Keeping Threads on Track

disturbing trends

[graywolf]

One of the things I've noticed more and more back here, is how the central point of threads get stuck in a quagmire of moral/ethics debates and lose most of their value.

For example nearly every sandbox/Google-lag thread devolves into a pointless debate over whether new or old sites are good or bad and why, when that's not really the point. The point what tactics and methods do you need to get sites to rank, in spite of their newness.

A better example of how a thread should work was the Button pushing tools thread [webmasterworld.com]. Despite your personal feelings , everybody, even double-G, learned something from it.

Let's be honest we're here to do business, not debate opinions. While the guy next to you may be your competitor, we all share a common foe, the search engines and their algos, and time spent debating the problem is time not spent solving it.

[minnapple]

Common foe.
We have created our own arms race.
In all respect, not recognizing who the foe is, is a mistake.
You feel your foe is the search engines, that is your opinion, not mine.
They create revenue for my clients and they create revenue for me.
Competitors rarely generate revenue.

[whoisgregg]

Let's be honest we're here to do business, not debate opinions.

Actually, there are folks here specifically to sway the opinions of others. There's others who have the spare time and the desire to tilt against them. I agree it gets in the way of the business and technical discussion, but the thread you mentioned solved that by explicitly declaring the limits of the thread.

I don't see why other threads and thread starters can't make similar declarations and those declarations be respected by other members. :)

[Marcia]

>>Actually, there are folks here specifically to sway the opinions of others.

I don't believe there's ever an opinion posted that doesn't have the intention of swaying others to agree, regardless of how personal the post may be. We're all propagandists in our own way, whether we admit it or not - especially to ourselves, the most likely to be deceived by ourselves as to our own intentions and motives.

The morals/ethics thing is not only a quagmire, it's also counter-productive, unnecessarily divisive, and highly offensive to those of us who value what we have.

White hats "judging" black hats = judgmental, arrogant, priggish and piously self-righteous.
Black hats "judging" white hats = smug, pretentious, priggish, haughty, boastful and arrogant.

Everyone loses when that kind of nonsense goes on; there's no room or reason for any of it. Either we're all in this thing together as a community, or some folks just don't "get it" and should butt out and keep quiet until they do get what it's all about. We're all in it together, and if any can't or don't grasp that concept, they just simply need to get clued in on what "community" is all about.