By implication you are saying that any area of the forum which someone does not understand , is likely to carry better quality information than the areas they do understand, so it is only the areas you do understand that contain tosh......
Begging a fascinating philosophical question
PS since the "Knowing the mind thread", which is at least 3/4 of the posts on the entire forum is mostly tosh QED
Not really, to me it reads that it's simply saying you cannot assume that if there is tosh in one area that someone understands well, it does not mean there must be tosh in other areas. Some areas attract more tosh than others
The knowing the mind of god thread is one area that will generate tosh, as there is no provable answer, differerent people have different viewpoints on what is tosh, and what is not.
Religion is not a provable, measurable thing, it cant be backed up with something provable at the end of the day. A post about law, web design or seo, or some other technical aspect usually can be proved or disproved one way or the other.
If there is so much tosh on the forum, why are new members joining daily, and countless posts being made each day by old and new members that are not being corrected or criticised?
To answer earlier posts,
The fourth option, reporting a post is a valid option sometimes - and one I have used before to report spam sometimes. Im open to learn more about it though, as my views currently are as follows (but willing to rethink)
Its hard to apply the fourth option in this forum, as they have a habit of deleting *entire* threads instead of just offending posts. So if someone on a thread, where people had taken the time to read and reply, commented something that needed questioning, or correcting then reporting post for containing inacurrate info would likely (based on previous threads being entirely deleted) mean the thread itself was deleted.
Also, by putting forward a opposing point of view, it gives the original poster a opportunity to reply with counter evidence to prove that they are correct, or to clarify that there are exceptional circumstances that where not originally mentioned that change the facts of the situation.
Also, if people started to learn that you could come onto a certain forum, post misleading info, and self promote to their own advantage, and the worst that could happen if they were caught is the evidence disapears, they would quickly realise they having little to lose by doing so.
It can be more effective if people think twice about doing so, due to the risk that the posts will stay, for all to see the situation as it really is.
Mods may also not be around on the forum, so the post could be up for quite some time before any action was taken, in that time people could act on information they read...
Also, how could a mod handle it differently? Im curious on that one, if someone makes a false technical claim, then instead of pointing out it's false you report it, what would a mod then do? Delete the entire thread? Delete the entire post? Delete just that one claim, leaving the rest alone and not commenting (so people dont realise a so called professional is making false claims etc, or worse have already applied the advice and dont realise it was wrong..) or state officially that their claim is incorrect, which to me seems worse than a fellow poster pointing it out...
Perhaps there is a way to handle this, do you have any ideas?
Are newbies treated differently on forums?
Sometimes.... Depends on the circumstances..
Im tend to post my view on something I disagree with regardless of whether the poster is new or established, I have argued with newbies, and admins, the usual difference is a established poster or mod/admin is much more likely to come back with a response that makes sense, rather than ignore the point, or go on to spam another forum......
Every new poster (you don't already know from elsewhere) on a forum starts out the same way, a unknown person, what they post earns them the respect of other posters. If someone who has helped out lots of people in the past, posts asking for help, I am more likely to go that extra mile for that person compared to a new poster who has not been around long.
I still help out the new posters when and where I can, and from time to time may go the extra mile regardless if the cause is a worthy or interesting one.
At the end of the day, everyone on the forum started with 0 posts...
You can only go by how they post - Im sure if you analysed the posts, you may find that more new posters get corrections/questioned etc than do existing posters, but thats more likely due to the simple fact that lots of people do join up to spam, or self promote, lots of people get a pc, design a website and call themselves a web designer, or a seo... The ones that stick around, and contribute tend to get less flack as they don't tend to post things that require comments in the first place.
Then again, if you analysed the posts again, you could well find that the actual percentage of new posters that are corrected or given what some people feel is a hard time is actually very, very low.... And you would probably find that out of the ones that did attract comments, the percentage of those comments that were accurate was very, very high..
Whereas the actual percentage of new posters that get welcomed and have no comments made about their claims, or corrections made is very, very high.....
I have not done that analysis though, so could be talking rubbish
