Why does everyone disagree with you

Well that was a surprise. I thought I was alone in my assumptions. I have got to say above all else this is a brilliant forum with so much of a knowledge base. I was knocking the forum. Just sometimes when I have had replies I go sit on the NAUGHTY STEP FOR A WHILE.

Ref Ady1 , I would have loved to have seen a 'debate' between someone like LBSC and Jim Ewins over

valve gear design !

If something is a fact then if someone disagrees they can be guided to a factual reference. Opinions are where there is room for a debate as we are all entitled to one. We form our opinions on what we think we know, if our knowledge is incomplete or erroneous then we can be wrong and we should be big enough to admit it if facts can be produced to correct our thinking. If there is not a definitive answer then we can debate forever, a persuasive opponent may change your opinion without facts but then you could both be wrong if an answer does emerge.

Mike

Hmm, having read the above I not sure if I'm a goodie or baddy. Obviously I think I offer good-humoured, accurate well-balanced advice firmly based on evidence, and am able to quote references if necessary. It's not about me being right or wrong, I'm here to share and exchange knowledge. Others might see me as 'difficult', because I will challenge faulty logic and misunderstandings, especially when opinion and beliefs aren't supported by evidence.

The tone of the Forum is conversational; it's more like a group chatting in a pub than a formal meeting of the Royal Society. Threads tend to wander, discussions start, and that leads to debate. It allows the forum to address a much wider range of subjects than, say, Practical Machinist, which is more tightly focussed on direct answers to machining questions. As this is a hobby forum, surely wide diversity is a good thing? It's 'Model Engineering' in the widest sense, not limited to steam locos and Myfords!

The expertise available on this Forum is considerable, and it surely has a good claim to be the most helpful hobby forum on the Internet. It doesn't worry me to be be put right by chaps who know what they're talking about and justify their reasoning. Anyone annoyed by an answer who can't offer a factual rebuttal should look to their psychology: no-one likes being told they're wrong, doubly so when the fault is egregious.

Stevie mentions that his offerings have attracted negative comments. I suggest there's a simple reason: Stevie is newly arrived from a professional electrical background and hasn't quite tuned into the subtleties of home workshop electrics yet. He's a newbie plus, with real skills and gaps.  That's led to a few low scoring suggestions rather than bullseyes. Better to adjust one's aim than to take the hump. What's important is offering help, if Stevie persists his expertise will line up with the problem and everyone will benefit. (As an ex-computer professional, I have the same problem.  I know chaps who favour BASIC are wrong, but my expertise is misplaced. If you know BASIC and it does the job, me insisting of the virtues of other computer languages is unhelpful, even if I am right!)

Finally, just having a strong opinion doesn't make it correct! Engineering isn't about opinions. When the evidence contradicts a belief, dump the belief. Never ever believe your own propaganda!

You're all wonderful.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 27/01/2020 10:34:26

Re my previous post, I've since read Stevie's post on second-hand cars, which got bashed. Got to agree he has a point on that one! Lot's of value in what Stevie said, and he got duffed up!

Dave

Well, if you're a baddy I must be off the scale, but I don't care.

Andrew

Me I find it best to take no notice as long as it's not personal !

H

If he had spent a little time editing his post to make it easier to read, that wouldn't have happened. It read like a pub rant where the unknown ranter couldn't remember to breathe; would anyone actually consider that to be worthwhile advice.

Tone of forum posts is very difficult to get right.

Which is, I think, the OP's point!

Edited By Nicholas Wheeler 1 on 27/01/2020 11:25:23

There ARE examples of the OP's views on the forum BUT (as a generality) RARE. ... for which, much thanks!

As a self-admitted cantankerous old git, I try to balance that with a justifiable acceptance that I'm a crap engineer. From that perspective, I accept advice offered here as inevitably superior to my own views ... end of!

Re. fish and chips, here I come into my own ... from a childhood where lack of money (NOT poverty!) meant no shame in asking for the free helpings of batter 'bits' to the over-indulgence of being employed as 'Smokey Joe's' travelling assistant on his Bedford bus mobile chippie. SJ operated from Scorrier (mid Cornwall) and travelled around the local villages, lunch-times and evenings. Small chips 3d, large 6d and fish (always cod) 1/- , newspaper wrapped and cooked (as ALL proper F&C should be!) in dripping! In spite of 'in house' lunches 6 times a week, I never lost my enthusiasm.

There is a danger of the keyboard becoming saliva saturated!

rgds

Bill

Hi All

Following on from Plasma's post above, if you search Google for the 'Dunning-Kruger Effect' and read same, it may explain why some members mock questions asked by others.

Dave

I read this thread with great interest, and found myself agreeing with most points. Just to add my few pennorth, I originally joined this forum a few days after it was set up. It didn't take long for the forum to 'take a negative turn', and it wasn't long before I stopped posting. There were many abusive, unpleasant and unappreciative posts in those early days.

Nonetheless, I stayed as a 'lurker'. Inevitably perhaps, some instances came up when I thought I could help with a query, so I began to post again under an anonymous name. Sadly this didn't stop the 'snotty' posts from people I would have assumed should know better. A notable instance is the software argument - there seems to be a huge number of people who are willing to condemn anything they either don't use themselves, or know anything about. Instead of encouraging the use of new and different tools we could al use, these people find fault all the time, with little evidence of constructive criticism.

I fully agree with the posts about other forums being far more 'user-friendly', to the extent that ME, instead of being one of the first of my 'go to' forums, has become virtually the last place I go - I still read it, but often only to have a laugh at the unhelpful responses. When I dared to comment on this, I was told that if I didn't like, it, I didn't have to read the posts - not really an encouragement to use the forum, would you say?. I wish this was not the case, because I always valued the print version of ME.

You get used to it, after a while.

I no longer get upset when my posts don't show up.

As someone said, just pick out the bits you find useful and ignore the rest.

Life is too short to bother about it.

I feel that this forum is a bit like the Wild West: There are few rules, almost anything goes, sometimes it is wise to keep your head down and you may get shot at. An awful lot of members have hidden pasts (the majority do not have a public profile).

Steveiegtr - A comment, I see that a lot of your posts are made in the late evening. I have found from experience that this is unwise.

JA

Edited By JA on 27/01/2020 12:38:25

It's interesting to hear people talk about their experiences and perceived reactions to some of their postings on this site.

Perhaps because we are communicating via text and not face to face some nuances are misunderstood.

I agree with Harry in so much as if responses do not become personal then no harm is inferred.

There may be on occasions people enjoying a sense of 'one upmanship' but this says more about the respondent than the questioner in my opinion.

Guy

I've had a PM confirming I'm a baddy... Probably best not to risk an Opinion Poll!

Dave

Steve,

The only threads of yours I've read are Vernier Calipers and Only for Myford Lathes..

The caliper thread contains a lot of useful information, a bit of thread drift (as often happens - it's harmless and can be both informative and entertaining), and some ribbing about the fact that digital calipers are not verniers. To my eye - and I've followed the thread since you started it - the ribbing is good natured and not hostile or aggressive.

I have not followed the Myford thread in such detail, but I must say that your own tone comes over at times as pretty combative. To take some extracts from just one of your posts:

Slag me as you will.… Some will knock it as that's what a few members do. But what the hell. I did it…. if anything is not right the chuck will stop. Some will say why…Some say they fitted the linked belting but for the hell of me cannot think why.… People are fitting these things & think they are the best things since sliced bread. What is wrong with people, they are rubbish & temporary belts….

If you trail your coat like that, it's no wonder that people will engage with you. It has been said (by Ken Keyes in his Handbook to Higher Consciousness; I can't claim it for my own) "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror."

Anything with people involved in it will contain some people we would rather not have to deal with. I shrug my shoulders and move on when necessary. Meeting emotion with emotion is not productive (Professor Steve Peters has some valuable things to say about that in his book The Chimp Paradox) so if I need to contradict people I always try to do it courteously and dispassionately.

George B.

Yes. That was about a guy that painted his face with lemon juice and went to rob a bank thinking the lemon juice would make him invisible.

He believed that because lemon juice was is used in invisible ink.

When arrested and shown photos of himself committing the robbery, he insisted the photos had been faked.

Seems like a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Perhaps he would have been more successful if he had used the Schartz-Metterklume method. It always works for me.

George B.

Hi there, all,

This has been an interesting thread so far. I do try to live and let live (honestly, I really do) but there are two things here that make me cringe.

The first is the confusion between arbor and arbour. An arbour is a clump of bushes with a garden seat in its middle.

The second is when posters mishandle quotes so that the quotation bar covers their own text as well as the text they are quoting. (The solution is in the right arrow key.)

These things crop up frequently but I try to refrain from posting about them.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 27/01/2020 14:38:26

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 27/01/2020 14:39:02