Philosophy Vampires

[Guest darkskyabove]

While doing my homework about switching to a different operating system (I'm going to switch to Arch Linux from Fedora Linux, as Arch is more do-it-yourself), I ran across this article concerning forum usage:

 

http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/

 

It exposes how "some" people, given a free venue, will exploit the fact, and become parasites on a community for resolution of needs they could have addressed themselves.

 

Here is a checklist from the above link:

• Does he ask the same, tired questions others ask (at a rate of once or more per minute)?
• Does he clearly lack the ability or inclination to ask the almighty Google?
• Does he refuse to take the time to ask coherent, specific questions?
• Does he think helping him must be the high point of your day?
• Does he get offensive, as if you need to prove to him why he should use Ruby on Rails?
• Is he obviously just waiting for some poor, well-intentioned person to do all his thinking for him?
• Can you tell he really isn’t interested in having his question answered, so much as getting someone else to do his work?

Substituting for the relevant differences between a "help" forum and a "philosophy" forum, there appears to be much crossover.

 

FreedomainRadio has a set of forum rules, one of which is to use the search function before broaching topics that have been explored in the past, unless one has something new to present.

 

The obvious topic which comes to mind is determinism. It's been done, and done. Yet, every so often, someone just has to "pop the cork", thinking they've got some new angle, when, in fact, a scan of prior posts reveals their "pet" angle has been dredged for all its worth.

 

I am not trying to make a case for being some forum nanny, just that it is an issue worth notice.

 

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I am trying to keep myself from getting caught in someone else's web.

[Lians]

Your post reminded me of something. I used to debate statists on some forums and I started noticing a pattern. Some would go through each of my arguments and ask me to present evidence. I would then exhaust myself compiling posts with evidence they could have found in 30 seconds. I started to feel bad about presenting any arguments because I had to go through this laborious process again and again. I caught on to what's going on and started telling these people that if they can't fact-check my arguments in the age of Google, they're either lazy, incompetent or don't care about the truth. Most of them stopped replying to my posts.

[Wesley]

There are forums I think that when you are making a new post, after posting the title, first couple lines, or something they automatically do a search for you and ask you from the list of topics whether any of these match the post you are trying to make. 

 

I am not sure if this is possible or worth it, but I am just throwing out the idea as a possible way to help cut down on rehashing the same topics over and over.

[Hannibal]

Your post reminded me of something. I used to debate statists on some forums and I started noticing a pattern. Some would go through each of my arguments and ask me to present evidence. I would then exhaust myself compiling posts with evidence they could have found in 30 seconds. I started to feel bad about presenting any arguments because I had to go through this laborious process again and again. I caught on to what's going on and started telling these people that if they can't fact-check my arguments in the age of Google, they're either lazy, incompetent or don't care about the truth. Most of them stopped replying to my posts.

 

+1. It took a long time for that penny to drop for me.

[MysterionMuffles]

I reign from video game forums...nuff said.

 

In game and board drama is such a hilarious thing to look back on now.

[Guest Exceptionalist]

It exposes how "some" people, given a free venue, will exploit the fact, and become parasites on a community for resolution of needs they could have addressed themselves.

 

 

Yeah, I feel your pain, if someone asking me a question he could answered himself by 30 seconds research. I feel exploided and used by a parasite, because I am forced to answer him, otherwise the term exploided and parasite would make no sense, right? If he'd use resources in an unwanted manner, it was the site owners turn. You have a choice dude.