[clifford_cooley]

Forum Correctional Issues:

If a post that you encounter has a statement you find to be false, would you try to correct or ignore the statement?


I know if I am wrong and can be proven wrong, I would want the forum corrected. I'm certainly not going to get upset at anyone when they do correct me. Sometimes it's not that there is an error, but simply something that would need clarification.


Anyway I'm asking everyone for their views on the topic of correcting someones post.
Would you think it's more important not to confront someone on the issue?
or
Would you think it's more important to keep the forums material as correct as possible?

Surely we can compromise between the two without causing an issue with other members.

[davehc]

It would be next to impossible to succesfully implement. As an example, some may have a good experience with, say, a piece of software, where others would have disasters with the same software. A few weeks ago there was a discussion on Ccleaner, and cleaners in general. One one liner stated that Ccleaner was the only available reliable cleaner!! This would be regarded by the majority of cleaner users as inaccurate, or false. But without preamble, could be considered by the uninformed as the gospel truth.

Perhaps it could be pointed out that such emphatic statements could be started with, let us say, IMhO.
Corrections in following posts, if badly composed, could so quickly lead into "flaming" wars.

[Fire cat]

As davehc allready stated, it would be very hard to implement.

But I am rather FOR correcting the user. It will give him that little bit more knowledge! Everbody is allowed to make mistakes, but it wouldbe better if they didn't do it again, if we can help it.

[davehc]

I agree. I was really thinking in terms of emphatic statements, as I quoted. They do come from time to time. Mistakes can actually be beneficial, as they inevitably lead to following posts correcting the mistakes and - as you say.

[Fire cat]

Originally Posted by davehc

I agree. I was really thinking in terms of emphatic statements, as I quoted. They do come from time to time. Mistakes can actually be beneficial, as they inevitably lead to following posts correcting the mistakes and - as you say.

Some old saying:
"You learn with your mistakes."

[Ian]

Forums are inevitable going to lead to discussions with differing opinions, so I'm pretty sure that most people would post their own thoughts on the issue. I've been corrected on this forum many times, and I'm very glad that this has been the case.

Flaming wouldn't be tolerated, but there's nothing wrong with politely suggesting an alternative if you believe some facts to be incorrect. Posting "THIS IS WRONG" would of course rub people up the wrong way, but chipping in with some good ideas of point of view would be most welcome to many people.

BTW, sorry I've not been around much this week - I'm on holiday for a few days and haven't had much time to come online. I'm back home soon though.

[Core]

Since this is a forum frequented mostly by hobbyists, much of the knowledge shared here is acquired through experimentation and personal experience, which means that the knowledge is half fact, half opinion.

I think what the answer to your question boils down to is this: if someone says "MSE is as good as AVG" or "Norton's AV products are all inferior resource hogs", there is little point to trying to correct them. Any "study", benchmark, or other test to measure a product's usefulness or lack thereof can be countered with another which provides facts and figures to the opposite. While telling stories about your own experiences may or may not influence the other party's opinion, it's still just fighting opinion with opinion.

I have done this myself many times when I've seen people arbitrarily dismiss a Symantec product (which I am a satisfied user of) or a Google service (which I find greatly superior to those of their competitors). In the end it's just for personal satisfaction because you're not likely to really influence anyone's position, and even if you did, it really makes no difference whatsoever in your own life. But we do it anyway...and we commit the same offenses; I know I'm always willing to put down Internet Explorer and am never short of any excuses for it, much, I'm sure, to the chagrin to those who like IE.

An entirely different matter is if someone says "Pentium III is 64-bit" or "one byte consists of seven bits." These aren't opinions, they're falsehoods which can be - and definitely should on a tech forum - to be corrected with facts right away. We just need to remember to provide those facts when we correct someone.

[TorrentG]

Norton/Symantec is the worst a/v vendor on the market, even worse than AVG nowadays. I don't think that's really left to opinion. I'm going by what I see. It causes a range of different bsods from 0x24 NTFS errors to 0x50.

No other a/v is doing anything close to as bad as this nowadays. It causes all other issues that no a/v even comes close to doing. Here's an example from today:

Please help with BSODs

I like to call it "marketware." They have marketing and nothing else to go for them.

[Elmer BeFuddled]

Agree with Core. Even though I had to bookmark his post halfway through for a breather!!

Maybe off-topic but, when you start a thread, you can edit it, but not the title. Why is this? (And I'm sure that's been asked thousands of times).

I like to speak "proper" English when I post, mainly to help non-English people (peeps!) understand what I'm trying to say, and hate not being able to edit a typo in a thread title.
That's why I'm glad I've nvr cum 2 txt spk ea (never came across text speak here). Bit of slang now and then is OK though! We all need local colloquialisms.

Innit??

[Nibiru2012]

I agree 95% with CORE on his reply. I know for a fact that the Norton 360 is a good piece of software. I know several geeks and uber-geeks who swear by it solely. Contrary to other opinions.

I don't use Norton products anymore and haven't for several years. I personally like products by G DATA and ESET. I have yet to see a post with those so-called AV initiated BSODs being caused by ANY product from ESET or G DATA. To me MSE isn't all it's cracked up to be by some posters here. Yes it's free and that's great, but it has had some vulnerability issues in the past couple of weeks, also it's not the "universal cure-all" for all BSOD issues. If one is willing to spend the money on top-end or mid-grade hardware then they can afford to get an excellent AV or IS program for anywhere from $30 to 60 per year fees.

What irks me most is people who do not or will not post their full hardware information when they're having driver issues or hanging. Then they incessantly post about how they're not getting the help. It would behoove those who post here to give as much information as possible the first time in the first post on the thread so the help may be supplied or suggested in a more timely manner.