularly. There is no excuse whatsoever for posting WAG bullshit from “a friend who is usually right” 18 minutes after a question about evolution gets asked. It forces other people to waste time debunking the bullshit instead of answering the question, and degrades the quality of the Board.

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He’s right on one thing-- you are free to evaluate his source. Unfortunately for smiling bandit, “a friend who is usually right” means absolutely nothing outside his head.

I sorta think of it as the MPSIMSification of GQ: more anecdotes, more drive-by jokes, less useful information.

10

smiling bandit offered idiocy beyond the pale in that thread. You, Qadgop, have offered valuable information for years in GQ, and I hope you will continue, especially in light of the moronic alternative available in the person of smiling bandit.

11

Lend him your cigar cutter. :wink:

12

Thanks all, for reassuring me that I’m not a lone voice in the wilderness.

I guess I’ll continue to be egocentric enough to share my 2 cents when I think my 2 cents are shinier than anyone else’s!

13

Part of the problem is that so many of the questions don’t have factual answers, and so invite speculation. Maybe we should lower the bar for kicking a thread out of that forum. That thread is a good example, although there are plenty worse.

14

I didn’t mind Smiling Bandit’s post as it at least served as a jumping off point to my thread and stimulated the conversation. Lots of my GQ questions wither and die off after just a few replies (since I seem to ask some pretty boring questions :stuck_out_tongue: ), but this one provided some nice reading and education for me as it progressed. I am sorry to see that there was some ruffled feathers during the discourse.

His follow up was a cheap shot, no doubt, but I’ll digress. I’m completely guilty of usually contributing nothing more than my own cheap **Cervaise ** and Bryan Ekers imitations in GQ myself, and therefore not totally unresponsible for the continuing possible denigration of the overall substance of the forum. I may not be the most learned person on the boards but I do like to feel that I’m contributing something. I’ve been rebuked and rebuffed plenty of times for my less than stellar information, but I’ll freely admit it when challenged. Perhaps the best course of action for Smiling Bandit at that point was to be a bit more demure and consider that his information wasn’t sound, and for that it’s a decent pitting, but to roundly dismiss peoples honest effort at trying to reply the most they know to threads in which they aren’t the masters of information seems a bit elitist.

15

Having read the thread, I learnt a lot about evolution and chimpanzee strength from various posters.
I didn’t learn anything from Smiling Bandit (nor his friend).

16

I agree with you 100%, but in my own defense perhaps there could have been factual response to my question that I wasn’t aware of. If, as it seems in this case, there isn’t one the thread should be moved. Despite my earlier post to this thread I’m all for tightening standards in GQ if the overall consensus is that they should be so tightened.

17

I probably gave smiling bandit and his friend’s suggestion far more attention than it deserved, but really…a Pak protector?

18

I’ve only been here a short time and have noticed a few people doing that as well. Come to find out, they’re more wrong than the initial poster’s speculations.

19

I hardly think I was doing that.

But I will challenge people on their info, and expect to be challenged on mine. In GQ anyway.

20

No, you weren’t and I apologize for the hijack. I suppose I feel a bit sensitive about it and have perhaps overreacted.