…and you’ll get every imaginable answer.
One of the greatest strengths of the Internet, starting wayyyyy back with ARPANET in the early 1970s*, is the sharing of knowledge and resources. Need a quick rundown on ancient Byzantium? You’ve got Wikipedia. Trying to figure out why your Dionaea muscipula looks wilty? The good people on Reddit’s r/SavageGarden would be happy to help.
Unfortunately, one of the many phenomena spawned by the Internet is the apparent inability to NOT answer a question. If the mechanism exists, people feel compelled to use it. And when the mechanism is as simple as a “Reply” button, everyone wants to throw his or her “expertise” out there.**
I witnessed a great example of this in one of my tabletop game design communities a few weeks ago. Someone posted the question, “If I’m going to offer an illustrator a revenue share in my game, what’s the typical percentage?”
Oh, did the answers come pouring in. Here are the first four:
6%.to 8%
0% (convince the illustrator to do it for exposure***)
9% to 24%
35% to 60%
There you have it. If you’re designing a game and you want the illustrator to work for a share of the sales, you should offer anywhere from nothing to 60%.
Some lovely Dionaea muscipula.
What’s actually frightening is the utter conviction with which every responder gave his/her answer. No waffling, no equivocation — each person was just certain that his answer was right. I suppose the OP**** could have asked for credentials or actual examples to back up the answers, but I’m pretty sure he was busy thinking, “I’m sorry I asked…”
There’s an old joke about learning all the material for an exam by sleeping with the book under your pillow, but I suspect it’s not far from people’s subconscious belief today — data flashes by us at a massive rate today compared to the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, so we assume we’re learning by leaps and bounds daily.
The problem is that data does not equal information, exposure to information does not equal learning, and learning still doesn’t guarantee critical thinking. Maybe some day we’ll just plug in and download expertise à la The Matrix, but for now people might do well to learn that sometimes silence is the best contribution.
* This is also the sharp rise toward the peak of musical awesomeness. Probably not a coincidence.
** You know that philosophy, “Better to risk being thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt?” It should probably be engraved on the top edge of every computer monitor.
*** Unless you’re already so successful at whatever you do that artists are dying to give you their work for free, just for the exposure, this is probably the quickest way to insult them. And people who are that successful don’t need to ask questions like this on Facebook.
**** That stands for “Original Poster.” Now you’re an Internet expert, too!