The Internet wants you to Go hard or Go home Part 2: The Good With the Bad

Last week, I went on a tiraid stemming from my supreme dissatisfaction with many internet communities, specifically their attitudes.  However, I wasn't being entirely fair, and wanted to point out the good things these groups do and how to exploit their knowledge and avoid the circlejerking, smugness, and other awful bullshit.

HOW TO EXPLOIT REDDIT:

Many of the big Reddit communities have community contributed FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).  The benefit is twofold it helps keeps repetitive questions down (durr), and creates a quote un-quote "vault" of commonly held knowledge.  Using the FAQs minimizes time spent looking through the discussion pages, (a godsend, unless you're a brave soul and want to delve deep into each community's unique brand of regurgitated horseshit), gives you a page of easily referenced knowledge, and just generally provides a great place to start when pursuing a new hobby, skill, what have you.

Reddit FAQ's of Note:
r/Fitness
r/Weightroom (For those who are veterans of the Barbell or those who want to go beyond the starter stuff, look here)
r/MaleFasionAdvice
r/book's Top 200 books

Those are just a few you can abuse for your own nefarious plots and schemes.

I'll be honest, I find asking questions or searching the discussion topics pretty hit or miss.  If I'm doing something even remotely considered serious research I tend to only journey into the comment section for leads on books or subject matter, but never any actual advice.

4CHAN A WHOLE 'NOTHER BEAST

The often referred to cesspool of the internet is surprisingly...well... great.  Only when you learn how to use it, that is.  I guess it probably helps I still haven't grown out of dick jokes.  The first thing you need to do is: get away from /b/ the random board and start taking a look at the different specialized boards.   You'll then realize that 4chan is far from a jabbering mass of retards people think or the scum of the earth as some think.  In the last post I criticized /lit/ for considering two high level books as their "Industry Standard," and the books that only after reading them would you receive any credibility on the board.  Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest are no joke they are great reads and very challenging, and although /lit/ is comprised of a very vocal majority of smug internet jackasses their recommendations are top-notch.  Here, for instance are their suggestions for writing:

The boards on 4chan rarely have stickies /fit/ and /lit/ being two exceptions.  Ferreting out nuggets of info from the boards requires some patience and skill, but generally what you're looking for are pictures similar to the one above.  "X's List for Y" these formatted pics are generally the collective boards wisdom on a subject and almost always top-notch.  Here are come examples from the different boards:

If all else fails and you can't find what you're looking for 4chan does usually have some of the choicest porn.  Those guys do not fuck around on quality.

Misc. Internet Forums

These take a differnt kind of finesse to be useful.  Generally most orums follow the same format with stickies that will have that information present and easily accessed.  However, what you need to worry about is if that particular forum is worth two squirts of piss.  You could easily be taking advice from a bunch of subterranean dimwits that know fuckall who have indavertendtly recreated the human centipede by having their heads stuck up each other's asses.  Or, a bunch of knowlegable peeps that you could see to gain from.  In this situation I would maybe use the "wisdom of the Masses" principle and find multiple forums on the same subject and see what correlates.  If they all seem to agree on something, you can generally trust that it's right.

Apply common sense the best you can.  Keep in mind you don't have to subscribe to everything anybody talks about just do it like Bruce Lee:

-BB Out