I obviously agree with Whitey, since he was agreeing with me. Get rid of the disagree button altogether if you don’t want me to use it as it was originally intended. That forces the disagreer to state why he disagrees or let it go, if that is what you want.
And, I say again, hey, guys, don’t pay much attention to those who rate you. It is really easy to get paranoid when it shouldn’t matter to you what someone thinks of your posting if you are writing what you really believe.
There are some guys that prolifically disagree. It’s probably pointless to ask them what their beef is
However, there are other cases where you might want to know what the other guy’s opinion was.
In other words, why did he disagree? Because he knows that you were wrong? Or does he think your advice was over the top? Does he think you’re way off base? Etc.
@Whitey agrees with me AND with you, as you can see on this page alone. And we clearly have different opinions. So, it seems to me, the whole disagree topic isn’t really a black and white thing
Anyway, I am not necessarily always going to explain why I disagree, unless I receive an instruction from a moderator that I must.
The moderator wouldn’t instruct us to explain ourselves
I suspect the moderator does many things behind the scenes that we can only guess at
I don’t have a problem with you, for what it’s worth
@ShadowFax’ comment makes a lot of sense. If you disagree, just say why you do. That disagree button really isn’t all that useful without a reason.
I’m assuming we’re all here to help people out. What’s the point of slamming people with ‘disagrees’ or nastygrams.
If the point of a forum is to communicate, then disagreement without explanation makes the forum less interesting. The discussion is the important thing.
There are also problems with agreeing as well. This morning my wife said that she was going to the store to buy some deodorant. I told her that I thought that was a great idea and being agreeable has caused me trouble for the rest of the day. I should have been disagreeable and told her she didn’t need to go to the store to get deodorant.
I have never flagged or marked disagree with a post. If I have a different possible solution to a problem than a previous post, I start a post by stating something like "Is it possible that this could be the problem. . " or something similar. I am not a mechanic and when someone disagrees with my answer and can explain why I am wrong, I appreciate it. My batting average on correct solutions is pretty low, but it is great to get a hit once in a while.
There would be a very thick book if every down and out I’ve had with my wife over a car problem or maintenance need was put into print.
It’s very tough having to go round and round with someone who can’t even check the engine oil level and yet will argue any point about a mechanical fault or maintenance need into the ground…
@ok4450, guess I’m lucky. Whenever something breaks–car, water heater, dryer, fridge, garage door opener–I get a “Honey, sorry to ask this but can you fix…” And if I play it right I can get some sympathy for having to fix something at home, since that’s what I do all day at work.
I told her that I thought that was a great idea and being agreeable has caused me trouble for the rest of the day. I should have been disagreeable and told her she didn’t need to go to the store to get deodorant.
That’s just hilarious. Well-written sir.
As I said, in most cases I do state why I disagree. However, at some point in time there is simply too much dictatorial attitude, and if I feel I have a reason not to explain then I am not going to explain, and am not going to feel guilty about it. I can’t explain it any better. Our society has become entirely too domineering with every move we make either regulated by law, or by our neighbors shouting at us. That is not the way it’s supposed to be in America.
I agree Triedaq doesn’t do that poorly. There are only a few on here with a very high batting average. The rest of us learn as we help others.
@PoopyheadMcGee
I see that you disagreed with me, in regards to this thread
What is it that you disagree with?
@db4690. Here we go again. You are way too hung up on someone who disagrees with you for some reason or another. Who cares? You got your way when the moderators removed the “anonymity” from this forum. It may have been a good thing…but it turns out that it’s just feeding your obsession. It’s a problem that you can’t see but anyone with any common sense at all can see it. Get some help.
FYI…I did not like you when you first joined this forum because of your attitude. You have since earned my respect because you seem to know what you are talking about. You are losing my respect with this obsession with why people are disagreeing with you. I’m sure others on this forum are feeling the same way. If I feel it necessary to explain to you why I disagree…I will tell you. If not…I won’t. End of discussion.
I just wish it were harder to indadvertenly leave rep.
I usually am on my phone when on this site, so I scroll by sliding my finger over the text. Every so often, it seems, I bump one of the rep buttons doing this.
Since the “positive” buttons are centrally located, this usually is no big deal, but today I saw an “off topic” that made no sense. I clicked on it, and it dissappeared.
Could it be made that two actions must be taken, or more conspicuous things happen when you click in a box?
Thank you for explaining why you were hammering me
I will pay you a complement now.
I am pleasantly surprised that you explained yourself. I didn’t think you would.
“It’s a problem that you can’t see but anyone with any common sense at all can see it. Get some help.”
Please don’t give me any non-car related advice.
And I won’t give any to you.
Please respect that.
FYI . . . I’ve not gotten very many disagrees lately . . . from anyone
I don’t think much about a “disagree” one way or the other. As a university professor, we had mandatory student evaluations. A low evaluation from a few students in a class didn’t bother me a bit. I felt that if I had high marks from every single student, I wasn’t doing my job. In fact, I encouraged the students to be honest and make any comments they wanted before I left the room for them to do the evaluations. I made the following statement to them: “You may make any comment that you want. Your comments are anonymous and I don’t see your evaluations until the grades have been submitted. No comment you might write will bother me. When I go home, I have a dog that likes me all the time, a son that likes me most of the time, a wife that likes me some of the time and a cat that can’t stand me. If you want to join the cat in your feelings, be my guest. The cat hated me because she was infested with fleas when we adopted her as a kitten. I had to give her a flea bath. As a result, she no longer suffered from fleas. I had done something good for her, but she didn’t associate the bath with losing the fleas. She only remembered that I gave her a bath”.
I had colleagues that would become paranoid over negative comments. I always figured that negative comments were part of the business. I wasn’t there to please everyone–I was there to share the knowledge that I had.
One comment that I will never forget was my first term of teaching as a graduate assistant. I had a couple in class who were good students. The husband saw me driving down the street in my 1947 Pontiac which left a blue smoke screen. He wanted to sell me his car–a 1958 Ford. I agreed to look at it, but the evening before I was to look at it, his wife rear ended a pickup truck with the car. I decided I didn’t need another wreck and turned it down. On the comments, the student wrote “I liked the instructor until he refused to buy my wrecked 1958 Ford”. That was one comment from which I was able to identify the student. I know he did it for a joke.
FYI...I did not like you when you first joined this forum because of your attitude.
This is not an acceptable reason to rack up disagrees against someone. In internet parlance, it’s known as downvote trolling, and is considered rude. Additionally, when your downvote trolling extends to disagreeing with automotive advice just because you don’t like someone, then you are doing a disservice to the person asking the question, because that person doesn’t know about any petty little disagreements that the regulars here might be having, and therefore does not know that the disagreement does not mean that they should reject the advice given.
As long as we’re discussing respect, mine for you has dropped significantly. You disagreed with @db4690 when he said things like “Tom and Ray are retired” and asking an OP for the make/model/year of his car. That’s childish behavior that at best makes you look bad and in reality brings down the quality of this forum and its perceived trustworthiness for new users who have car problems.
And @cdaquila, this is why the ratings system is a bad idea. Not only does it encourage troll downvotes out of spite rather than genuine content disagreements, but it also causes forum regulars to fight with each other and lose respect for each other.
@shadowfax…thanks for the compliment “As long as we’re discussing respect, mine for you has dropped significantly.” I’ve never had any respect for you so now you know where we stand. Most of your answers are childish so I never agree or disagree with anything you have to say. If I was “downvote trolling” you would have hundreds of more “disagrees” than you have now. The one thing I do agree with is that the ratings system is a bad idea. I guess I’ll have to give you a tiny bit of respect because of that.
What I like about this board is that there are some top flight professional mechanics who offer solutions to problems. I sometimes take a stab at offering a solution. When I get a “disagree” and am told why my answer could not be correct, I’ve learned something. Even if I’m not told why someone disagrees with me, it does warn the OP that my response may not be right. We respond, I hope, to help the OP. If my response is on the wrong track, I’m grateful to the person who disagrees so that the OP is warned.