My biggest StrongLifts.com pet peeve.

[lovestolift]

Example of a post seen often on this site:

"I am having trouble with (insert problem here: weight loss, stalling, et cetera ), please help."

Where are the stats? Male? Female? Height? Weight? Relevant lifting stats? Not supplying this forces someone to have to ask for the information that is important, thus wasting time that could have been spent reaching a solution. What I am saying is that we cannot know from your user name alone that you are Male, weigh 180 lbs at 5'10" and squat 225 lbs (unless of course your user name is "male180lbs@5'10"225lbsquat"). Please provide the relevant info. I know that I can't be the only one that wants to help someone, but is just tired of having to pull teeth to get any information. I just give up and don't even bother to ask most of the time now.

Rant over.

[guru]

Some more -

Many questions are asked keeping a reply in mind. Sometimes it's so obvious from the question itself that I don't feel like replying even if I want to. No examples - they appear everyday in the main forums.

People asking without doing a bit of searching. Sometimes the earlier topic on the same matter is only a couple of days old. It's pretty easy to do a bit of searching & find what you want. After that, you can modify your question specifically & continue in the same thread. But NO, I want my own thread. Examples are AD, Pull ups, Power rack etc.

[dylanamus]

I have a feeling your rants will fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?), but for what it's worth, I agree. If that's your biggest peeve though, it's obviously a pretty good forum

[holvoetn]

Though I understand the pet peeves, we must not forget we were all newbies once (maybe not here).
Keep that in mind

I usually, where possible, indicate where the info can be found which should make it clear to the requestor that, as for training, some effort is needed from his/her side.

[Mouse]

(unless of course your user name is "male180lbs@5'10"225lbsquat")

Classic


Yes members should spend a bit more time reading the blog posts, the links and other forum topics - and then use the search function some more.

But, even then, some will still ask the 'same old, same old'.

How do we deal with that - we ask more and try to answer and help.
Yes it can be annoying to have to answer "how do I improve my pull ups" for the 19th time this week, but we do it and we do it positively with encouragement - and as H says - we try to post a relevant link as well.

That's what makes SL so good though and not a newbie bashing, flame war forum.

[Mehdi]

@lovestolift
I've added this to the forum rules

Getting Help
* If you want to get help, you need to provide enough information.
* Mention your gender, age, height, body-weight, body fat.
* Mention also how much you can Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press, ...
* The more info you give, the better the reply you'll get.

@Everyone
If you do not have the patience to answer to a thread, please do not answer it. Other people might have the patience at that time, leave it to them.

Answer by linking to post/faqs if you feel like it. Please don't do the "read the ebook". You have time to reply, you have time to link to the ebook. If you don't have time to at least do that, then don't reply at all.

[lovestolift]

@Mehdi - Thanks for adding that in, if it helps even a little it'll be worth it.

@dylanamus- You are absolutely correct, it is a pretty good forum. That really is my only complaint, and it's a small one.

To expand on what I said earlier, this really speaks to how people approach their training and nutrition, namely in a pedestrian way. They want to lose weight, but they have no idea how much they eat. So they ask why they haven't lost any weight. If they don't know their intake, how can they adjust it to alter the outcome?

[summerss]

Why not have something in the signature or under the avatar that says these details instead of date joined and number of posts if necessary? You might say that people do that anyway but newbies won't know how.

[Mehdi]

Why not have something in the signature or under the avatar that says these details instead of date joined and number of posts if necessary? You might say that people do that anyway but newbies won't know how.

I got this idea yesterday. Would be easy to apply above post box for example. Give me some time for this.

[lovestolift]

Why not have something in the signature or under the avatar that says these details instead of date joined and number of posts if necessary? You might say that people do that anyway but newbies won't know how.

The problem is that people will have to update them, which could be a problem for newer lifters, since their lifts will go up so quickly. Then you have to decide which stats to include. Height, weight, body fat, squat, deadlift, bench press, et cetera. The list would take up a lot of space. I think the addition to the forum rules will be very helpful themselves and may make this unnecessary.

[summerss]

Why not have something in the signature or under the avatar that says these details instead of date joined and number of posts if necessary? You might say that people do that anyway but newbies won't know how.

The problem is that people will have to update them, which could be a problem for newer lifters, since their lifts will go up so quickly. Then you have to decide which stats to include. Height, weight, body fat, squat, deadlift, bench press, et cetera. The list would take up a lot of space. I think the addition to the forum rules will be very helpful themselves and may make this unnecessary.

That's no different from people updating their logs or their signatures or even strongest man/woman challenges. A lot of newbies probably don't know about the new rules anyway.

[Mehdi]

I got an idea, be patient.

[joesterizer]

People asking without doing a bit of searching. Sometimes the earlier topic on the same matter is only a couple of days old. It's pretty easy to do a bit of searching & find what you want. .