Hey guys,
I just wanted to point out that there has been a lot of really bad advice given on the forums lately. Specifically, I’ve seen advice given in the SEO and Business and Legal issues sections that would be detrimental if it were followed.
I understand that there isn’t much that can be done, but I felt I should share my concern for the problem and encourage you guys to revisit possible solutions.
Thanks
A forum is no better than its members, since it is they who produce the content. If you find members who are giving out bad advice, you should post the correct answers in those threads if you have the time. That’s the only way. You can’t ban people for being wrong (or stupid).
Even worse, those of us with shiny official-looking fancy badges give really bad advice sometimes. One of the things I like about this forum is that often someone with more knowledge will come along and say “No, that’s so wrong… it should be this…” and I’ve learned a lot from when that happens.
The SEO forums, though, are kinda ripe and there’s less of the correction… mainly because SEO is a sort of religion or mystic voodoo… kinda like mod_rewrite but without as much documentation : )
Clayton_L, do you have any specific posts to show as an example (in respect to business and legal issues?), It’s the general policy of how we chat in that forum that unless specified otherwise, our advice is purely opinion and not to be taken as a substitute for seeking out proper legal council. I certainly wouldn’t want to claim I’m a lawyer or legal expert, because I’m not… I just offer what advice I’m aware of at the time it may be useful (and I always base it on my own experiences or cited sources). As for the SEO forum, it’s impossible to make such a subject offer a viable solution. SEO is about as factually accurate these days as reading tea leaves and getting your science from a psychic, SEO is clouded with junk facts and FUD and nothing we or anyone else can do will prevent those spreading the factually incorrect information, well nothing short of banning them… and it certainly wouldn’t be much of a forum if we banned everyone who posted factually inaccurate information, in fact if we did there probably wouldn’t be anyone chatting here. If you have a potential solution which wouldn’t result in “forum genocide”, let’s hear it, otherwise you’ll just have to put up with it (like the rest of us) and just point out when people spread false information in the posts they appear in. 