Whats In A Question

[roverfj1200]

p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Now it maybe just me but a trend is forming on a lot of forums and by this I mean.




If you ask a simple question you will get a long discussion but ask a question that has some depth to it and you get a short simple answer..




I'm not pointing the finger I have asked some real simple questions on this and other forums.




It just seems that if the experts are out there they tend to keep quiet...







Cheers..

 

[MaltyHops]

Not an expert - hence why I'm not keeping quiet I guess

If you ask a simple question you will get a long discussion but ask a question that
has some depth to it and you get a short simple answer..

Perhaps complex questions often require a lot of factors to be covered in order for
an answer to be properly meaningful (especially if the questioner is new to brewing)
so it takes a big effort to answer.

Or perhaps it is considered that someone at the stage of being able to ask a complex
question ought to be able to use site/web resources to find the answers themselves
or need to read some the good books available first (e.g. John Palmers book).
In a similar vein, maybe a simple answer is correct but requires a fair bit of background
knowledge to understand.

T.

 

[tallie]

I assume this behaviour can be attributed to bike-shedding, or Parkinson's Law of Triviality . In other words there are far more people (with potentially differing opinions) who know (or think they know) the answer to simple questions, so you get a lot of answers and discussion. Conversely, there are not as many experts on particular matters, so a question may go unnoticed or yield fewer answers. Being a brewing forum, it's not difficult to imagine that adding alcohol to the mix would magnify the situation!

Cheers,
tallie

Edit: +1 to what MaltyHops said