Since my first attempt at the following critique was rejected, I thought I’d tone it down abit and see what happens.
Lately, the hypocrisy of some of you posters has been absolutely atrocious! It seems to be the common theme to blast so-called “newbies” for asking idiotic questions, but a great deal of the content of this board of late(the stuff you cynics have been posting or responding to) has had nothing to do with the iron religion or any of the following criteria:–“3) Messages must be appropriate for Testosterone. In other words, they must pertain to building muscle, losing fat, training, supplements, diet, anabolics, or basic Testosterone kinds of issues. Oh yes, to accommodate TC, the occasional “sex” thing’s cool, too. Just be mindful to reflect the Testosterone tone. As an example, if you’ve got a thing for farm animals, there are plenty of other forums out there that will fulfill your needs.”-- How is it that any of you in question can justify corresponding to questions of electronic equipment and whether or not any of you deserve a Grammy for your vocals, while claiming to be Hardcore?! With that under examination, another common topic is cutting MM2000 for losing its hardcore edge (I certainly wouldn’t disagree) but how can any of you sit on your high horses and declare this while asking about the aforementioned topics as well as numerous others that have no pertainance to this forum?
One last thing to think about before you tell a “newbie” to fuck off. When a “newbie” poses a question that’s been covered or one that appears obvious to you, a general response is do some research. Well, when one of you 'experts" poses a question to the true experts, Bill, Brock, Chris, CY, John, etc. couldn’t it possibly be true that your question is as far beneath them as the “newbies” question is beneath you? Where exactly due you believe they (the true experts) get there understanding from? RESEARCH! So should they tell you to fuck off and do the same research they did(as a number of you have screamed through your computers at the “newbies” to do)? Well, they don’t (even though they seem to be the ones in the better position to do so, since they at least paid for their knowledge).
Please any critism or support is welcomed and maybe it will allow us to get back to the point of this forum!
(DISCLAIMER-None of the previous was intended as a specific attack but rather generalizations supported by memory of unspecific posts)
Halleilujah brother, I’ve been using this board for about a month now, and feel that the guys who run this company are definitely hardcore. But, these people on this sight who claim to be hardcore lifters, I’m not so sure. They ask ?'s like what is the best lap top, what kind of music do you lift to, etc… I have been trying to get a response about a cycle of roids for a wek now. Hopefully these wannabe’s will stop tying up the board with their little coffee talk and let us with real questions and comments get our shit answered. Hope to see you around this board!!! (The Testosterone is flowing through my body with no chance of letting up, lets make this board represent what the the founders intended it to!!!)
Sometimes coming here is like walking into a gym where everyone is talking trash instead of lifting. To me the resulting distraction is the same. I think the solution isnt in coverting people but in organisation - different forums for getting big, losing weight, AAS and “off topic”. In their place I think the off topic posts here would be funny and I wouldnt feel like a sell out by participating in them (as I mostly do now). Locking out of hand threads is another thing that could help. Maybe in rare cases banning people for flaming in serious forums and using the forum to push highly offensive or anti-social stuff. Just a few thoughts - as they say in the RATM cover “i may not make a difference but at least im trying”.
And maybe an FAQ that newbies with the same old questions must be kindly pointed to before the thread is locked?
Here is my two cents. I see the forum as kind of a “locker room” atmosphere. I do see your point about us being newbies to the staff guys, and I personally try to be decent…but firm with newbies. As I have posted before, I found T-mag and read almost all the articles before I ever found the forum, so I was lucky. As far as the posts…they are reflective of the fact that we all have other interests besides the iron. Do I have any interest in stereo systems? NOPE but I respect the fact that we all have interests outside the gym. As far as the sex posts…again, as I said, I look at the forum as kind of a “locker room” atmosphere. How much of “I have 10,000 mg of Deca, and 2500 mg of whinny, and 10 clomid caps how should I stack this” can you take?? The other topics are just fun and a diversion. Take it for what it is bro…relax a bit…have fun.
Well, I wanted to respond to one point: I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question on the forum that was “beneath” me. Yes, there have been some questions that the person could have found some recent posts on which would have given them a good answer, but even then, it’s not unusual that there’s something about their question that brings up something that wasn’t talked about before and is worthwhile. You have to be challenged with questions and ideas or you go stale. Without constantly finding out what others are interested in and what they’re doing or thinking of doing, it’s all too easy to get stuck in the rut of having a few “pat”
methods that work well and just sticking with them forever. I’ve benefited a lot from interactions with readers, a whole lot. (In fact most people say my Q&A’s are far better than my columns, and I think my forum posts are more useful than columns would be, though admittedly not all in one convenient place; and I do admit I ought to get back to writing some columns!)
I definitely agree with your general point of,
let’s not jump on people; but as for the off-topic posts, sure you can be hardcore about lifting and still be interested if the other people you’re interacting with on the board share some interest of yours like singing (to use one of your examples.) The board has nowhere near gotten to the point newsgroups and perhaps other boards (I don’t read boards actually) get to where the majority of stuff is off topic. A little off-topic is good.
Blah blah blah. Be nice to newbies. Whatever. I see more posts like this than I see flames here. Too much compassion can be a bad thing. You want to see mean, go to nuclear or gade and watch the flamethrowers roar into life when you ask a dumb question. Face it, if the person hasn’t read shit or they could solve the question in three seconds by reading the faq or using a search engine then they are too stupid and/or lazy to be here. The forum is for more complex questions where you either need expert advice, the opinion of a lot of people, or you have made an attempt to solve your problem on your own, but you’re stuck. Asking Bill Roberts a question like “I’m 120 pounds dog, How cum I cant gain weight” is like having free access to a lawyer, then asking him, “So teach me some stuff about laws, cause I want to be an attorney too” Maybe they are too polite to do anything more than ignore these people, but I don’t work here so I don’t care who thinks i’m a prick. I’d rather read interesting OT posts than a new moron everyday who doesn’t know the difference between a set or rep, has read the forum for fifteen minutes and probably won’t check the site the next day to read the responses. If you are a lazy pile of monkey crap, than you deserve abuse. You deserve to get your lunch money taken by somebody bigger and hung from a locker by your underwear. If I was there in person, I’d do that, but instead we have to settle for lighting you up on this online forum. Sucks. (By the way, I’m not talking about the stick guy who we get a free t-shirt for helping or anyone else who posts here on a regular basis, just the lazy ignorant and anyone who thinks I should care about them)
I know you’re sensitive, so don’t take this as a flame. But you complain of OTs taking room on the board, when there is another thread saying the same thing about flaming newbies etc. In fact, at the momment of writing this, the other thread has a higher position on the board. To me, duplicating threads is a bigger waste of space…
The only stupid question is the question asked by the stupid person…
I’m getting more tired of these off-topic “Waa, you’re mean to newbies!” threads than anything else. This is a searchable site with a lot of information on it, and 99% of the “newbies” who get flamed have been so because they are too lazy to do some work and search out that information. No one minds questions like “Bros, I’m going to try a cycle and I’ve studied up on X, Y, Z, but I was hoping you could give me some more pointers on Z”; rather, it’s the posts like “Dudes, someone gave me Winstrul-Q (I think that’s what its called) and some creetin (sp?), and I want you to tell me how to do a cycle with them. I don’t want references, only real information!!” With respect to your complaint about off-topic threads, the answer is simple: no one is forcing you to read them, so don’t.
Fellas, Seriously, we all do need try and take it a little easier on ‘newbies’ We will all be better off if we nurture people who are new to the iron game rather than berate them in their first experience with people like us, because from my experience stick-boys (not the ‘Stick Boy’) are rather intimidated by rocked up individuals as it is and can be easily scared back into their skinny hippie lives. The forum is here as a way for T-men everywhere to bond, for the purpose of us all rising up some day and helping the general public no longer be scared of “Testosterone”. Let’s see some love.
Open Forums: It’s the nature of the beast. I run a few forums on one of my sites, and they really get abused. Disclaimers, warnings, etc., often go unheard. Our experiences aren’t so much OT stuff, but personal attacks, racism, etc. One thing we did (which I may recommend to T-Mag) is that we’ve separated our forums into categories. For instance, here we can do a training/diet forum, a roids forum, a newbie forum, open forum, etc. And believe it or not, the management workload isn’t really increased … the same amount of content is just organized into different areas. I must say, however, that this forum is one of the best I’ve ever been to … not only in its design, but in the content (thanks to most of the people who post to it). But getting back to OT topics … they seem to be more popular than the others. You have to remember that forums are communities. As such, people look to them not just for info, but to make new cyber buddies and learn about other people too. (OK, I feel like everything I just wrote was totally unorganized and went off on tangents … forgive me, I just woke up.)
Good point Bob, its getting to the point where you can use the search engine to look up newbie complaints. My question to newbies is if you asked a guy how to use DNP, would then go use it without any research on it? Why wouldn’t you do the same for everything else?
I fully agree that we should help anyone on this board no matter how obvious the question may be to us so long as it pertains to fitness and nutrition and suplementation. As of lately there have been too many “getting to know the T-man” stupid threads about jobs/lovehate relationships here/etc. I think we need to just keep on topic a little better because they are getting annoying.
Put your purse down and don’t sweat the flames so much. I’ve been flamed before for asking too general a question and I survived just fine. Of coarse I got a pair and so should those newbies. Sometimes people need to be shaken up a little to learn something. You can’t go around treating everyone with kid-gloves all the time. The threads are usually mixed with info along with the flames and sometimes the best info is to “do research”.
I believe my position has been taken out of context or at least has been contorted and misinterpreted. I’m not a “newbie” and I really don’t give a shit how many flames are sent up their asses! My point was that a number of the individuals that were making these attacks were the same ones writing about off-topic subjects. For the most part, these individuals were claiming that they were helping the forum as they free’d up space for what they deemed to be more important. Now, isn’t this either hypocritrical and/or just plain ignorant?
True, I don’t have to read posts that don’t concern me but when I post something that does match the criteria of this forum and it gets bumped three pages back because 50 people decide they want to discuss why the sky is blue, I think I have a right to be frustrated. This discussion board is the best I’ve come across and in no way am I slamming it on a general level. I understand and agree that each person should have the right to express themselves and their personalities as they so choose. I cited an observation and a concern and had no intent on making a declaration or judgement.
Hey SP, blow me! Testosterone is in the process of setting of two seperate boards: one for roids and other hardcore; the other for misc. bullshit. Until then the forum is open to all persons lookign for the best lifting info as well as the best in all industries. Recently a post questioned what occupations t-reads are in and many are in the computer industry. Therefore it’s only obvious and intelligent to inquire on this forum. I trust many of the opinions of the people who write on this forum and we don’t need pansies like you bithcing on their introductory posts.
In the past others have complained that they did not like all of the steriod info on the site. Although I personally don't use steriods, I was in full agreement with many who said if they don't like that topic to skip it and go on. IF WE WANTED TO HERE FROM A BITCH THEN WE WOULD HAVE BOUGHT A DOG!
any board is going to get off topic.
there is more to being a t-man/woman than lifting. so the off topic conversations don’t bother me.
newbie questions don’t bother me either. you gotta remember some newbies to weightlifting are also newbies to pc and the internet.
there was a question the other day a guy had and i thought it legit but he was heavily flogged for it by one forum memeber. this wasn’t right.
chris shugart always in a nice way points people in the right direction and we should too.
N.S.A. - You have “a right to be frustrated” by posts that aren’t all about T. Well please, by all means, request a refund from Testosterone!
In regards to the “Newbies, do the research” arguement. Well, I will usually answer a question for a newbie, if it hasn’t been answered for a while. But, sometimes it irritates me when the same question was asked and answered the day before. If the person would have scrolled through the posted questions first, then they would have seen the same thing asked and answered. I also want to say that if I think the answer to the question is a good one, I pass it up and let the author of that one bask in glory. No need for me to repeat what is a good post, unless I want to give them a pat on the back and/or add something.