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NS is a bit weird in this respect though, with its insistence on posing threads as questions, as though it were just offering an answering service. It doesn't of course, as this thread shows.
Quote from: LeeENS is a bit weird in this respect though, with its insistence on posing threads as questions, as though it were just offering an answering service. It doesn't of course, as this thread shows.Posing thread titles as questions simply makes them more attractive to search engines. If you will notice, most threads on this forum will get listings close to the top on most search engines.
I see two possibilities, firstly we should offer an answer from our own accumulated knowledge or we should hunt through the literature on the subject and try a give a definitive answer.I think the first course makes for the more interesting forum, we should not try to emulate Google, Wiki or Bing Our answers may well be wrong initially but more informed correspondents will correct us and we will learn.Even those who have the more correct answers will find it interesting how we formed our eccentric opinions.
On the original topic of how people should answer questions, I don't think the important point is whether you check your facts or speculate wildly, but that you must make clear in your post when it is you are speculating and when it is you are sure of your ground.
That, of course, depends on your being fully up to date with the latest research & discoveries. What was accepted as fact just a few years ago may now have been refuted by more recent experiments/discoveries. Unless you have an RSS feed from all the research institutes, every post should begin "As far as I am aware..." or "To the best of my knowledge...". Maybe we should ask Dave to alter the forum code to stick that on the front of each reply.
There are many topics which are not really 'matters of opinion', though
People who don't know a lot of Science are not always aware of just how firmly based a lot of Scientific knowledge is and they lump it all in with Quantum Entanglement and Parallel Universes. I see no harm in the occasional forceful assertion. (If that's OK with you guys, that is)
As soon as we get an urge to demonstrate our vastly superior knowledge of a subject by pointing out what we consider to be another poster's pathetic lack of knowledge, we should count to ten before we hit the Post button. It's just possible the poster knows a lot more about a subject that we are too scared to even ask about.