You asked Fluther for advice, got it, and rejected it. So did the advice help or not?

I rejected the advice at first, and it almost bit me on the ass. I accepted it eventually, but it was close. You know what I’m referring to. I think almost all the time I’ve got great advice and a lot of different viewpoints and it really helps me clarify my thinking. Sometimes an opposite viewpoint opens up my mind. That’s been one of the best things I’ve found on fluther. (And some really super jellies.)

Usually, there is a wide range of thought including some aspects I had not thought of. I like taking all of those things into consideration even though I make my own decision on how to proceed.

The area where I have asked for consistent advice have been regarding feline behavior.

(The advice has been life-saving; it never occurred to me to reject it. This is not what you are asking, I know, but I need to keep repeating my gratitude, year after year, scratch after scratch, hair ball after hair ball,and mouse after mouse.)

I asked for advice on how to make wine from a whole case of plums. I got good advice on how to do it, but decided it was too much hassle to put in in order to get a kind of wine I’m not all that fond of anyway. But someone fortunately pointed out that I could make chutney. So I did and it was great.

Answers are thrown out for consideration and if the responses help you make up your mind about how you feel about it, even if you don’t take the advice, it was a helpful answer. Answers can clarify your position, give strength to it, or totally negate it. The more you consider different answers, the stronger your position will become.

On the few occasions where I asked for advice, I learned a great deal from the answers and about those who offered advice. There are several people who participate here whose opinions I value and heed.

I asked for some help with a phrase or word I was looking for and couldn’t quite find. I will definitely use the ideas presented.

In the past I have asked for advice on how to clean my washing machine – the advice I got was so helpful. I was given tips on what you might find on a demolition site – again great advice. Just about every question I have asked has provided me with either advice I can use or food for thought. The only ones that haven’t have related to fairly specific software problems.

So—thanks for all responses. I am specifically interested in hearing from those who rejected the advice they got. I’m asking: was it helpful to get advice you chose not to follow?

As always, I truly appreciate responses from people who read the question.

^^ Demonstrates the fact that many of us read cursorily and answer the question we heard in our minds, whether it’s pertinent or not.

@gailcalled

“life saving” ?

Your life or Milo’s ?

Yes, @Sunny2, I know. And that’s exactly why I post so few questions and often give up on the ones I do post.

In this case I was thinking that some people might, for instance, decide to continue with a relationship (against all advice) with a clear sense of knowing why they’d decided to stay—precisely because of seeing and thinking about reasons to the contrary. This could hold for any kind of advice, but relationship questions in particular seem to draw a pretty consistent pattern of responses, and I was wondering how that tended to work out for people.

@Jeruba with respect and while I grant you people, including me, do not read questions and especially the details carefully enough, if in this question you really wanted to know about people’s use of relationship advice perhaps you should have specified that in your title. If the question title sums up what you really want to know, people may not so easily go off track. You did mention relationships in the details but even there you weren’t specific that this was the main or only thing you were interested in.

If people are consistently not answering your questions as you want them to, perhaps it is a combined problem? With a. people not reading the detail and b. some of your questions lacking specificity.

@Buttonstc:Looking back, I’d have to say both of us. Before Milo had been here ten days, he was at the vet’s with a fever and badly dehydrated, probably from stress. I was in equally bad shape, but the vet would not allow me to spend several days there with hydration, meals on wheels and treats,plus housekeeping.

So I had to throw myself on the collective’s vast knowledge base for reassurance and succor.

@ Bellatrix: Amongst the collective, @Jeruba is in a very small group of people who write meticulously clear, economical, accurate and easily-understood questions and answers. They are a model of the genre, in my book.

I have practically gone bald from scratching my head in confusion at many Q & A’s here, but never (no, never) with @Jeruba.

@gailcalled, I am not trying to irritate @Jeruba or you, but if you ask a large group of people a question and do not get the answer you are seeking either the group lacks the ability to follow or understand your question or there is something wrong with your question. If @Jeruba really wants to know about how people use relationship advice given on Fluther, that’s what the title should have specified. It did not. The details should support the original question. I would agree that in most cases @Jeruba is a wonderful communicator but in this case I believe the question title is misleading.

I got it at first read. It seemed perfectly clear to me. Read my answer. She clarifies her issue in each sentence.

@Bellatrix, I asked exactly what I wanted to know. The words “rejected it” are in the title. The later clarification about relationship questions was an example. That’s why it says “for instance.”

But never mind. I’ve lost interest in the question, which was not meant to be a stumper.

Thanks, @gailcalled, you’re very kind. I do think some of my posts could have stood a rewrite, but I didn’t think there was anything vague about this one.

@Jeruba I understood your question and I read it three times to be sure before deciding to answer (after reading and also understanding the criticism of it).

I’ve asked a personal question, knowing the logical answer already, without knowing what I was going to actually do about it.

I took the advice as given. I weighed it against my emotional response and used/quoted fluther advice in my dealings with an involved party.

In the outcome, I didn’t follow any advice to the letter but… having backup did initiate conversations that may not have happened if I hadn’t solicited advice.

@gailcalled But you are among those who did not answer the question as @Jeruba wished. She was asking only those who rejected advice. Only @Adirondackwannabe answered according to the parameters of the question.

@Jeruba, I think the reason you are getting almost no replies on this question is that those who reject advice (especially relationship advice) tend not to stick around to have these kinds of conversations, or they don’t want a dressing-down for being heedless. It’s a shame, really – I followed this question because I think it is an interesting one. A few people have jumped in to fill the void; maybe they just didn’t want to see your question ignored.

I’ve been following this Q. I think part of the reason there are very few answers is most of the time there are several different viewpoints on a Q, and people probably tend to look for reinforcement of how they were leaning to begin with, so they go with that advice, even though they might also learn from contradicting points of view. So, they don’t really feel they rejected fluther advice. On rare occassion, there is a string of answers that all say the same thing.

I think @Jeruba wrote the question well. I think @gailcalled did what others did on the Q, wrote in an answer that was related, but not really seeking what @Jeruba specifically asked, she just pointed out she understood it wasn’t answerng the question. But, @gailcalled still wrote it, the question is why did she write the answer? I think we all sometimes write an answer, because we think the OP or collective will find it interesting and informative if it is along the same lines of the Q, even if it is going off on a tangent a little.

I didn’t answer, but I did follow, because I could not think of a specific time when I asked for advice and rejected it. Usually my questions are seeking information and it is just more information added into whatever other research I have done, or I may have spoken to other people out in the real world also. It kind of all blends together for me in my mind. The advice I get on fluther is always helpful to me whether I wound up following it or not. It usually causes me to do more research or think through things in a way I might not have otherwise.

Well, if you reject the advice and then you turn out to be wrong and the advice was right, you look kind of stupid for not listening. If you ask for help and then don’t take it it’s humbling. (Hangs head in shame. :) )

@glacial I believe I also answered the actual question.

@ETpro Well, not really. For your situation to have fit the question, you would have to have made plum wine while ignoring the instructions offered. In the end, you changed your mind about whether to make wine at all… and then accepted someone’s advice about an alternative use for the plums.

I’m not sure how one would answer this question if they didn’t try to utilize the advice given to them. I’m not one to ask for advice (expecially relationship related) on a public form, but I’ll still attempt to answer this question in another way though. There were times I’ve found some of the advice sound which was given to another jelly, since the advice matched my own life experience. However there were times where I’ve found the majority opinion on many personal questions to be horrendous, again based upon my own life experiences.

@glacial You’re reading an awful lot between the lines.