SteveB wrote:
"Scott Hildenbrand" wrote

At any rate, I digress, as this thread has turned into quite the fracas.
However, I will agree that the canned spam reply to google or goto the
library that many people are doing now is growing old.. Almost as bad as
some replies to tree questions.. Almost..

Ok, enough rambling.. Compost, it's useful.. Toss in grass clippings and
leaves in layers and be done with it. Have fun..

I consider this and other topical groups to be DISCUSSION groups. Not dry
how to lectures, or dissertations by the overly educated.

I come here to talk to people. Get a little information here and a little
there. And to hear each person's individual experience and assessment.

Web browsing is important, too. And I do that on a regular basis. I have
just found that it is so slanted that it is almost unbelievable. Example:
I have googled for reviews of particular electronics devices that I KNOW are
popular, and there are no reviews available. Either it's a bad product, and
they don't post reviews, or there's no one actually doing the reviews and
reporting them. Or there's just a couple of reviews, and they are so long
and glowing that I suspect they were made up by someone in the marketing
department.

Internet is just like the news. You can take what comes down the pipe and
swallow it, or you can ask questions of people who've been there, done it,
for a slightly more informative answer. I don't consider, "Look it up in
Google, you lazy bum" to be an answer. At least not in a real time
conversation.

And to those who consider us who don't know everything (as they do) to be a
bother, there's always filters.

HTH

STeve

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but virtually everyone on usenet is
anonymous, so assuming that any of us knows what we are talking about,
or is telling the truth, is a badge of gullibility. I have it on good
authority, for example, that cat daddy is actually Hillary Clinton, and
who can believe what he/she says?

At least with a published book, or possibly with some credentialed web
sites, you know who is giving the information; whether you want to
believe it is another question. But certainly Wikipedia is rarely
considered an accurate source, as in many cases, anyone with a bone to
pick, or an urge to play games, can alter an article, making black seem
white.

I read some newsgroups, and have found some valuable information, but I
have always been careful to validate the information, or at least to
apply what I know relevant to the issue to vet the information. As a
retired lawyer, I read with amusement many of the postings on what are
legal issues, and I would estimate that fewer than five percent of the
postings are anywhere near accurate.

Certainly if you read a given group long enough, you can often judge
whether a given poster knows something about a given subject, or whether
they are just making noise.

So I think those who have posted that you should have done some research
before posting a rather open-ended question were giving good advice. If
you found conflicting information in your research, or were unable to
find an answer to a specific question, that would be the time to use
usenet, and we wouldn't have the spectacle of this lengthy thread that
has so little relevant information.