Many thanks for the nods, guys. I do get that my “style” of background checking isn’t for everyone. Whatever leads to useful advice, and ideally minimal confusion, for any given OP is really the bottomline.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I think in a forum situation, you end up with one of two types of ‘advice’ threads.
The first one is pretty much people spitballing ideas. They offer up options that they themselves may have used to address what may be similar preceived problems, in hopes that the OP will find soemthing they haven’t thought of and apply it to their own training in an intelligent and logical manner (not always the case though).
The second one, is where the OP actually gives a whole lot of background info, and is lucky enough to have one of the more experienced folks on here dissect what the problem may indeed be.[/quote]
I’ve also seen a variation of the second where someone will start a thread, get a few replies, and then start an identical thread a few days later (sometimes in a different forum, BSL vs Beginners, for example) hoping to get different answers. Only when their history gets checked will this pop up.
I tend to find this borderline-offensive, like the people who commented in the first thread totally wasted their time. Not to get off on a tangent within a tangent, but this dude was one of the worst examples of that… 9 threads in 5 months, each one of them asking for a good routine:
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_bigger_stronger_leaner/please_help_me_out_
Times like that, I’m more prone to either call troll or just chalk the guy off as a legit case of helpless ignorance. But, back to the original idea, sometimes a question has an “easy fix” (like how’s this program, how do I cut, etc.), but sometimes it’s more involved and having more info would’ve changed the advice given (like in this thread: turns out the dude is pretty young, on steroids, with muscle imbalances, and is either lying about his bodyfat or has pisspoor nutrition.)
Super-agreed. Which is also why I believe more members should participate in the Check-In threads to un-anonymous-ify themselves if they choose to offer advice. It’s obviously not mandatory, but those threads are happening often enough where I have to think it’s a conscious decision for some people to just avoid them and stick with their random avatar/lack of profile info while still dishing out advice like gospel.
I think I just ranted. Sorry.