A Plea for Direct Experience

[Reburn]

Three people popped in my head when I read the first post here, one has already commented.

Remember when you point the finger at someone else 3 are pointed back at you....

 

[BRTreedogs]

Step 1: police the forums

Step 2: make influencers release their tax records anytime they say something is the best

Ohhhhh

Pretty much whenever I hear them say “best” I pretty much disregard whatever they are saying

 

[Ucsdryder]

If this rule could be enforced rokslide traffic would drop so much all the sponsors would have to head for 24hourcamp fire!

 

[tall]

I appreciate this thread as a call to be careful about the advice and opinions I give. I’ve learned a lot on Rokslide and enjoy many of conversations here.

I’m my other pastime, beekeeping, they say if you ask 10 beekeepers a question you’ll get 11 opinions. I try to filter my own words with this quote from an old beekeeper: “I don’t wanna hear what you think is best. I wanna hear what you’ve done and how it worked for you.”

 

[TSAMP]

I will say,often if you read closely most folks who parrot information give themselves away. That said. I think one major benefit to being a WKR is you learn who knows what about what. So I find myself typically scrolling past folks I dont recognize in most threads. That and the WKR classifieds only section is dope too.

 

[sierracharlie338]

So where is the threshold of experience levels that people should have before they post?

I have mixed feelings about this topic and will wait to see where this goes.

 

[Wrench]

Put your faith in your own experience. Use your skilks of deductive reasoning, statistical probabilities and divide it by your luck.

Don't be a fool, but don't be a pussy. Go make experience. Experience comes with a price....you're going to fail some times. Use that failure as your motivation to get better.




Or just read some shit on a website and receive your keyboard doctorate.

Dealer's choice.

 

[Radford]

I will say,often if you read closely most folks who parrot information give themselves away. That said. I think one major benefit to being a WKR is you learn who knows what about what. So I find myself typically scrolling past folks I dont recognize in most threads. That and the WKR classifieds only section is dope too.

The wkr thing just means you’ve been on this forum a long time, not how long you’ve been alive, hunting, etc. Anyone can be a wkr if they spend a lot of time in the internet. That’s a weird standard to set for yourself for vetting purposes.

 

[atmat]

I have no experience with this so I won’t speak up.

 

[Mtndawger]

I second the plea. But only as a plea for self regulation. I came to this forum to learn. It’s probably going to be a while before I reach WKR, nonetheless I have a considerable amount of expertise in select areas and not others. If guys could learn to qualify their comments even a little bit it would go a long way towards improving the general knowledge base imo. I.E. “I do not personally own xyz or have not personally done abc but my best friend does or has and here is what he thinks, says,etc”. That kind of thing. Apparently you need to have a high level of self awareness to get there though.

 

[MT_Wyatt]

So where is the threshold of experience levels that people should have before they post?

I have mixed feelings about this topic and will wait to see where this goes.

I think that’s a good point - I’m not sure the bar is all that high to be honest. You don’t have to have done something or used something to learn and ask questions. You do have to have done or used something to offer advice and experience to others. How much before you can do so? Could be as simple as “I’ve done that trip” or “I’ve used that bipod” or whatever. A day, a week, a year, it all depends.

Example: people post have you used “X” product? How is it? The response could be “I have and it’s great” or it sucks for XYZ reasons. The response “I haven’t used it but everyone says it’s great” is not direct experience. Another: someone posted about this vs that jacket. I’ve only used 1 of them and could offer some experience with that product, but it’s tougher to contrast the other.

Honestly the thing that set this off for me was some folks simply repeating what they’ve read and regurgitating it in writing. Flooding threads with specs and opinions that may not even be theirs. People with very little experience ‘demanding’ active members to justify theirs. People arguing about bullets, products, topics when they haven’t used these things or ideas themselves. Some of the most egregious behavior to me is members starting to attack others using Form’s extremely direct lines of questioning/language (ie almost impersonating an individual). For the record, I do enjoy Form cutting through the nonsense with those direct questions.

I think the idea is simply of you haven’t used it, done it, or have similar direct experience, exercise a touch of restraint before just posting.

 

[*zap*]

Good advice is always helpful, vet the source first.
Lots of gear opinions from people that have not really used that item enough.
In everything we do there are many subtle things that take time to understand.

 

[Caseknife]

Pretty obvious to me when someone is regurgitating stuff without any actual experience and I tend to totally disregard the validity of the statement. Some very potentially informative threads go off the rails because some blowhards can't keep their mouth shut.

 

[sierracharlie338]

I think the idea is simply of you haven’t used it, done it, or have similar direct experience, exercise a touch of restraint before just posting.

Respectable response, I understand your position and the issue at hand. I see the main issue as being this is the internet and opinions are like azz holes, everyone has one and they all stink. But that’s what people will get on a public forum, withholding those with applicable experience, mostly opinions.

For the record I agree with the quote above (and the part about people regurgitating Form lines/questioning to the point it’s borderline hostile) and more times than not try to abide by that when I post, personally. Self governance/restraint is a discipline often overlooked on the inter webs lol.

I see no issue with a general disclaimer relating to the topic for members but think that when it starts to creep into enforcement there will be issues.

I’m a nobody on the internet and don’t hold any stake in this forum so it’s just an opinion and I already illustrated my stance on those

 

[AKBorn]

I think that’s a good point - I’m not sure the bar is all that high to be honest. You don’t have to have done something or used something to learn and ask questions. You do have to have done or used something to offer advice and experience to others. How much before you can do so? Could be as simple as “I’ve done that trip” or “I’ve used that bipod” or whatever. A day, a week, a year, it all depends.

Example: people post have you used “X” product? How is it? The response could be “I have and it’s great” or it sucks for XYZ reasons. The response “I haven’t used it but everyone says it’s great” is not direct experience. Another: someone posted about this vs that jacket. I’ve only used 1 of them and could offer some experience with that product, but it’s tougher to contrast the other.

Honestly the thing that set this off for me was some folks simply repeating what they’ve read and regurgitating it in writing. Flooding threads with specs and opinions that may not even be theirs. People with very little experience ‘demanding’ active members to justify theirs. People arguing about bullets, products, topics when they haven’t used these things or ideas themselves. Some of the most egregious behavior to me is members starting to attack others using Form’s extremely direct lines of questioning/language (ie almost impersonating an individual). For the record, I do enjoy Form cutting through the nonsense with those direct questions.

I think the idea is simply of you haven’t used it, done it, or have similar direct experience, exercise a touch of restraint before just posting.

I don't disagree with anything you have said. I am going to take a different approach, and ask a little more of the thread starters....

Please do not start a thread with "Best rifle for brown bear" or "Best backpack for DIY mountain elk hunt?" That's inviting a whole subjective debate to get rolling, and there can literally be 50 correct answers. If you start a thread with "What pack do you carry on your DIY elk hunts, and what is it about that pack that makes you use it instead of your other packs?" You may get more detailed information that helps you in some way.

In the end, any info you get on here is just a place to start your own research, whether it comes from a forum noob or the exalted King/Queen of the Internet.

 

[dallas.kc]

As another nobody on the internet and a self proclaimed gear junkie. I’ve been the guy in the past to offer advice on gear I haven’t used because there comes a point in time where you’ve tried enough stuff you start to realize how little difference there is between say, a mid layer piece, between different companies. It becomes not terribly hard to piece together specs of some products and say “yeah you can probably expect this”.

I hate to say the cliche of “there’s just so much information out there”, but that is the problem. You get people that can get into the weeds about how much water a given fabric can handle under some scientific variable and quantity, and while they aren’t “wrong”, none of that matters if you haven’t experienced what that means in real life conditions. Guys that don’t have experience want to be amateur engineers instead of woodsman. It took me being around somebody that had a PODCAST about hunting, knowing they didn’t hunt more than a few days a year to realize I was a version of that, where I could talk shop, but didn’t have the experience. Keep my mouth shut more often now, but work a lot more on the experience side of it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TSAMP]

The wkr thing just means you’ve been on this forum a long time, not how long you’ve been alive, hunting, etc. Anyone can be a wkr if they spend a lot of time in the internet. That’s a weird standard to set for yourself for vetting purposes.

Agreed. But if they have been on here active awhile, odds are they have demonstrated their bias and intellect. Which then i can factor into the advice. As opposed to advice from Boonerslayer69_FNG, who almost certainly slays booners.

 

[fngTony]

So where is the threshold of experience levels that people should have before they post?

I have mixed feelings about this topic and will wait to see where this goes.

When writing about your experience with a piece of gear or to answer someone’s question just simply state some qualifiers to your response, someone who used a piece of gear on one hunt can have legitimate (but limited) experience.

Example: a new member replies to a question about a particular shelter. “It did the job for me when I used it on my ___hunt. We had better than average weather so I can’t say for sure how it would do extreme situations. This was my first floorless shelter, and I spent what I thought was a lot of time adjusting the guy lines”. To me that sounds honest, and my take away would be that their lack of experience with that type of shelter may have made it seem more cumbersome than it was.

 

[Reburn]

who almost certainly slays boners.

FIFY

 

[Ucsdryder]

I will say,often if you read closely most folks who parrot information give themselves away. That said. I think one major benefit to being a WKR is you learn who knows what about what. So I find myself typically scrolling past folks I dont recognize in most threads. That and the WKR classifieds only section is dope too.

Hell, there are mommy/daddy’s that have no clue what they’re talking about, I definitely wouldn’t put faith in WKR because of their tenure.