Quote:
Originally Posted by TomMAffolter
any system requires both SEEDERS and LEECHERS
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Tom has a point, with some vulnerable points that he neglects to mention.
First, for sure there are some kinds of places here in VN where a lot of "work" is involved. Great example of that is the cafe oms that we were just talking about. These places spring up and get shut down often. A way to find them is by exploring, and that means driving around aimlessly at night for hours with your eyes open, just driving down what seems to be one likely street after another. I'm not proud to say that I have done that before, and with zero luck usually. On other evenings I have lucked out and discovered something that was really great, but the truth is that there are a lot more nights finding nothing than there are of finding something.
But in this forum there's a general attitude of what is almost secrecy regarding almost any place, regardless whether it took work to find or not. I mean, I trust no one who visits the massage places (Minh Tam, Dai Nam, etc.) drove around like that looking for them, no. The info gets passed around via PM from one member to another. There is a seriously miserly attitude toward sharing info on the part of many seniors in this forum, guys who do NO WORK to find those places.
Another example of that is the FS places. No one drives around looking for those, it would be impossible to find them, they're camouflaged. No, it's just inside info, pure and simple. A member like Tom has reason to keep that info to himself (PM him and you can find out why), but the vast majority here, it's just that they lack a sharing spirit.
That said, there are also plenty of members on here (usually the less-than-senior ones) who do have a more sharing spirit. To me this seems like it is the younger generation, guys who have come on this forum in the past year or 2, who seem to have a less traditional mindset.
Back to the seeder/leecher analogy, well, those terms comes from torrent sharing. I think the only reason that system works is because the designers arranged for the seeding (someone online who has the whole file) and leechers (very inapt term, cuz it means those online who have less than the whole file--they're really just incomplete seeders, they are sharing their files just as seeders are, the only difference is that they don't have the whole file yet) to share whatever they have BY DEFAULT. Anyone who installs that program will have their downloaded movies and music etc. all shared with everyone else in the system. They could opt out by cutting the file and pasting it somewhere else on their computer. But who bothers doing that? Or they can close the program except when they're actively using it. Actually I'm sure many people must do that. I do. But that system still works because enough people keep their programs open for long enough for there to be enough seeders/leechers for others to be able to keep downloading the files. It doesn't need millions of currently active, sharing members for the system to keep running smoothly, it only takes a few. If just one person has the whole file and is online, you can get it.
But applying that model to this forum, it would be as if we had a forum where all the useful info was shared by default and easily searchable. It would mean everyone's PM's would be made public, and could be searched by any user. The useful info would be tagged in a database for search purposes, and it would be possible to see how many members had that info, and one could instantly connect and retrieve it with no need to talk with that member, or any member. There would be absolutely no resentment of new guys searching for info because it would all be done anonymously. "Seeders" would not even realize their info was being searched, and if it was, so what. Why care.
I do realize there are reasons to care. The existence of many of these places is fragile, they're always vulnerable to being shut down. But at the same time, I don't think those legitimate reasons are the ones that lead members here to not share info. It takes a spirit of generosity to keep a sharing environment alive, and that's just remarkably lacking in this forum. (in stark contrast to almost any other forum on the internet, where asking and answering are the norm) As a system for sharing info, this forum is a failure.