Does it bother you

matt_j

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Jan 28, 2004
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that in the world of faceless internet a 16 or 12 yo gives you an advice? You ask for an opinion and somebody half/third/fourth the age with no experience expresses his point of view using idealistic assumptions. It happened many times when after 1-2 years of participating in the forum discussions poeple realize that indepth conversations about survival/anything were taken between a 15 yo boy and you... Now how does the validity of his point and experience stack up now? Somebody is looking for camping tips and he gets an advice from a 13 yo that never been out in the woods. Just saying....

Matt
 

Rothrandir

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to be perfectly honest, i think i'd rather take advice from many an intellegent twelve year old them some of the 40 year old wackos out there...

age and experience aside, while both important to many things, aren't the whole story.
a kid with a good head on his shoulders and who's mature enough to act and speak responsably goes further in my book than someone who runs off his mouth just because he's been doing the same thing for 20years and he thinks he knows everything.

sure, i've seen a lot of kids raised in todays society that are practically brainwashed into having no clue about the world around them, but i've seen just as many "adults" acting the same way /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif
 

matt_j

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Well true but lets say and I've seen it many times a newbie pops onto the board and asks a last minute advice about something. A youngster answers running his mouth from what he read, heard and saw on other postings. Newbie thanks him and goes off. Now there is a possibility that this newbie can get hurt becasue of the ill advice he got. Yes I let it go but still it is pretty mess up. I do understand that there are some 16 yo out there with more experience that some 50 yo but it is a pretty sticky situation.

Matt
 

BatteryCharger

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[ QUOTE ]
Rothrandir said:
a kid with a good head on his shoulders and who's mature enough to act and speak responsably goes further in my book than someone who runs off his mouth just because he's been doing the same thing for 20years and he thinks he knows everything.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't agree more. I visit alot of forums, and many of them have a resident "expert" or two. Usually they're also the resident a$$hole, and discredit good advice from other people just because they don't have the same experience. As far as I'm concerned, age is irrelivant if the advice is sound. If some 12 year old comes here and starts giving crappy advice, they will quickly be corrected. I believe there are quite a few very young people here and most (if not all) could give just as good of advice as many 40 year olds.
 

BatteryCharger

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[ QUOTE ]
matt_j said:
Newbie thanks him and goes off. Now there is a possibility that this newbie can get hurt becasue of the ill advice he got.

[/ QUOTE ]

Newbie has now learned his lesson not to take advice from only one person.
 

Rothrandir

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again, i don't see how a 16year old is any more likely to spout off crap than a 50year old /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

like i said, i've seen that type of thing happen just as often with old people as with young people.
the same could probably be said of foreigners, women, blondes and democrats /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 

DarkLight

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How bout everyone try not give advice unless they have firsthand and extensive experience on the subject.

Conjecture and hearsay need not apply.....

If you dont own the piece of equipment dont talk about it like you do....
 

gadget_lover

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I've always considered advice as being input. I never consider advice an "answer". I'll take advice from anyone, but I only act on it after I've validatated it myself.

Like some said, a young person may have a valid opinion or a store of knowledge that makes for good advice. At one time, my 9 year old son knew more about paleontology than I did.

Like others said, I (a 50 year old) may be full of .... on any particular subject.


Daniel
 

shifty646

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Advice is simply someone's opinion on the subject. It may ro may not be worth much, or may be worth a lot. But that's the whole point of forums "Collective Knowledge". When you get the opinions of a large number of people, you can extrapolate a good and solid answer.
 

cheesehead

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I think you can pretty much figure out who knows what and why just from the post. If you're a newbie and take advice from your first response, well, buyer beware. BUT on the other hand,...

I just blew a e2e incans reading about how it can be put in an L2. Eh, that was my fault, I was being stupid listening to dumb advice.

So yes, I'd prefer people post answers if they actually had personal experience in the area (and not just read about it). OR, if they read about it, a nice reference to the previous post would be nice. So, yes it bothers me.
 

shifty646

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Actually... this reminds me of a case on dpreview forums.
An old guy asked about advice on getting rid of a bug inside of his camera, it was a little tiny moth that he could see trapped somewhere between the eyepiece and the lense and could not get out.
He had an expensive digital camera, but was an elderly gentelman who knew only photography and not much else technology-wise.
Some punk kid was the first to reply and told him to put his camera in the microwave, and that would solve his problem.
Luckily someone else managed to reply quickly after, warning the man that that would destroy his camera. The man was very frustrated as he was about to do as he was advised had he not noticed the second post.

Who's to blame here? the young punk for being an idiot? or the old man for listening to the words of a complete stranger on the internet?

Something to think about.
 

Lurveleven

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[ QUOTE ]
shifty646 said:
Some punk kid was the first to reply and told him to put his camera in the microwave, and that would solve his problem.
Luckily someone else managed to reply quickly after, warning the man that that would destroy his camera. The man was very frustrated as he was about to do as he was advised had he not noticed the second post.

Who's to blame here? the young punk for being an idiot? or the old man for listening to the words of a complete stranger on the internet?


[/ QUOTE ]

Both is to blame, the punk for polluting the forum and the old man for not using his brain. You always have to ask yourself how/why does the advice work and what consequences it can have. Asking a follow up questions can reveal if the advice was good or just BS. If I were the old man I would have asked: "Can you explain to me how that is going to remove the bug, and how will the microwaves influence the electronics in the camera?"

Sigbjoern
 

UncleFester

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[ QUOTE ]
matt_j said:
that in the world of faceless internet a 16 or 12 yo gives you an advice? You ask for an opinion and somebody half/third/fourth the age with no experience expresses his point of view using idealistic assumptions. It happened many times when after 1-2 years of participating in the forum discussions poeple realize that indepth conversations about survival/anything were taken between a 15 yo boy and you... Now how does the validity of his point and experience stack up now? Somebody is looking for camping tips and he gets an advice from a 13 yo that never been out in the woods. Just saying....

Matt

[/ QUOTE ]

On a similar note, not long after I joined CPF, I locked horns with one of our youngsters here. He was trying to tell someone how to run his business. While I've never actually run a buisness myself, I KNOW I don't know enough about running a business to be able to advise someone else. I suggested he re-think his stance. Ummm... Oh well.... I have been closely enough involved to know there's more than meets the eye. Back to the point: all too often, the youngster thinks he knows everything.
 

junior

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Jul 9, 2004
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I think what bothers me even more is when an adult tries to give opinions on things he knows nothing about or has no expertise on.
 

cheesehead

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Esp since the adult usually is more convincing (language is more obvious and adult-like). Dumb adults are harder to wead-out than the teenagers.
 
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