Oh no who is right?
I came across an issue that can really make it had for people looking for an answer.
It this situation one of the members brought up a question on live chat. I was curious as to the answer myself so I followed along. Well the question was answered by three of the people we look at most for answers, Ambassadors.
Well I don't know about the person who ask the question,to whether they got the answer they wanted. As for what I saw these three mentors had three different answers. This sort of surprised me that they could not give this person the same answer.
Don't get me wrong I believe they may all have been correct . Just that only one answer was covering the entirety of the subject. Whereas the other two only covered certain aspects of the question.
So which of our mentors do we look to to make sure we are get the answers we need? It may not even be an Ambassador you will find to be a true mentor. The right answer is going to be from the one with the documentation link. That way you know and you can look for yourself. So be careful of half truths.
This is just an observation and an opinion of an ol' hillbilly. Take it for what it is worth.
Ozark Hillbilly Vapor
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Hi Paul, only comment to your words "these three mentors". I did not participate in that discussion of course, but do you really think I can be a mentor to you, or to people like Leo, or Dom? I did not ask for this pompous title, this is just a funny word.
Agree with Chris about many ways to skin a goat, this is not an exact science.
I think most people see the title and that is who they look to for answers. I know that a year ago I did. and in some cases still do.
I agree with you Hillbilly, although I've found that it can be a little hard to answer questions in live chat. The pace can be so fast that it's hard to offer a complete answer. I quite often tell people to send me a PM so that I can answer their question in more detail.
I have definitely seen competing answers to different questions, and I completely agree that the best answer is the one with supporting documentation so that you can verify it yourself. I generally prefer to give documentation, so that people aren't considering me the source but rather the actual source the source. I'm still wrapping my read around that here on WA though. Part of the No Spam policy is you're not really suppose to refer to outside content, so I'm usually hesitant to link to something outside of WA.
I link to outside sources all the time.
Unless you're constantly pointing people to your own sites with a sales pitch attached, it shouldn't be an issue.
While generally it isn't an issue because nobody says anything about it and people do it all the time, read rule number 9. Spam is a NO NO!
Ok but when you are giving a external to a reference that is no spam. you are not sending them to your site or a site for a profit.
I answer a decent amount of questions on here about a lot of topics. Usually it'd be easiest to just link them to a tutorial telling them what to do rather than writing it all out. I've just been telling them the phrase to search in Google to get the answer they're looking for. The one advantage to this is that there are generally multiple tutorials in the search so they can pick the one they want.
LOL I'd agree with you that it's not what we would typically call spam, but try reading those rules literally without any interpretation on them.
The thing is I'm a devious bastard, so when you start creating loopholes I find all kinds of ways to start climbing through them. For example create a website that's not attached to your WA account. Then post content on that as answers. If anyone calls it spam, just say it's not your site so it doesn't count.
I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD DO THIS!!! for anyone coming along later. I'm just saying that the rules say one thing. People do another thing. And if there is the tiniest opening a spammer will find a way through. :)
I may have to start asking you questions.
I have a couple of the Ambassadors that I look to now and then, but I ask Simon a lot and a couple of others.
What Hillbilly said. :)
Rule 9 is more about blog posts here at WA being used to entice readers to visit our sites by providing a snippet and then linking to our offsite content.
I have broke a couple of those rule, not intentionally but from not remembering them or totally understanding them.
Hell a year ago a didn't really know what spam was other than nasty ass meat in a can.
Like I said. I understand how people interpret them and apply them. All I'm saying is read it as is and you're going to come to a very different conclusion.
LMAO. "nasty ass meat in a can." I do have the advantage of experience in some areas, because web design, programming, Wordpress, etc. are what I do for a living. But there's definitely a lot of good info on here in a lot of different areas that I'm trying to take advantage of. I think it's a fair trade. My knowledge for theirs :)
Web design well well, It just so happens I am trying to do that with me new site. Mind if I PM you?
That illustrates a couple things:
Rank here at WA is often irrelevant as it pertains to real knowledge and helpfulness.
Sometimes it's better to do the legwork yourself.
And last... there is sometimes more than one right answer. :)
I wish it was easier to find what you're looking for or i just don't know where to look.
I know about the ranking I had mad it to 202 before I know what it was for and I don't know shit.
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I find that it takes me too long to put together an answer for a lot of questions, but I am also not really good at finding the links that answer. Often more than one answer can be correct. This can make it confusing for new folks. The idea of offering a training link is a good one.