In high school you only loose 1 mark however in University you loose 3.
And in the real world, he just looks dumb.
ahem… lose 
Yep! Let me qualify, IAACSG (I am a computer science graduate) and lost marks due to poor spelling and grammar.
Honestly, and maybe it’s because I’m getting older, and substantially more bitter, but I blame a lack of common sense, arrogance and a serious disability when it comes to assessing your own limitations.
I mean the tech section, and really the direction SON is nose-diving towards. Correcting spelling and grammar is pure arrogance, and a thinly veiled attempt at embiggening oneself.
And for the record, you all missed ‘Alot’ at the beginning of D_Fresh’s post.
You can allot something to someone, even if it’s a lot of things, but alot … alack and alas is neither here nor there.
Often, the people asking for help are not asking for help. They’re asking for an entire lesson.
If you can’t change a headlight bulb, you really shouldn’t concern yourself with swapping in an RB/SR/K&N Air Filter.
As you start to answer the question, the resulting follow up posts keep deteriorating to the point you realize you’ve just wasted a lot of time.
And yeah, once the serious noob questions start, or the “well that’s something I’ll have to learn more about when I can find someone to buy my shit-pile Cavalier with 22’s and neon so I can fund my RB26DETTTT 9-speed, hover-equipped, scissor door time machine” the flames come on. At that point, any relevant information you have shared is lost. The thread gets locked and it’s done.
It doesn’t take too long to realize most of us are just wasting our time and breath here. And that does a great disservice to non-schlemiel new members. I’m getting to the point where if you’re under 30, I don’t want to talk to you.
And that bothers me. Because I know a lot of people here are honest, decent folk, with a genuine interest in taking a car and improving it - regardless of age or experience. I work with guys at MSSC that are in some cases 10 years younger than me. They know their way around cars, which end of the tool to hold. That’s supposed to be the common language. Because we all like Nissans, obviously we’re concerned with lots and lots of routine maintenance and head-scratching electrical problems.
The biggest problem I have, and this is industry wide, is the misconception that ownership, and subsequent modification of a car, does anything to your personal worth. You are the same person with or without the car. There is a serious lack of creativity. There are very few pioneers, very few people taking a genuine interest in hot-rodding. If you’re building a car to look good in, or next to, I think you’ve missed the point. Innovation does not mean finding something cool someone else has done and replicating it and waiting to be showered with praise and accolades.
There’s too much of a disconnect. A smart, car savvy guy can order and install (or have installed) the same bolt-ons as the biggest dunderhead with a computer and a credit card.
I see very few people that actually enjoy driving their cars. Very few people that have actually taken a project and made it personal. They build something to face the jury … like they’re whipping it out in front of their buddies to get it measured.
It’s not that I’m saying these people have no place here, or that they don’t count, because that’s essentially totalitarianism. It’s your car, it’s your money, do as you see fit. I just feel their should be a greater sense of responsibility to approach the budding community of 240 neophytes with a positive attitude.
I think far too many people that engage in flame wars are simply too big for their britches. Just because you were flamed when you didn’t know anything, doesn’t give you the right to flame people for not knowing the same things you yourself had to ask.
This site is becoming far too much like another Myspace, or Facebook, or whatever other “look at me, I’m on the internet and therefore relevant.” site you can name. There’s the people with really long friends list that get their car bigged up (even if it’s an unsafe pile of shit - like the cars they flame on everyday). It’s not a competition. You don’t win anything.
Stop treating cars like Chimpokomon. You can’t collect all 8, and they don’t let you play with 240s at recess. My S12 isn’t going to meet your 240 at the bike racks after school (but if it did, you know it would kick your car’s ass). I think if everyone grew up a bit, and took the time to actually better develop the 240SX community, instead of trying to turn it into a gated white community … we’d all be a lot happier.
How do you propose we help it?
We can just start banning noobs who don’t care to research. Or we can start banning people who post rude replies in general. Or people who post bullshit in classified ads…
Or we can ban nobody and just keep telling people to behave appropriately (which amounts to behaving in many of the ways you have described)… but it seems like a lot of people don’t seem to be getting the picture.
Without the (temporary) banstick coming out, I don’t know how else SON can impart your philosophy on new and old members alike.
So break out the temporary banstick… I’ve seen at least 5 threads that I bothered to click on in the Technical section that were BASIC FAQ questions. Not even something obscure… Like the one I just clicked on before this thread “What electric fans work with an S13?”
C’mon, that question is so reaking of a lack of effort, it makes me wish (again) that there was a button on my keyboard that would allow me to slap people through the internet.
It comes down to “I have so little respect for the time and effort of the members of this forum, that I won’t search, instead I will ask the most assinine, inaine question I can think of and expect a spoon fed answer”. And that to me, is bullshit.
I say that there is no need to ban for people who just don’t search and start a new thread in the Technical section.
Close the thread asking them to search first, and tell them if their question is not answered or covered to start/open a new, more specific question/thread.
It’s fair, polite, and sets an example to others.
Exactly. No need to ban someone who didn’t search. I usually either point them
in the right direction before locking or depending on how n00bish their post is,
just lock it and tell them to try again.
I would rather ban trolls. :o