A life’s lesson that some people just can’t seem to grasp:

“Take Your @$$ Straight to the Source for Answers!”

I read forums largely to see people’s experience with a particular company, to promote something, or to read poetry or view graphics and techniques different designers use and things to that nature. Sometimes I’ll seek out a forum or blog provided by a company for help with one of their products I bought online somewhere. For example, you won’t see me going to Panasonic asking for support about a Sony product. And even if they can provide some help doesn’t make much sense to go asking them if I can contact Sony the maker of the darn thing, if the answer isn’t in their manual provided along with the product. Now I’m not saying the questions are stupid. I’m saying the act of asking anyone other than the source is stupid especially when the source (individual and/or company) is available and when companies have trained people ready to answer questions of their customers or potential customers. Please, continue reading.

Well DP forum is by far getting rather ridiculous due to the members. Now, they have their sections on the forum with a clear description of what that section should be used for and some members for some odd reason have taken the word “discussion” to mean “support team” of specific companies. For example it has a section for Payment Processing and the description given to it is:

“This area is designated for discussion of topics related to payment processing (merchant accounts, PayPal, etc.)”

Yet, you have some weirdos who will come posting threads in that section about support related questions that really only need to be addressed to the companies it concern. Let’s take PayPal for example. PayPal is a third party payment processing company helping people do business online and or to send and receive payment for personal use. Want more information about it just go to PayPal.com. Now, PayPal offers an extensive help section for any questions someone may have in regards to PayPal features and account information. Not only that but they offer email support AND phone support. So tell me why — why why why in the world do people insist on posing their PayPal related questions on a forum, not started by PayPal nor even affiliated with PayPal where none of the members even so much as work for PayPal nor does the PayPal staff hang out there. Why would people pose questions like:

Question: Why does PayPal keep calling me?
Answer: Why don’t you ask PayPal why they keep calling you?!

Question: My son & I have the same first name / last name but different middle initial. Can we both have PayPal accounts at the same US address? Will it cause problems with PayPal?

Answer: First off, why are you asking unqualified individuals these questions? And second if you are so concerned whether or not it will cause problems with PayPal, then go ask PayPal if it will. It’s their company!

Members of DP have turned a discussion forum into some sort of mass support team for companies that no person there is qualified enough to give the most accurate information possible. For example, let’s say you bank at Bank of America. And you want to purchase something on the internet with your bank card but first wanted to check your bank account online to see if you had enough money in there to make that purchase. In doing so you realized your bank had put a block on your account. What’s your first reaction going to be? Smart people will call their bank looking for answers. Well not some DP members. They’ll go straight to some forum asking unqualified people about their account. No kidding. That’s how they act with their PayPal account with questions like “Why did PayPal limit my account?” Hell if I know, why don’t you go ask them?! DUH!

That’s like me asking for example Susan or Bob about how I can reach you by Yahoo Instant Messenger when I know that you have a website with a contact page that has your YIM ID on it. Yea see how stupid that is?! And I’m not over-exaggerating. That’s exactly how people act over on that forum.

Then they get all upset when the information they were given by knowingly unqualified individuals turn out to be misleading. And the thing is it may not have been the person’s intention to mislead them it’s just a particular company made a policy or feature change and therefore the information given by the unqualified person just turned out to be out-dated. It’s just this simple and a lesson in life that really is a no-brainer…

You have a question about something or someone, go straight to the source if at all possible. Mostly all real companies provide phone support, email support and if they have a website they usually provide an extensive help section. Why wouldn’t you use? They didn’t put all that work into that and hiring people to work the phone and email support for you to go running over to some forum or some person who isn’t qualified nor trained to answer questions regarding their company.

Use what they give you. It would be more than worth it than getting secondhand information that runs the risk of be misleading, false and/or just plain out-dated. And if you choose secondhand information, then don’t get all upset if things go wrong. I’ll be the first to tell you “That’s exactly what you get!” Go to the source especially if it’s readily available and easily accessible.

I even had one dumb@$$ ask me in response to my reply about going straight to the source:

“So what is this sub-forum should talk about then?”

Can you believe how dumb, blind and lazy people can be especially when the description is right below the link they clicked on to access any particular sub-forum within the forum?! Absolutely pathetic. Oh and look at another comment on another thread I posted on about this someone replied to me saying this most retarded thing:

“i would say lets close this forum then
why ask things about google? go to the source!
why ask things about whatever? go to the source!
and this will be just an ordinary off-topic forum”

And do you want to know my reply to that ugly display of sarcasm? Oh I’ll tell you:

“That’s right, take your @$$ straight to the source especially if it’s readily available and in more than one way! This thread shouldn’t have even been created. I don’t understand why people like secondhand information and then get all upset when things go wrong with that information they received from unqualified individuals. It’s like that’s what you get for NOT going straight to the source. Wise up folks. Should be something your parents taught you and if not, should be something you could have figured out on your own. DUH!”

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I’ll just say maybe they are just trying to increase their post count than anything else asking questions where nine times out of the ten the answer is on the site of the company they are asking about. And if it’s not, they can still get the answer from the company via email and/or by phone. PayPal specifically is really good on responding but that doesn’t stop people from asking members of DP questions that only PayPal should be answering. Why would they want to increase their post count, well if you haven’t noticed or aren’t on forums to notice, people have a bad tendency of measuring trust based on a person’s post count. Sad but true. And not only that but people also have another bad tendency of thinking the higher your post count the more “smart” you are. Just plain stupid people; some of them. And if you are offended by what I’ve said then apparently you are one of those stupid people I’m talking about.

Life’s lesson that is easy (or should be) to understand and use:

GO STRAIGHT TO THE SOURCE ESPECIALLY IF IT’S READILY AVAILABLE AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE! ENOUGH SAID!

Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.

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