Thanks for the compliment?
Hard to cite sources from memory
Most of my reply’s are from memory, and unles i mention “i don’t have any experiance” in it. I have actualy done the things.
I do however usualy first research and look up information. Until i think i understand the underlying mechanisem. With a lot of things there is no “1 way that always works” it’s usualy determining which way works best in what specific situation. “Understanding” the underlying mechanisem helps a lot with this.
Than i “practise” and do the things myself.
Explaining underlying mechanisem even though i have experiance.
I belive however just saying “i did this, and it seemed to work” is not always that helpful. And can somtimes give people low sucses. Since their situation might differ vastly from yours. So even though it worked for “me”, it is no garantee that it would work for some-one else.
To me this could be summerised by
“sharing experiance vs sharing knowladge”
you seem to suggest (although i could mis-interprete) that when i see a question, i start googeling and then type a respone. Without having any real world experiance. This is simply not the case.
Im not just researching other peoples questions.
I did however had a lot of the same questions over the past years. Looked for information and “awnsers” and started experimenting.
Citing sources and giving credit
When i can easily find a source or if i had to look it up to be sure if i remembered corectly i post that source in my reply.
Some are hard to find back though. And typing a reply “explaining” the underlying mechanisem already takes a lot of time. Looking up all “origional” sources. Than checking if your giving credit to all the right people (and not just people who got the information from some-one else) becomes incredibly tedious and takes a long time.
It’s a forum, not a scientific journal
I think you should expect people to cite all sources and credits in a post in the guides or reference section of the forum.
But your expecting to much from people to do all that extra work for a reply on a forum.
In the end this is a forum, not a scientific journal. The person asking the question should have some responsibility to verify or compare advise. Or take the risk and “trust” it, and see what happens.
I have even written a topic, trying to help people to find information themselfs. Or to help them find information to verify if given advise is “good”
Accuracy of information on the internet.
You make a verry good point, not all things on the internet are true. And it is hard to judge the accuracy of somthing without seeing the source that origionaly listed the information.
I have writte a reply in another topic about this here.
In the end the forum works in part due to multiple people “checking” others advise. And speaking up if they disagree or adding their own contribution.