Willful Ignorance of Basic Facts

[Andara Bledin]

Note: If you log in using some mobile device, this does not apply to you.

I lose respect for people who enter into debates without bothering to do even rudimentary research on the topic at hand.

Sure, you can debate the abstracts of a situation, but when you start naming names and getting specific, then you should at least manage to do even the most basic research to avoid, at best, looking lazy and ignorant.

This is the Internet. You have more information at your fingertips than ever before. There's no reason not to, say, open a second window/tab and spend five minutes educating yourself. Other than laziness. Or you know your position is weak and you want to appeal to ignorance when you get shot down. I don't care, it's sloppy and I, for one, will think less of you every time it happens.

Note: You is general. If you think this applies to you in the specific, you can always step up your game.

[Ginger Tea]

Note: You is general. If you think this applies to you in the specific, you can always step up your game.

Guilty, I even admitted it in my last post in the honor student thread

[Andara Bledin]

Not knowing and stating such and/or asking, or not knowing and debating the situation in general is not at issue. It might be a little silly to not just open a new tab and get an answer on your own, but that's not always an option, and, really, not everybody should feel obligated to do so.

The most egregious example of what I'm talking about is when someone posts a link to a news article and a short synopsis of the issue, and a commenter says, "Well, they should have done this," when the article goes into detail about that specifically.

[Gravekeeper]

The most egregious example of what I'm talking about is when someone posts a link to a news article and a short synopsis of the issue, and a commenter says, "Well, they should have done this," when the article goes into detail about that specifically.

I think that one is my main pet peeve to be honest. Responding without reading the news article we're talking about. Worse so if its a really elaborate, thought out response. Like a lot of time was spent on it, but a minute couldn't be spared to actually read the article to begin with. -.-

[Ginger Tea]

I really don't like the here is a thread title and a link and nothing else posts.
Granted the title is normally descriptive, but I end up less inclined to read the link if the OP cannot even give their opinion on the subject themselves.

I know there is a sticky about not C+P ing a whole article, but that doesn't mean no brief synopsis.

[Andara Bledin]

There's a rule about content and failing to add your own. It doesn't spell it out specifically, but you're not supposed to just drop a link and description and bail. As this is a debate site, it's implied that you are supposed to take some sort of position as regards the topic, especially if you take the time to start an entire thread about it.

[Nekojin]

I really don't like the here is a thread title and a link and nothing else posts.
Granted the title is normally descriptive, but I end up less inclined to read the link if the OP cannot even give their opinion on the subject themselves.

On a similar matter - I find it annoying when someone puts half of a sentence as the title, and completes the sentence in the body of the message. Sometimes, it's just irksome, but sometimes the missing half dramatically changes the tone of what's being discussed, and it feels like a bait-and-switch - entering a thread expecting it to be one thing, and the "extra" information that was left out of the title makes it an entirely different issue. I'll leave off using an example, as that might needlessly antagonize the post-writer.

In my opinion, the title should be a complete and concise description of the issue at hand, not a half-hidden teaser to make people click on the link. People should be reading threads because it's a topic they're interested in, not because they're tricked into it with a stupid word trick.

[HYHYBT]

I'm not sure how much of this is defense and how much is exception, but there are what I firmly believe to be valid reasons for certain examples that fall within what's described so far. For example, the other day (on another site, of course) there was a post labeled something like "The ADA's Position on Fluoridation" and nothing further except a link to a 70-something page PDF. Of *course* I didn't read all that. I checked to be sure their basic position hadn't changed and went on from there. Examples here aren't that long, but it's certainly possible, in reading quickly, to miss (or misread) a detail or even not to realize there was a second page to the article. And of course a person who has done one of those isn't going to know they've done it.

Any link that's a video without sufficient explanatory text is almost as bad as the 70 page PDF. If the video is long, "sufficient explanatory text" means enough that actually watching the video is unnecessary.

[Ginger Tea]

Yeah a video only news report isn't the best thing, it can start in the tab whilst you are reading, have a noisy advert if you brows with head phones on (or are just getting a sneaky brows at work) and basically force you to absorb everything at their speed, and if you missed something its watch the whole damn thing again.

I had to re listen to an answering message to call my land lord on a different number 5 times cos he spoke too fast to get the numbers written down, so when you are not expecting a blipvert of a news post details can be missed.

Sometimes video is good as in the case of the Arizona iced tea incident, aside from the music and the cut to title's it was more or less unaltered (but I didn't see a follow up so I'm still unsure of it's authenticity vs publicity using cop actors), in that thread though there were attempts to describe what was going on, but if you didn't do a full transcript you missed something out and that omission no matter how small can change how people see the action play out on page without watching the video.

[Andara Bledin]

I particularly dislike links to videos that don't say they're links to videos.

I won't watch a video report. Not unless it's for further information that cannot be conveyed by just a text report, such as the aforementioned iced tea incident.

[Panacea]

I won't watch a video report. Not unless it's for further information that cannot be conveyed by just a text report, such as the aforementioned iced tea incident.

Bingo. I feel the same way. Unfortunately, I nailed myself with the very thing you're talking about recently when I didn't watch the video (which was the only coverage, no regular news reports) when I expressed my opinion on the issue (although watching later after I got called on it did not change my mind I still should have watched it first).

I don't like watching videos for a variety of reasons: I may be in a public place, and it's not appropriate/disturbing to others, I may be at work, I have to deal with the bleeping ads, and it's much more time consuming (I'm a speed reader, I can read an article very quickly).

[Hyena Dandy]

On a similar matter - I find it annoying when someone puts half of a sentence as the title, and completes the sentence in the body of the message. Sometimes, it's just irksome, but sometimes the missing half dramatically changes the tone of what's being discussed, and it feels like a bait-and-switch - entering a thread expecting it to be one thing, and the "extra" information that was left out of the title makes it an entirely different issue. I'll leave off using an example, as that might needlessly antagonize the post-writer.

In my opinion, the title should be a complete and concise description of the issue at hand, not a half-hidden teaser to make people click on the link. People should be reading threads because it's a topic they're interested in, not because they're tricked into it with a stupid word trick.

And one that annoys me is an entirely non-indicative title. Like "THIS IS RIDICULOUS!" Or "Here we go again *eyeroll*" or something. All I know based on that is a thing has occurred, and there's a thread. I have no idea if this will be a thread about something I'm interested in.

Or something like "The Republicans/Democrats/Obamas/Demons/Psychic Kids/Witches/Bunnies are at it again!"

What are they at! I have to know! Or else I don't know if I care!

[HYHYBT]

In a similar vein, I'm continually frustrated by Youtube (etc.) titles that are too long for the part that actually distinguishes which file I should look at next to appear in, for example, the sidebar. Not that there's an easy solution, from the poster's side, that doesn't cause other problems.