Regurgitating Information

[KneesWeak]

I haven't been on this forum too long, but I've been watching Linus's videos for awhile and decided to jump aboard.  Posting and reading through topics has made me feel reluctant.  A LOT of the responses I see are pretty much word for word what Linus, Slick, Logan or some random person on a different thread, etc. have had to say about a certain topic or issue and people seem to not add there own take on things for whatever reason.  I don't know if it's because people don't know enough to make a statement but it begins to just take away from these great discussions.  Sometimes it is definitely called for and could be helpful to whomever is reading but it seems like it makes people look bad.  I know that Linus had an issue with people posting news articles then not citing them or giving their own take but when you take your time to respond to somebody don't make it thoughtless.  I'm sure people have seen this happen if you've been on any forum recently, especially with all these big youtubers like linus, techoftomorrow, razethew0rld, neweggtv and such where it seems like people get all their information from and never add on from personal experience.  What do you think about people doing this,  does it get on your nerves to the point where you post a topic about it?  

[Bleedman0xx]

Are you talking about the Tech News submissions specifically? I don't know what threads you've been reading but I've seen plenty of people that have been responding, adding their own thoughts and opinions.

 

You say people are just quoting Linus & Co. word for word. I have seen none of that. But then again I don't watch every video Linus puts on his channel(s) so I can't compare. Also, have you considered that people are not adding to what Linus says because there's not much to add anyway? Sometimes, Linus gets it right and gets it wrong... Either way, people are gonna talk about it and form their opinions.

 

All in all, I'm not seeing what you're seeing.

[Night]

A lot of the stuff the people in question say is just fact. So if someone repeats it... Thats good. Means less stupid people. If its opinion based... Iduno. What if because most of us are enthusiest techies we just think in a very similar way??

Thats not really bad and not really anything you can do about it.

[Tr3vor]

I can sorta see what you mean in like the hardware area, like people recommending the same stuff time after time, but only so many products can be the cream of the crop and there is only so much hardware to recommend.

 

In the news section, I don't really see what you mean.

[Dim]

I don't post as much as some of the other members, but I do see a lot of the content posted and honestly I have to agree with the above three responses.

Bear in mind, a lot of these users watch Linus Tech Tips, so you can expect their information to be very similar in terms of a source. If you do not have firsthand experience with something, your only option is to research.

 

As an example, Linus often mentions that his gold-standard for pressure-optimized fans used for cooling radiators and heatsinks are Noctua NF-F12s. It's genuine fact that they perform better than most other fans, and there are benchmarks out there that prove it. However, this doesn't mean they are the best in the world - but they are a good combination of widespread, readily available, premium, well-known, silence-optimized, performance-optimized fans. There are alternatives, such as Noiseblocker NB fans that are similarly priced and generally similar in performance. These don't get mentioned as often because they are simply not as popular (though there are some issues in certain configurations due to the bionic loop that can make them very loud).

 

What I'm saying, primarily, is that many people don't have firsthand experience. It is fact that crossfire configurations have more 'microstutter' than SLI. Do you see where I'm going with this?

 

That gets all of the factual stuff out of the way. Now as for opinionated arguments, there are many instances where people don't agree with Linus' opinion. For example, having to have an Xbox One connect to the internet at least once a day is an absolute deal-breaker for me due to my own circumstances. Linus doesn't see this as much of an issue in comparison because his circumstances are different.

 

That said, in many cases my opinion may be the same as Linus' purely because I've been subjected to his media, despite me having no firsthand understanding of the topic at hand. In regards to this I would ask you to research the understanding of epistemology - how do we know what we know? If I'm told all my life that strawberries are green, even though I have never seen a strawberry, I am going to respond with "green" when someone asks me what color strawberries are. But I digress...

 

I don't believe members of this forum "regurgitate" information in the fashion you're describing. Yes, there are always going to be people that have absolutely no firsthand knowledge and that is a pity, but as long as the information provided is reliable and generally correct, I can't see that as a bad thing.

[brownninja97]

I take it this way. People learn from their teachers, some at school and they will learn certain words in the teacher does. This is the same thing as linus for example is being a teacher and we are learning the way that he teaches us. Im never buying a Noctua product because i dont like the colour scheme even if its superior. Many people like the Define R4, i think it looks like a fridge. People can think what they want to think, let them think that.