Firstly let me say that MFK is an amazing community with a wealth of great information and great minds. One only has to browse the DIY forums to see the kind of ingenuity people have, pushing the boundries of the hobbby and coming up with new and different ideas. Not only that, but the way in which these ideas are instantly shared globally and proliferated is fantastic, I often wonder how different it would have been for me had such a resource been available when I started keeping fish in the pre-internet days when advice came from books and the LFS. I remember being blown away as a teenager when I first searched for "tropical fish" (I didn't 'Google' it either, think it was probably AltaVista) and found there were other people who liked fish on the net!
but...........
I have noticed over the years, as well as an increase in the knowledge and techical discussions, an increase in posts of people asking to be spoon-fed the most basic information. "Can I keep an oscar in a 50g tank", "how do I make a sump", "tell me everything I need to set up a tank" etc etc etc. Obviously there is nothing wrong with asking questions, that is what the forum is for right, but when does a forum cease to become a technical resource for people to research and learn from and just become a help-desk 'tell me how to fix my problem' type thing? It seems that having such a wealth of knowledgeable people willing to answer questions and discuss problems has (at least for some) eliminated the need to take it upon yourself to solve your own problem.
The main reason I see a problem with this is because it creates a lack of understanding. You can tell someone to wait when setting up a new tank and then slowly add fish, but if they have no idea about the nitrogen cycle and biological filtration then it will certainly lead to problems down the line. That is exactly what happened to me in my early days of fish keeping, after being told by the guy at the LFS to wait and add fish slowly I had success for quite some time, until I moved the tank, pulled it to bits and cleaned everything, and replaced the UGF with an internal all at once! After losing most of my fish and battling cloudy water I bought a good book and read it cover to cover and realised exactly what I'd done. With more technical subjects like designing sumps or setting up high-tech planted or reef tanks the need to understand WHY and HOW rather than just what to do is even more important, and relying on what you've been told by others instead of actually learning and understanding yourself doesn't usually achieve that. I see these posts and can't help but think "if you can't be bothered spending a bit of time searching and reading and learning then this really isn't the right hobby for you".
Please don't mistake this post for newbie-bashing or anything like that. I'm always trying to encourage people into the hobby, but think it is also vital to help them realise that learning is an important part of the hobby if one is to be successful at it.
So, discuss. Have we as people of the internet age become so reliant on being told everything we're losing the ability to research and learn for ourselves, or am I just getting grumpy old buggers syndrome at the grand old age of 31...
but...........
I have noticed over the years, as well as an increase in the knowledge and techical discussions, an increase in posts of people asking to be spoon-fed the most basic information. "Can I keep an oscar in a 50g tank", "how do I make a sump", "tell me everything I need to set up a tank" etc etc etc. Obviously there is nothing wrong with asking questions, that is what the forum is for right, but when does a forum cease to become a technical resource for people to research and learn from and just become a help-desk 'tell me how to fix my problem' type thing? It seems that having such a wealth of knowledgeable people willing to answer questions and discuss problems has (at least for some) eliminated the need to take it upon yourself to solve your own problem.
The main reason I see a problem with this is because it creates a lack of understanding. You can tell someone to wait when setting up a new tank and then slowly add fish, but if they have no idea about the nitrogen cycle and biological filtration then it will certainly lead to problems down the line. That is exactly what happened to me in my early days of fish keeping, after being told by the guy at the LFS to wait and add fish slowly I had success for quite some time, until I moved the tank, pulled it to bits and cleaned everything, and replaced the UGF with an internal all at once! After losing most of my fish and battling cloudy water I bought a good book and read it cover to cover and realised exactly what I'd done. With more technical subjects like designing sumps or setting up high-tech planted or reef tanks the need to understand WHY and HOW rather than just what to do is even more important, and relying on what you've been told by others instead of actually learning and understanding yourself doesn't usually achieve that. I see these posts and can't help but think "if you can't be bothered spending a bit of time searching and reading and learning then this really isn't the right hobby for you".
Please don't mistake this post for newbie-bashing or anything like that. I'm always trying to encourage people into the hobby, but think it is also vital to help them realise that learning is an important part of the hobby if one is to be successful at it.
So, discuss. Have we as people of the internet age become so reliant on being told everything we're losing the ability to research and learn for ourselves, or am I just getting grumpy old buggers syndrome at the grand old age of 31...
