[Dougeefresh]

is what I am hearing more these days.
I've had my newbie days with posts that garnered no response just because (a) subject beaten to death (b) no one knows about it (c) buried in the fast moving pace of the forum (d) not enough time has elapsed for others to notice the post (e) I am a paranoid freak who must be treated like the most important person in the world...
 
It seems like people (especially new members) expect you to answer questions (often right away) when asked because this is a "forum" and when they don't get answers that they are satisfied with, they assume no one's helpful or everyone's ignorant.
 
I've learned a lot on headfi by being helped my other members AND spending hours searching for answer in this mountain pile of information, and tried to give back as well.
 
I know asking questions without doing research is much easier to do as I am guilty of this as well but don't blame others for your laziness and trying to shortcut when you don't get helpful answers.
 
DYDD first! (Do Your Due Diligence)

 

[LithoJazoSphere]

Yeah, honestly I sometimes feel like the first thing that should pop up for people new to Head-Fi is a little message that shows them how to search (using Google and typing "site:head-fi.org 'search key words'" is much better than the internal search engine).  I spent months searching and researching here even before I ever signed up and posted.

 

[Exediron]

Perhaps, but the flip side to that coin is that the members themselves should search to make sure there actually is preexisting information on a topic. Nothing is quite so annoying as someone coming into the thread and saying 'The search engine is your friend!' if you've already searched exhaustively and haven't found the answer to your problem.

 

[Dougeefresh]

Quote:

Perhaps, but the flip side to that coin is that the members themselves should search to make sure there actually is preexisting information on a topic. Nothing is quite so annoying as someone coming into the thread and saying 'The search engine is your friend!' if you've already searched exhaustively and haven't found the answer to your problem.

No doubt.
I also believe in in some redundant information as it makes searching easier.
What I see more are complainers that want to be spoon-fed information without putting forth any effort.
 

 

[Draygonn]

Yep. Searching for answers yourself is usually much faster than waiting for a response.

 

[Currawong]

This is why I wrote the Posting Guidelines. Of course, that requires people read it. Feel free to put it in your signatures. 

 

[The Monkey]

It's a shame that the internal search function is so useless.

 

[wink]

^This.... Along with about 75% of the opinions expressed here.......
 
But it does make entertaining reading.......

 

[tk3]

I just think it depends on what kind of fora you go to, but as long as there are no rules, you can find these 'no-effort' people everywhere.
Same with PC boards, you can find "please rate my build before I buy" type of threads spammed to death, and the contents are almost always the same with very slight differences.
So there is no real merit to them from a certain point of view, but people just like to have personalized confirmation that their purchase is 'correct'.
 
I always thought it was interesting to see the differences in signal:noise ratio on fora though, and how the community deals with it is also something that affects the general attitude on a forum.
For example, the posting rules on this forum are pretty lenient; as long as you don't post anything confrontational, pretty much anything goes no matter how inane it is.
And then you have some other fora where threads are immediately locked along with an admonishment if you post "what should I buy"  without showing that you've done your own research.
Of course the latter is much more elitist and could come across as snobby, but I must say that the general level of discussion is much higher as well.
 
Quote:

 

What I see more are complainers that want to be spoon-fed information without putting forth any effort.
 

 

 

[bowei006]

i've never seen people say we aren't helpful. i've seen people say out of site about how bad head fi is. how we are not good, just people that don't know anything.etc etc

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

I just think it depends on what kind of fora you go to, but as long as there are no rules, you can find these 'no-effort' people everywhere.
Same with PC boards, you can find "please rate my build before I buy" type of threads spammed to death, and the contents are almost always the same with very slight differences.
So there is no real merit to them from a certain point of view, but people just like to have personalized confirmation that their purchase is 'correct'.
 
I always thought it was interesting to see the differences in signal:noise ratio on fora though, and how the community deals with it is also something that affects the general attitude on a forum.
For example, the posting rules on this forum are pretty lenient; as long as you don't post anything confrontational, pretty much anything goes no matter how inane it is.
And then you have some other fora where threads are immediately locked along with an admonishment if you post "what should I buy"  without showing that you've done your own research.
Of course the latter is much more elitist and could come across as snobby, but I must say that the general level of discussion is much higher as well.
 
Quote:

 

What I see more are complainers that want to be spoon-fed information without putting forth any effort.
 

 

Good points. What struck me was visiting another forum where it was painfully easy to find the information required. The trick is doing that. I've done my best, so far, using the stickies, to link to some of the obvious and important information, including writing some myself. The "Don't start a new thread, ask here" thread in the headphones forum has helped a bit too. I've been pondering starting one for amps as well.
 
Yeah, the inbuilt search is not great, especially compared to Google. Nothing I can do about that, unfortunately.
 

 

[rroseperry]

I think that if the native search engine worked better, 80% (a completely made-up statistic) of the newbie ignorant posts would disappear. How difficult might it be? Is there something about Huddler that makes it particularly hard to adapt?

 

[KingStyles]

It was much easier to search before huddler. I wish we could search by relevancy and date. You have to choose one or the other resulting in seeing threads 8 years old using relevancy or threads that are totally not what you are looking for the first 8 pages by going by date. We need an advance search.

 

[TopCaliber]

I'm a Newish member and I got great help when I posted a question when I first joined.

 

[LimeANite]

Quote:

It was much easier to search before huddler. I wish we could search by relevancy and date. You have to choose one or the other resulting in seeing threads 8 years old using relevancy or threads that are totally not what you are looking for the first 8 pages by going by date. We need an advance search.

There actually is an Advanced Search option that allows you to search by relevancy and date.  The link is right under the "Search" button on the large search bar at the top of the page.