challenge to long term experienced members

telling new members to the site to "search the archives" for their answer is an arrogant brush-off

 

but.... new members on the forum often ask the same questions over and over again... annoying

 

Well that's what sticky's are for. Thank you to the members who took the time to make them.

 

But not all questions are answered by sticky's.

 

When I joined this site I saw wayyyyyyy too many members handing out the "search the archives" advice. I searched the archives myself and they are so huge that it takes me a minimum of an hour and more like 2 or three to find an answer to the question.

 

The experienced members can usually answer the question in under 10 minutes, thus saving the newb lots of time, giving that person more time to go wrench on the car.

 

When I joined this site I was brushed off by someone who didn't even bother to read my post and comprehend it, just blasted me in the face with both barrels.

 

I've got 25 years experience wrenching on everything from my Subie to my GTI to my F-body to 80's bricks to 60's Nova's and Skylarks to 50's tri fives. Some people here will have more experience than I do, but I bet it isn't many. My post count on thirdgen.org was well into 4 digits. I knew Steve Spohn when he made his first set of LCA's.

 

So why my "long term tenure of 20 posts" as someone recently wise-cracked? Because too many people here have no time for the newbs and I didn't feel like contributing to a site that I feel doesn't help others.

 

So my challenge is this:

 

Help people out without expecting anything in return.

I'm a relative newb too, I"ve found it's just best to google my question and generally a thread from legacygt.com will pop-up if I can't find the answer ( In a reasonable time frame) I'll just ask. The archives at times can be a PITA that's why I google it!There are plenty of members willing to answer the question's and they do.

I agree and feel your pain, remember it is the interweb if you were face to face with some of these members I wonder how they would answer your question's:)

Additionally I've saved quite a bit of time and money from the continued help from most members here, thx to all who have helped in the past.

Farking newbs! Repost!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

telling new members to the site to "search the archives" for their answer is an arrogant brush-off

It's not an arrogant brush off. Admittedly, sometimes questions are difficult to find answers to using the search, but most of the time, they're not and when someone posts and it's abundantly obvious that they haven't put in even the first ten minutes to do a cursory search, it's irritating. If you can't be bothered with 10 minutes to try to help yourself, why should anyone here bother using 10 minutes EACH to post answers to your easily searched question?

 

The ones that ARE more difficult to find answers to, you can almost always go to Google and find it linking back to legacygt.com (as someone pointed out), or if you're more Google savvy, you know that you can add "site:legacygt.com" (without the quotes) to your search string to force Google to search only this site.

 

I searched the archives myself and they are so huge that it takes me a minimum of an hour and more like 2 or three to find an answer to the question.

Again, that depends on your question, and how good you are at searching. Sometimes the answers are complicated and they require a lot of reading and a lot of writing. Sometimes there are no clear cut answers (differing opinions for the subject) and you'd be doing yourself a disservice to NOT read the multitudes of pages.

 

When I joined this site I was brushed off by someone who didn't even bother to read my post and comprehend it, just blasted me in the face with both barrels.

What did you ask?

 

So why my "long term tenure of 20 posts" as someone recently wise-cracked? Because too many people here have no time for the newbs and I didn't feel like contributing to a site that I feel doesn't help others.

Well that seems a bit silly. You don't want to help others because... the site doesn't help others. But you're part of the site. Kind of circular logic if you ask me...?

 

Help people out without expecting anything in return.

That's what many, many, many people here have done already. Why do you think there are archives for you to search in the first place?

 

As much as I'd like to be a bottomless barrel of time, helpfulness, kindness, and patience, I'm not. And when someone joins the forum and posts a question without doing the slightest bit of work at all, it's a bit offensive.

The whole "search noob" thing happens on any established forum with long-term members and a wealth of knowledge in old threads.

 

Like iNVAR said, use google's site search instead of the forum's search engine, and you'll get better results.

The whole "search noob" thing happens on any established forum with long-term members and a wealth of knowledge in old threads.

 

Like iNVAR said, use google's site search instead of the forum's search engine, and you'll get better results.

 

 

a BIG + one for that.

 

I was looking my thread about 142,000 miles on a OEM turbo the other day. This forum search was usless. I googled it and it came right up.

Your searches work better if you do a google search. Example, google "MAF sensor o ring on legacygt.com" and I bet it works better than the search feature on the forum.

The reason I tell people to search is, NOT to find the answer to their question.

 

But through the search process, you learn answers to questions you haven't even thought of yet.

 

If it's too much trouble to do some research on your own, just pay someone to fix your car. And STFU.

 

So my challenge is this:

 

Help people out without expecting anything in return.

 

First, I understand the frustration of being told to search when you already have. The fear of being publicly reprimanded for not knowing something is what made me reluctant to pose questions initially as well. Having been a member for over 5 years now, here's what I've learned.

 

I would guess that 99 out of 100 members on here are happy to help, and bend over backwards do so when they can. I cannot count the number of members who have provided me with a wealth of information, either from a thread I started, or from something I've read. There are some members on this site who I seriously don't understand how they maintain a job given how much time, info and effort they contribute to this site.

 

As was stated earlier, the process of searching can be time consuming, but it is also tangentially informative. There have been times where I search for the best injectors, and two hours later end up reading a thread about what type of lower control arm bushings I would like. This is part of the learning process was valuable to me, in that I bookmarked that page for later, and never had to post questions about LCA bushings.

 

In regards to solution-based ideas, I agree that some things could be better about this site. Stickies could have all relevant information moved to the first post. People could write more reviews in the product review section, avoiding questions about specific products. Some people could be more courteous.

 

However, while these things might make this site better, they are not necessary, and it would be asking even more of people already very generous with their time. This site is amazingly well managed and moderated, especially compared to other similar forums. There is an enormous amount of information available (FOR FREE!) that is provided through the generosity of others.

 

Don't let the actions of a very few ruin this site for you. On that note, don't contribute to the things you don't like about this site by keeping helpful information to yourself.

This thread is stupid. Search why.

i'm neither long-term nor all that 'experienced' (are you jimi?), however, you'd be hard pressed to find someone being helpful because they 'expect something in return'. unless you're sending money via paypal, nobody expects a goddamn thing other than maybe a 'thank you'.

 

and if we're all so harsh here, you may want to head over to nasioc. i hear they're super friendly, especially newb-friendly. and it's basically the same powertrain/engine so all your questions, i'm sure, could be handily answered there. let us know how it goes.

telling new members to the site to "search the archives" for their answer is an arrogant brush-off

 

but.... new members on the forum often ask the same questions over and over again... annoying

 

Well that's what sticky's are for. Thank you to the members who took the time to make them.

 

But not all questions are answered by sticky's.

 

When I joined this site I saw wayyyyyyy too many members handing out the "search the archives" advice. I searched the archives myself and they are so huge that it takes me a minimum of an hour and more like 2 or three to find an answer to the question.

 

The experienced members can usually answer the question in under 10 minutes, thus saving the newb lots of time, giving that person more time to go wrench on the car.

 

When I joined this site I was brushed off by someone who didn't even bother to read my post and comprehend it, just blasted me in the face with both barrels.

 

I've got 25 years experience wrenching on everything from my Subie to my GTI to my F-body to 80's bricks to 60's Nova's and Skylarks to 50's tri fives. Some people here will have more experience than I do, but I bet it isn't many. My post count on thirdgen.org was well into 4 digits. I knew Steve Spohn when he made his first set of LCA's.

 

So why my "long term tenure of 20 posts" as someone recently wise-cracked? Because too many people here have no time for the newbs and I didn't feel like contributing to a site that I feel doesn't help others.

 

So my challenge is this:

 

Help people out without expecting anything in return.

 

 

Sadly, these kinds of rants have been posted many times over the past 9 years.

 

Had you searched, you would have seen this.

http://legacygt.com/forums/skynetim/misc/find.gif