I don’t know if its just me or if there has been a massive influx of deal checks in the Ask the Hackrs section of this site. 90% seem to be mediocre deals at best posted by newbies to the site who obviously have never used the search bar to research themselves.
Not sure if this post is against the spirit of the site, but there has to be a better way. I read this forum for interesting info regarding leasing and seeing other peoples signed deals, not to respond to a bunch of clueless newbies that can’t use a search bar
What you’re describing is every forum on the internet ever. You take the good conversation with the not as good and, in the mean time, hope you can teach someone a thing or two.
If you mean when people post “how far did they stick it in” threads, I agree that it only invites pissing matches and admonishment as to how badly they screwed the pooch by making financial decisions while high on new car smell.
If you mean people genuinely wanting to know if what they’re about to sign is a bad/good deal, then I disagree. It can be educational even for those of us well seasoned in this thing of ours.
They’ve already moved all the of the “I’m looking for” posts into one convoluted, useless thread…if we take out the “did I get a good deal” threads too, this forum becomes pretty bleak/pointless.
The mods are already too trigger happy when it comes to closing threads…if you’re not interested in a topic, scroll past it. No need to ban threads or close threads so quickly. The over-policing on this forum is taking away from the purpose - free sharing of info. re leasing.
Sounds like you already have the correct strategy. Respond to the posts you want and skip the others. But ask the hackrs is pretty much the whole point of the site.
I don’t think they should be banned, but it would be nice if we required certain info to be included in the title. I think make/model/state or region, and $/mo should be mandatory in any post asking for Hackr evaluation.
“Good Deal or Bad?” - no mention of make/model/state is horrible, and nothing relevant tagged
“2019 BMW X3 lease, $0 DAS, 530/mo including tax, 3 years 15k miles per year” - tells us what they are looking at, where and payment, and they also tagged SoCal
We are getting a ton of post like the first, it tells is nothing until we go into it and in the future a subject like this does little for helping find relevant topics in search results. I don’t think its much to require this info of people seeking help, and honestly maybe new users should have to have their posts held in a queue and approved by a moderator when it conforms to convention.
I also disagree with banning inexperienced users. The point of a forum like this is to help people. Does this site seek to be a resource for helping anyone or a club for back patting geeks?
If someone asks a question on a car and/or region I’m knowledgeable about, and I’m sitting around doing nothing but reading this forum, I’m happy to help. It’s not like I’m being forced to read and respond to it.
When a new poster has already signed, and they’re asking if they got a good deal, I find they got an awful deal 75% of the time, mediocre 23% of the time, and a good deal 2% of the time.
Statistically, without even reading the post, I can accurately say “no” 98% of the time.
ETA:
And when they ask if they got a bad deal, I anticipate like $825 a month for a 3 series with like $3k DAS.
The problem I find with a ton of these posts is that they ask after the fact - that’s just stupid, and stupidity needs to be dealt with in the manner it deserves.
If someone is asking beforehand, that’s a different story.
Treat people online as you would in person. I doubt you would go up to a coworker and tell them they are dumb as sh!t for signing that lease. So “dealing with stupidity” here should be similar. You can tell them they got a bad deal and just educate.
Probably should have worded this entire thread differently. I never called for banning new users, just observing the massive influx of these posts.
New members are good, it means the forum is growing.
I was more suggesting like consolidating it into a new hackr section as opposed to “Ask the Hackrs” as the more meaningful posts in that section seem to be buried in deal checks.
Honestly I agree with you on your point. To clean up the forum a new user should not be aloud to post until they read through the forums FAQ’s. I have been a part of many forums where you can’t post until a certain criteria is met. This eliminates useless threads where the trolls of the site come out to the middle school pile on, it also ups the education so that a “newbie” learns more and has a sense of direction when posting. Your totally on to somthing here.
This is the problem right here. We’ve had a rule here that there are no “pm me the info” or “I’m looking for a Corrola for 90/mo, let me know where to go” posts anymore, yet it continues to happen daily, even with people that have been around long enough to know better. People want instant gratification and aren’t willing to read or put in the effort themselves.
