A Poster's Pet Peeve(S)

Crazyb0, well done. Some things sometimes need to be said; some things sometimes won't get said, UNLESS...

Crazy, you sure this is a yearly rant?

Your point though is definitely worth everyone hearing. If a person wanted to research something themselves they wouldn't ask. Or maybe they have and aren't finding the answer. Or even found the answer and it made no sense. And finally, maybe it is such an interesting or unique issue being asked about the poster feels it needs to be shared so others having the same issue can see the answers.

Crazy I have missed your to the point style. It is good to see you my friend.

I definitely agree with your opinion. I try to give the OP a direct answer instead of "research it yourself." I participate a lot in the Coin grading subforum here. For example, I know a few folks just link to PCGS photograde occasionally and tell the OP to "research it themselves" but I will usually just give the OP a grade.

I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I'm probably at fault for some of this. If I'm not a part of the solution, I guess I'm part of the problem.

I've attached links where the obvious answer lies. Telling the OP this is a test; what's the answer?

I was just trying to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment for the OP to learn and find the answers on their own.

Or how many times have we done the research or written a detailed explanation to an OP and you never hear from them again, not even a thank you!

Or I recently told a member: No pictures?....it never happened. I was trying to be pleasantly sarcastic but the guy took it personal, like I was calling him a liar. The guy was to sensitive and emotional in my opinion.

Other times I have said: Google is your friend.

USSID18 needs to be sent to the time-out corner.

Google is our friend and what we want is Google to bring people here for the answers.

Just as there are people who know, and don't know, about coins; there are people who know, and don't know, how to use a search engine effectively. Some things I can look up in seconds that other people might never find -- it's all in knowing what terms to use and how to know what you're looking for. The right answer is not always in the first few hits, even if you know what you're doing.

I think providing links with the full answer to someone's question is fine, as long as you give a short answer first and point them there if they want to know more. Giving only the link is not very friendly (not that I haven't ever done that myself). Telling them to look it up themselves is worse than no answer at all. Maybe they already did that, and now they feel worse.

Is there an "Advanced" search on here? There have been times when I wanted to use it to find a thread from just a couple of days ago but only remembered a single key word. Being able to sort by date would have helped a lot. It also looks like search includes words from the Recent Topics section, which brings in a lot of unrelated topics.