I think it is time to lay down some rules here about asking questions so here they are:
1.) SEEK KNOWLEDGE YOURSELF.
If you have a question after doing so post it. (A post today said “Why can’t I have sugar on a Ketogenic Diet?” This is a ridiculous question!!! If the person would have read all the past articles and posts about Ketogenic diets he would have known the answer. It is clear he/she has not bothered to learn much about the topic before asking this asinine question!
Yet another question today said “How do I get a big chest?” WTF!?!?! READ the MANY training articles in the T-Mag archives! If you looked you would even have found some specifically about chest training, bench presses etc.
2.) BE SPECIFIC!
Posts like "How do I lose fat?" are a joke. Tell us what you are eating, how you train, what supplements you take, what drugs you use etc. etc. IF WE DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WRONG (or right) WE CAN'T HELP YOU.
The above "How do I get a big chest?" question can not posibly be answered properly if we don't have the facts about how you eat & train your chest!
BE SPECIFIC this will help you get a good answer FASTER.
3.) IF YOU ARE ASKING A T-MAG EXPERT SOMETHING MAKE SURE THEY HAVE NOT ALREADY ANSWERED IT!
I have seen questions like "Bill Roberts how much dianabol is best?" a million times. These guys have great knowledge that can really help all of us. Let's not ask them the same thing 80 times & piss them off OK?
When I was thinking of asking John M Berardi a question I first searched all the posts he had done. Not only did I get my answer but I read other posts from the past which gave me some even more great information.
4.) USE THE SEARCH PROPERLY.
I am guilty of this one as well. When searching for something under author or subject enter the key words and CLICK ON AUTHOR OR SUBJECT. If you just hit enter you will get an error. Ironically you need to hit enter when using the T-Mag Search. (maybe the web designer could make these functions work the same so idiots like me don't get confused & say "The Search doesn't work."
That's it, those are the big ones. we should keep this one at least in the first two pages. That way when someone says "What foods have protein in them?" we can just save time by responding SEE THE "ALL NEWBIES PLEASE READ" message.
The only thing I worry about is our forum becoming like MFW. That newsgroup been around a long time and pretty much every topic has been discussed. So now, no one really helps people out anymore. They just flame them because the topic has been covered or they’re new. Now that newsgroup is just a place for a select few people to feed their egos and argue.
I’d like to see the T-Forum remain open and helpful, yes, even to those who say, “How much protein do I need?” or “What is Finasol?” before they even use the T-mag search engine (where they’ll find a dozen articles on each topic. Sometimes I think people forget there are 168 issues of T-mag with 6 or 7 articles, columns, and Q and A’s in each one.)
So the key is to remain helpful, but if necessary, point newbies to the search engines, FAQ, Previous Issues section, and to specific articles.
Being a newbie is relative, some very knowledgeable people asked Coach Davies some quetions that to him were probably “gee how many times do I have to cover this”, to his style of training most of us are newbies. I see what you are saying and agree but maybe not so harsh. We all hard to start somewhere.
Well my bad hair day is everyday because it’s shaved.
I agree we should be helpfull. My main points were lets oviod stupid questions that can’t be answered without SPECIFICS.
I mean “Why no sugar on a keto diet” COME ON!
I do not understand the problem, if you think its a dumb question DO NOT RESPOND. that just makes sence to me, if someone asks “how do I…” and people think its a dumb question and they do not respond (or they are nice enough to and tell them where to look) the person will probably try a search on their own. just my opinion. peace
What I don’t like seeing is stuff like “How much can you lift on exercise?” Whether or not everyone is honest, talk is sure cheap on the internet. I think I will always be stronger than somebody & Ed Coan or some Westside guy will always be stronger than me (or most people), so I don’t think there’s much point in comparing.
I think Chris said some about this before…how a newbie should be encouraged even if it is a redundant question rather than ridiculed. One of the purposes of this forum is to keep people educated and motivated about the fitness lifetstyle. I know I’ve asked questions that have been covered before and have appreciated the response and oftentimes I read a question that has been asked a thousand times and learned someting new. It is a forum after all.
Jenifer,
It gets to the point where time space and time are wasted. There is no reason you should ask a question before investigating it yourself, or leaving out specifics. There is no reason to upset Bill Roberts by not searching for a previous answer from him. At best he may get a little iritated at worst he may stop coming to the forum-then we all lose.
The guidlines I set where to *help people get the acurate answers to there questions in a *timely matter.
If you can’t bother to learn about drug A on your own you shouldn’t be taking it.
What would you rather see? Or better yet what would YOU learn more from?:
“How do I get lean?”
OR
“I am having trouble getting lean I have treid this this & this, I train like this, & I use these supplements/drugs etc. etc.”
I am betting the second question that follows the “rules” will: Get the questioner a faster more accurate responce, Provide better overall forum content, & make it easier for readers to give a detailed answer!
It is a good thing to want to help someone, yet I find myself impress of how often I will see questions and just for the sake of curiosity, do a small research on the web and check the 10 first pages that come up…and almost everytime the answer is in these 10 first pages…like the Ketogenic diet thing…instead of asking a bord…you could simply wright ketogenic diet on any searc engine and you immediatelly get an answer…you don’t even need T-Mag for anything but the really advanced stuff, the rest can be found anywhere on the net.
And to the saying: There is no such thing as a stupid question…well you haven’t been in BioChem class with 400 persons…any tips…shut up and lay low…
You know, intellect is normally distributed on the gaussian curve, it’s not there fault if people are dumb, you just smile and pat them on the head, like you do a dog.
Yeah I’ve been thinking about this. If we ban newbie questions, we run the risk of the forum existing only for the people who got in on it from the beginning. On the other hand, coming to a forum that is attached to a bodybuilding magazine and not even bothering to read the articles is kinda dumb. One possible solution might be a newbie section to the forum.
Just a suggestion…I mean why not, even a highway has a slow lane
I’m with Chris on this one. I don’t think this should become an elitist type board where only the strong and smart shall survive. We all had to start somewhere and newbies we were.
I can remember at least one newbie-moron-type e-mail that I fired off to fb@t-mag before I started reading for myself.
Let’s just make a rule that a certain amount of background research has to be done before asking a question. It only saves a potential newbie from embaressment. Also, if you haven’t been reading T-Mag for a copuple of months, then read some back issues to get an idea what we T-Men and T-Women are all about. Peace.
I think some of you are missing the point on this. Please carfully RE-read my last post in this thread.
The point of the rules is to make getting the answers you, myself, or ANYBODY (Newbies) MUCH MUCH EASIER! Not to not allow nexbie posts. The point is ask whatever you want just follow guidlines & use your head-YOU WILL GE A BETTER ANSWER.
Also do to the information that can come about from a longer thread I’d rather not see a Newbie post. (I didn’t even like when they split drugs & ETE.)
I beleive what we have here is a “parenting problem” of sorts. We, as somewhat seasoned T-folk are proud of our board and it’w wealth of information, topics that we’ve had long ago branded into our brains and moved on. We encourage new contributers to ask questions, however we must realize that someone new to working out or the “T-man/vixen” way shall be apt to ask the questions of a beginner. Perhaps there should be a “beginner” forum set up. Something with basic info and guidlines, but nothing so imposing that a “newbie” will be turned off. We’ve somehow inherited this obligation to teach those who are sick and tired of mixing iron and ignorance. In that same moment we are, ourselves, seeking to expand our own knowledge. We need balance, so no one falls off the scale…except the deltards who continue to amaze us with the most blatant of stupidity. Hey, Darwin was a T-searcher.
“MB Eric: Catalyst of anti-catabolism since 0008.”
Personally, I kind of like the deltards. They make for good comic relief occasionally (like the guy who wanted to know how to avoid popping a boner while posing - and Monkeyboy, I posted specifically to you and Styles on that thread, hoping you’d lend me a sarcastic hand), much like “The Screamer” in Pumping Iron. I think a newbie section would be a good idea . . . if any of the more knowledgeable people decided to hang out there. But how many would do that? So it might be self-defeating in that sense. Let’s face it, it’s always a judgement call. Sometimes you’re in the mood to help someone out, and sometimes asinine questions just beg for a flame (humorous if possible, of course). The thing that gets me is the people who can’t be bothered to spell- and grammar-check their posts. If I post a response at all to any of them, it won’t be a helpful one…
