2020 Dec. Goat Daily Rant 12
11Daily Rant: Stupidity rant.
Just… just don’t, okay?
Just generic stupidity, one example that has me flabbergasted every time I spot it.
“I don’t know.” It’s an admission. Not everybody is on top of all information everywhere at all times. I get that. It’s best to fess up quickly if somebody pointedly asks you a question and you come up short. There may be some value to compare your own experience with something similar, even if you can’t relate directly to the question asked. This is just fine. But when somebody casts out a general question, you are returning no value by inserting yourself into the stream with a confession of ignorance. Specifically, I am talking about product Q&A in Amazon or other e-commerce websites. Generic questions like “does this work with that” and “how many gallons will this hold” or “is there a link to the user manual?” will sometimes get a direct answer, sometimes the “I don’t know about model X, but Y has…” which are at least partly useful. It doesn’t take me much time wading through my purchase history to find examples of people returning a blank-staring “I don’t know.”
Now, let me get this straight. You saw a question on the website, you decided that you didn’t know, you fetched the address book that contained your grand-nephew’s middle name, which you use for security, you logged in, navigated back to the question page, all to inform the world of your ignorance.
When somebody asks a question here, they are looking for an answer. A small percentage of people on the face of the planet, maybe just a couple million, can supply that answer. What they don’t need is to wade through the other 7.6 BILLION responses of people who don’t have the foggiest, but are cheerfully willing to impart their particular vacuous stores of non-knowledge.
There is only one example of a less useful answer, and that is a wrong one. Only an answer with negative value is worth less than an “I don’t know” in the forum, unless somebody is specifically asking YOU, by NAME, the extent of your knowledge. We’re not quizzing on this next period, it’s not a morality question. If you don’t know, just skip it and move on to the next thing. If you still feel compelled somehow to ensure that your ignorance is well documented outside of your personal sphere of expertise, by all means, seek help instead.
.
.
.
.
.
Names obscured to protect the ignorant.
- 3 comments, 3 replies
- Comment
Agreed. But in defense of us ignorant people, Amazon does email stupid questions to buyers of items. I generally delete it and move on but some I am sure, feel compelled to answer.
@speediedelivery yep. I don’t shop Amazon really but I have received questions from Google and other places with something like, “a person has a question about an item, can you help?” and it’s not uncommon to see something like “I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t help.” I think those people are thinking there is another person at the other end genuinely asking them in particular.
@RiotDemon @speediedelivery Yep, it confused me at first when I got an email saying something like Bill has a question for you about this product you bought. It sounded like a personal conversation. So glad I didn’t stupidly answer.
Of course, admitting you don’t know can save a great deal of time and awkwardness.
.
I agree, but what I hate even more is when I ask a specific question, and get speculations. Hey, I can speculate all by myself, so in that case if you don’t know the answer, please say so!
From the Red Green show: “Welcome to the Experts portion of the show, where we examine those three little words that men find so hard to say: I Don’t Know!”.