A lot of this would be stopped by people reading the investment order & any of the very often recommended books before posting inane questions that have already been answered. They could search the forum and find an answer.
Can't help but notice when genuine questions are ask here some guru type twat(s) generally tries pull a power dynamic on newbies.
Calling people twats is a surefire way to reduce hostility
Both of these are good responses.
As a 'senior' member around here I'll say that it gets very tiresome when people come into the forum bringing up some topic like they are the first to ever think of it, when even there's a blog post, and a stickie, and a multi-page thread on the subject.
It's one thing when someone asks politely and seems to genuinely want to better understand something. The majority of the time these posters are responded to in a respectful manner and pointed to a wealth of information (e.g. investment order, jlcollins, a particular thread). Example:
"I'm a low wage earner and I don't get a tax benefit from putting money in my 401(k) - can someone explain why its still recommended to invest there?" (this is a synopsis of a recent, actual question)
However, many posters come in wanting to throw stones, call people twats, and show that there's some great crack in the foundation of ideas here, which we've literally spent hundreds of thousands of pages debating en minutiae. Example: "
You people keep talking about buy and hold, but if you just used this MA strategy I read about but don't understand you could literally double your returns over the next twenty years. Everything you are doing seems stupid and bound to be just below average if you ask me, lulz" (paraphrasing another real-life example)
- such a question isn't likely to garner as polite a discussion, because the poster is rude and condescending and above all doesn't seem particularly interested in the exchange of knowledge.
Then there's the people who post things that go against the very nature of this blog - brags about paying full-retail on luxury items "
because I can afford it" or climate-denialist posts or
comments about how it's just too hard to do a simple task so ya'gotta outsource it- those get shut down pretty fast because we are a forum about being slightly less ridiculous with our material spending because we do care about the impact we have on our planet and we believe that there's lifelong value in learning how to do things yourself.
