Research for Oakland University

[jamacint]

I am currently a student at Oakland UNiversity in Rochester, Michigan. In my rhetoric class we are doing studies about the culture of forums and blogs that talk about a specific issue, an this case the ipod/iphone culture. For this study we need somebody from these forums to answer some questions. If you are willing to answer a few questions it would be greatly appreciated and helpful to my research.
1. What makes you a person that people will take advice from? Dou you have more expertise in the field or are you just really interested in the subject?
2. Is there any one thing in the posts on this sites that occurs the most? What do most people come to this site for?
3. Do you think that people whom read posts on this site take it seriously or just to get sugesstions.
4. Is there a problem on here with people posting irrelevant or unthought topics.
5. What is the best thing about these blogs?
Your answers would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Jordan A. MacIntosh

[melwan]

I will take a shot at these question

1. I usually only answer questions that I have the correct answer for. I make sure the answer works 100% and when people try the suggestion, most of them find it that it works. I don't have outside experience in this subject, but I am tech-oriented and really really interested in the iPhone in general.

2. I would say the majority of posters are here to seek help with different issues they face with the iPhone/iPod Touch. There are also many readers that target the App Reviews (but they don't necessarily post about it).

3. It depends on the nature of the question. For jail-breaking or modifications, for example, most posters/readers take the responses seriously. On the other hand, if it's a post about choosing, let's say, a case, then the responses are really suggestions and it's still up to the original poster to choose which response to take.

4. It does happen every once in a while (especially the scammers), but it's never to the degree where I would called it a "problem". We do get few repetitive questions where a simple search would have given the original poster the answer, but it did not reach the annoying level yet. So, the bottom line is: no, not really

5. The best thing about these forums is the sense of community that it provides. Also, the feeling of helping one another is great. The mods/admins here are very reasonable (I am not sucking up to anyone hehe) which is a huge plus in my book.

Hope these answers are helpful for your research

[jamesus]

1. I look to help everyone I can. I'm not the most knowledgeable, but I give advice when I can and this is definitely a topic that interests me!
2. I would speculate that the reason people visit here the most is information sharing, being help on issues or to see what is the latest and greatest.
3. I think most people take the posts seriously. Of course, there are some that melwan alluded to as personal preference, which people may use to factor in their decision, but that don't necessarily hold their word as law.
4. The biggest problems every forum faces are spam and people not treating each other with respect. Fortunately, TiPb has a great community of users who respect one another and follow the rules for the most part.
5. The community of users. Just see how we interact on Twitter and you'll get a good sense of it.