Another problem I see with what you proposed is Who decides what would be included? Some of the things that supposed authorities on martial arts post regularly smack of their prejudice against certain styles. There are many myths about the martial arts like the myth about the original black belt being a white belt that over years became darker and darker until it was black. That myth has been around since before I began my training in 1967.
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Most of those questions are coming from kids that do not go out much, or have a lot of social life, others are watching too much UFC matches, sometimes you see questions and you can tell that are coming from 8-10 years old kids, sometimes you can understand that are coming from problematic kids. But in the end of the day, you just don't answer them and that's it.
I would like to see a few good books on martial arts or any other section, but that it is difficult, since is difficult and not quite correct to choose some books over others, as the official books for martial arts or any other section in yahoo answers.
Perhaps some guidelines or even regulations that are saying or even forbidding asking questions of a violent nature (like how can they beat a kid for example), would be nice.
I am with Dave. They want personalized answers, not generic answers, no matter how generic the question was and how many times we answered that very same question for others.
Yes it would be nice but as other's have stated there is the Search Answer's option, its just part & parcel of how it goes. Ive actually joined another MA site because of it.
There is, it is called the "search answers" button. You can't get them to use it first, so why do you think that they will actually read a disclosure?
On forums online there are stickies that explain that sort of thing. Back when The Caged Dojo was actually active we had some questions not to ask, and on other forums as well there are certain questions that are answered already. It would be nice, but it won't happen here.
And on another note, I kind of dislike the answer "The better fighter will win." The better fighter doesn't ALWAYS win. Sometimes the better fighter is facing somebody that's pretty good but a lot bigger than they are and they get beaten by the less skilled opponent due to size advantage. Sometimes the better fighter loses out of sheer bad luck. Maybe the better fighter is injured going into the fight. We always assume that the better fighter and his opponent are both fighting at tip top shape in these hypothetical questions but really fighting is much less predictable than that. The better fighter has a better chance of winning, but there's still the chance he will lose. That's why it's always stressed that avoidance is better than fighting. When I read the type of answer that simply states "The better fighter will win" I will give it a thumbs down because it is a lazy answer and doesn't appropriately cover the question. It's a generalization, and some people (unfortunately) really don't know any better and will think that just being a better fighter will guarantee them a win in a fight.
That said, the idea behind the answer is good. If people elaborate further than the short, one sentence answer then I will likely reverse the thumb direction.
I soooo get what you mean, repeat questions are one of my pet hates...
The most popular question in this section : 'What martial art should I take?'
I get that they want a personalized answer and everything but surely SOMEONE who has previously asked the question has a similar body type and other traits they describe about themselves, I mean seriously. Then people go to the effort of writing a really long explanation advertising their chosen martial art and it's all been said in previous questions that are exactly the same. If askers don't want to read through previous answers why not harness the power of Google.
Additionally, untrained randomers come into this section asking stupid and ridiculous questions like:
1) "Wanna fight?"
2) "Can you pull someone's heart out through their ***?"
3)"Can I beat God at a fight?"
4) "Is it true you can take ten people on at a time?"
I don't understand the want,no,the NEED for everything to be personalised these days. Some people are only interested in things (and answers) that concern themselves personally; me and my Vista live with a very "what's mine is yours" attitude so maybe that's why I don't feel that way...
I think before a question is asked the asker should be required to use the 'search answers' button. That would solve many a problem..
Sorry,rant over. Needed to get it out my system I guess
Use the "search answer" button? What a joke. Depending on my browser, the button will or won't show up. I'm using chrome today, and there's a big purple "search answers" button - but the link is dead. Click, click, click... nothing. Same story for several months now.
So these days, after Yahoo gave up their green monstrosity of an interface in favor of this purple monstrosity of an interface, I accept that there are 10 kinds of users: those who don't use search, and those who can't use search. (sorry for the math joke...)
And then there's Yahoo. Why bother doing anything at all? Somewhere, deep in their systems is some performance metric that some executive is being held accountable for the number of questions and answers. This metric is directly related to the number of people who are hit in the face with an advertisement. So of course Yahoo won't clean up the garbage, there's no reason to. They owe their allegiance to the stockholders, not like us krill.
About the best Yahoo could do is make use of one of their bright programmers with an affinity to purple, and ask him or her to write an algorithm that will read someone's question, then - before posting the question for the rest of us - post a few similarly-asked questions that have been asked, answered, and closed out. This way, the asker will be implicitly searching before posting.
But doing this will ultimately lead to less questions being asked, I think. And sometimes, some repeat questions are worth re-asking. For example, "what do forms mean to you?" This is a question that deserves being reasked every so often as the current cycle of answerers changes. New comers come in, tired users leave. New blood introduces new ideas blended in with those who are currently sticking around. But of course, no system could possibly be expected to automatically determine "stupid" from "useful".
unfortunately im with dave and liondancer, besides i dont think they know how to use the search function, heck 70% of them cant even use google. and you expect them to be able scroll down a list, i think your expectations are rather high on your end. lol
That in the martial arts section there was some sort of post for new people to read regarding some "truths" of martial arts.
Examples we get questions regarding certain topics that are asked all the time. And receive the same answer all the time. Like:
Who would win in a fight, Karate or _______? Answer: The Better Fighter Will Win...
And other silly questions. Wouldn't it be nice if some sort of guide was posted or something?
See what I mean? I kinda lost my train of thought and started to bundle my thought together.
What would you post or say regarding certain topics? Wisdom for the books per se.
