As a long time member on this forum, I understand the impatience of some when a question is posted that has been hashed and rehashed repeatedly. Quite often the return question is, "Have you tried the search function?" To me, that comes off as, "Get off my lawn!"

The current thread on water filters is what prompted this post. While no one has yet referred to the search function, the rehashing of this topic has opened my eyes to several things that I was not aware of. Our filter systems have worked well for many years and I have not really been looking at fixing something that is not broken. But there seems to be some new, or at least different stuff out there.

Old questions do not necessarily mean old answers. I know; I am aging and change happens, sometimes even for the better. I can change, if I have to. :)

I like seeing “old” questions rehashed too. I’ve been a member for like 20 years but I am not on here every day, probably no one is…new people join all the time…some members go…an “old” question usually gets new answers from different people...thus a different perspective. Even if it gets the old answers it brings up the topic, for maybe people that missed it before.

Do people reply “have you tried the search button?” a lot? Once again I am not on here as much, but one of the reasons why I really liked this site was the lack of “search police” for the reasons listed above. I’ve seen posters link to previous discussions…they searched it themselves, thus adding to the conversations, I like that.

I like the point you are making…my guess is people posting “have you tried the search button” are trying to be helpful, thanks for making us look at it from the perspective of the original or new poster.

T

I agree, especially since you were referring to my thread lol. I'm new here, and I figured someone had probably asked a question similar to mine before. But the reason I asked it was because, as you said, people come and go, and what people use changes too. What someone uses/recommends now might be different than a a couple years ago. Also, since I am new, I wanted to get to know and engage with people a little bit. You can't do that just by scrolling through old threads.

I'm pretty experienced at outdoor forums in general, and there are few things - short of outright abuse or spam - that make a forum less welcoming than overeager search police. I'm gonna give most of them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're trying to be helpful, but telling people to search for answers on a forum is like telling someone who knocks on your door to ask for directions to use a GPS next time and then slamming the door in their face.

timatkn: "I like seeing “old” questions rehashed too. I’ve been a member for like 20 years but I am not on here every day, probably no one is…new people join all the time…some members go…an “old” question usually gets new answers from different people...thus a different perspective. Even if it gets the old answers it brings up the topic, for maybe people that missed it before.


Do people reply “have you tried the search button?” a lot? Once again I am not on here as much, but one of the reasons why I really liked this site was the lack of “search police” for the reasons listed above. I’ve seen posters link to previous discussions…they searched it themselves, thus adding to the conversations, I like that.


I like the point you are making…my guess is people posting “have you tried the search button” are trying to be helpful, thanks for making us look at it from the perspective of the original or new poster.


T


"

Well said

timatkn: "I’ve seen posters link to previous discussions…they searched it themselves, thus adding to the conversations, I like that.
"

+1. Well said, T.

In agreement. I use the search function frequently, but it is very clunky. I like topics to arise again and people include new links to products that work for them and new opinions add a lot to the discussion. I also really appreciate when people are able to post a link to a useful old thread because they know a good one versus a lot of the useless ones that arise in the search.

I appreciate the sentiment and topic. i logged in this morning with the intent to use the search function to find some opinions on water filters when I was pleasantly surprised to see water filters in popular topics. Thanks for both topics today.

I agree as well, especially for comments I may have made in my 20's when I was just getting started almost 10 years ago. People change over the years. Young, inexperienced, full of energy, willing to experiment, not much money to invest. There are many reasons I did things differently at first and some of them were actually reasonable.

The up-front costs to getting started are probably the biggest factor to me. There is no way I would be able to afford all the gear I have now if I were to start over. It took years to get to this point for a reason, and if you do what most people recommend and buy your "ideal" kit right off the bat instead of buying cheaper just to replace it after a couple years, sure you would save money in the long run, but it would cost thousands to do that. Not to mention lessons you learn along the on how to use the gear.

So when I see the same conversations take place again, or old threads that were dug up, I like to go in and see what's new. Maybe even change my mind based on my own observations. There is no one "right" answer for everyone and things keep changing so revisiting old conversations just makes sense.