Y ask then...?

Question

Why ask fish questions? when you are ignorate and frankly dont care about the correct answers, but rather than getting the answer u want.

I find it funny how a person who can basically STEAL info and paste links can get best answers.

I think alot of us TC dont get enough credit and frankly if you want BSanswers then continue what your doing. But Then stop come crying to us when your fishes are dieing.

If your wondering what got me so PO is this one i answered.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AriC6xrm50.4218pJC6LO5Dty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071103175452AAHkObX&show=7#profile-info-Nicf5B8faa

Do you honestly think i have an motive and are trying to give u wrong adivse so you will buy a fish tank....

Nothing i said in there was false. Go look it up if youwant.
To be honest. if your not humble... Then how can u ever learn about fish.

My question to everyone is: do you not care about your fish enough to get it the tank it needs? I guess i made the sizes up.....

of course it is my option... my point exactly. Im not here to pass false adivse.. im here to answer the questions about fishes. As that iswhat i love.

So your right it is my option to answer questions. And i love to do it as fishkeeping is one of my true passions.

Answer 1

Well, this is some of the reason I have knocked off here too lately. I cannot stand ignorance (i.e. "I have 37 goldfish in a fish tank, WHY on earth are they all dying?"......."I got 8 sharks, 3 peacock eels, 2 goldfish and 3 Oscars in a 10 gallon tank, what do I do now?") These questions kill me.....well, actually, they kill the fish. Then, you have some answers that you cannot believe you are even reading (i.e. "Add 1 cup of salt per 5 gallons of water") and then on the flip side you have TC's giving information that they THINK is right but isn't, and can't/don't back up the information they are trying to give (they "think" it's right, therefore it is). This kind of thing can get people's fish killed. IF you are going to provide an answer to a question, you should be able to either be ready to back up your words, or even better, provide links that support the information that you are giving. And then there are others who think they are giving "perfect information" but that information is not totally correct either. Then you can get in to the argument that a LOT of fish keeping has to do with what works well for a person. What worked well for you may not necessarily work well for me, that's why you cannot demand that your way is the "right way" because in a lot of things here there IS no right or wrong, just what works and what doesn't. If you can understand what I am trying to say.

Ultimately though, it's up to the question asker to check out ANY information they choose to use prior to using it. That way they have no one to blame but themselves if something goes wrong.

I don't think that Y/A is set up well at all and that it needs to be re-vamped as far as TC guidelines and these "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" things. Everyone here knows full well that there are people that just run through "giving thumbs", as I have talked to quite a few TC's about it in the past. We are pretty much all in agreement that something has to be done (or I should say something "should" be done). Maybe they will listen, maybe they won't. It's our decision whether to answer or not. That's what it comes down to.

I have a lot of respect for a bunch of people in here, that's for sure. And then there are others who all I can do is chuckle at their answers. But that's anywhere I suppose. And as the saying goes "You can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time". So Chris, although you were perfectly right in saying what you said, you obviously said something she didn't want to hear.....or to admit. Shake it off and keep going!! It's all we can do!

Good luck everyone!!! ;o)

Answer 2

Well, i personally had to take a break from this site for 2 weeks because i was really pissed off and discouraged by repeatedly the same Q's over and over again by the same askers as well as answers which got to be a BA which where just outrageous and didn't have any correct info in them what so ever

I enjoy helping people with their fish problems, but some of them just plainly don't get it
Unfortunately there are people who don't care at all what we have to say, but what they believe is correct
Others who do care at least do some research even after they got a bunch of answers which are a lot of the time incorrect but also do research after they got the correct answer and then choose the right BA

Also our biggest handicapp on here are the petstores where these people get their fish from
I actually went off on several managers and employees 2 weeks ago in several petstores, because of all the wrong info they give and on how they display these poor bettas
I have noticed one big change at petco however which i liked very much, and that is that they now sell them in bigger cups, which is double from the size they kept them before in
I also noticed that these particular bettas are also much healtheir then the others at petsmart and other LFS

Anyway, it needed to be said, i hope it will get better some day around here
Keep your head up, we can only do so much
But if we're able to save only one fish's live a day with our effort to help, i'm happy
But just as in real life, nobody will ever always agree to what you have to say, or either one of us have to say
IMO, if the thumb thing would be taken away around here, i think we also would see some improvement on character and would also see more quality answers


EB

Answer 3

Hey BC, your absolutly correct and a lot of the answers you've gotten here have hit the nail on the head. Most of the people asking here only pick the answers that they want to hear. Most of the time they either, don't care if it the best answer, or don't know. But most of the time these answers can lead them down the wrong path and set them up for defeat. Or even if they get great answers, but it isn't what they want to hear, they will just post the question again, and again till they get what they want to hear. Also for someone to just answer a question with a link they posted is lame and can't beleive the example you posted that the guy got the best answer for it. I many times will post links for people to get more info on the subject than what I have told them, but it also comes after I have given them my best advise on the subject.

Like you had said though "if your not humble... Then how can you ever learn about fish?" This is so right. I have times that I have done things that are wrong and had people tell me this, and tell me what I have to do. This is just part of the learning experience, no one is just born knowing everyting, you learn as you go. I hope your not discuraged by this and you keep on giveing good answers, Even though people might not like it, they do need to hear the right things. And like you said if they don't beleive it, they just need to do the research on their own and they'll find out that your right.

Answer 4

Whoa, BC!! I completely understand your frustration, however, expecting "ignorant" people to know the difference between valid information and very bad advice is not realistic!!

Often, I read answers that receive best answer that will immediately kill or eventually kill the fish in question. I have had "thumbs down" given to answers I've provided that are 100% accurate!

The problem isn't the quality of the answers you provide, Chris. The problem is that for each question, there are often answers that sound great and completely contradict other seemingly great answers. How can we expect "ignorant" people to pick the "right" answer from the "wrong" answer when they are novices?

I thoroughly enjoy your answers, and often "back you up" by giving you a thumbs up!

I've been a bit frustrated lately that I'm not a TC. I have a very high % of best answers and my information is top notch. I don't take it personally as I can't control it. I, too, answer questions in an attempt to educate and add to the successes of others in the aquaria hobby.

Answer 5

As Kelley and Mamao3 stated:
“Some people just want to hear what they want to hear”

The fact is some are just not willing to research the correct answers and anecdotal information that sounds good is OK with them, regardless of the facts or any thoughts towards the fish.

Many will also provide these answers as well going to spam article sites such as about.com that only pass around the same information that is incorrect without doing proper research, case in point is a thread where several persons stated that the little white worms wiggling around in there aquarium were Planaria. This is false as Planaria look nothing like this, but these poor sources never checked actual biology sites or aquatic sites that due their homework.
Example of the correct identification:
http://aquarium-answers.blogspot.com/2007/03/trematodes-and-nematodes-in-fish.html

:~) C

Answer 6

I agree with you as well. Generally, if I provide a site link, a try to give a little info, however, some things I don't have much experience with, so will direct to a site I have personally checked to see if the answer to the question is there. The questioner could, and should, have done this themselves.
The questioner you mention, I'm going to assume, uses English as a second language, and so was somewhat difficult to follow. I personally feel a person should not just be willing to follow advice he/she wants to hear, but will consider everyone's advice (serious answerers only).

Answer 7

Ya know, I hate it, but I think a lot of people have the opinion "They are just fish". When I had a population explosion in my molly/platy tank, my mother-in-law's solution was "dont feed them for a month" *grumbles*. And at Petsmart I got in to an argument with a woman there because she insisted that I was wasting money getting a 2.5 gallon for my niece's betta when a little 1/4 (yup 1/4!) gallon would suffice. And when I flipped and said that was cruel to put a fish that is 4-6 inches long in a coffin-sized "tank", she told me that they dont get that big, and even if they could, it would only grow to the size of the tank. She walked off when I said "Ya know what! Give me a german sheperd puppy and a rabbit cage! Im going to have me a rabbit-sized german sheperd forever!"
My husband almost had to pull me out of the store...now Im going to have to go back there and gripe at them about these tetras I got *gr*

Anyway, before I went off on a tangent, yeah, I really do think a lot of it is the "they are just fish" mentality. You see it all the time with the people that say things like "Just fry it", "feed it to the cat" or "flush it" for the slightest problems.

Answer 8

Chris,

The one thing that surprises me on this one, is I emailed you a couple months ago about this very thing telling you this is why I cut down answering here. I hear ya. Then after hanging out with other answeres on different sites, I just went back to an old feeling inside I used in the Army. The last three years of the 12 years I put in was working as the Nuclear Biological Chemical Warfare NCO. One of the many things you have to do to graduate from the Chemical school is operate in a LIVE chemically contaminated enviroment. No tests or simulations. Live VX, Soman, and Sarin neve agents were on real tanks and weapons. The only thing non live were the "soldiers" We performed detections and decontaminations. Before we went in, we used the testing equipement to verify our masks were properly sealed too. It was a confidence booster to know that our equipment worked properly and would protect you in the event the real thing happend.

The reason I'm telling you this is here. Many of the soldiers in my unit hated training for NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) combat. I had about 10 soldiers even get a doctor to certify they should not wear their mask. This baffled me extremely. I tried every method I could to reach these people to realize the stupidity of doing that simply because they didn't want to practice survival. I wrote our commnander and his superior about this. I told those soldiers this, in a last ditch effort. This was the best I can recall it.

"If you want to not wear your mask or train to survive in these enviroments, go ahead. You think Saddam or any other person like a Milotsovitch would refrain from using this on us simply because you didn't train properly or you hate wearing your mask? Do you think those nerve and blister agents are not going to destroy your nervous system or make you look like the Elephant man because you don't want to put your suit on in time? It's your body, your family, your life on the line here. I know for a fact this equipment will work because I've done it for hours on end in a live enviroment. I can't do more then that to prove it to you. You don't want to listen to me, then don't. But I won't be the one carried out on a stretcher or buried if those weapons are used on us. I'll be the one walking away."

In the end, you can tell all you want what is right, what you feel is right, and what you believe to be right. Like I told you a few months ago, I'm at the point where I'm not going to lose my mind or sleep trying to prove to someone the moon is white in color if they want to think it's purple. Carry on Chris, it's just water under the bridge.

Answer 9

You know I have to agree with you on this. I have seen many great answers not only in fish but dogs, cats and everything else and seems that people wait for the answer that suits them instead of taking the right advice allot of them time. Then when they do not get the answer they want they post the same question again. Just like when people ask breeding questions. My favorite is how old should my dog be before I breed her? 99% of the answers say at least 2 years old but they will wait for that one person to say 1 year is old enough and that is what they pick as best answr it make me sick. If you will not listen to the majority then do not ask.

Answer 10

Wounded Duck it is people like you that do this. I understand what bettachis is talking about. It's not that fact that we have a choice to answer or not, it's that people choose answers that THEY their self's know is not right. We are trying to help them and all they do give some moron 10 points for telling them something they what to hear instead of giving to the person who is telling them the thing they need to hear. Now i have seen many of bettachris's answer's and I must say he knows his stuff, but yet i often see him with thumbs Downs and that makes me mad. Makes me mad that people don't want the right answer but a answer from someone with little to no experience.