Should The Members Of The Bigfooting Community Investigate Suspected Hoaxes?

[LeafTalker]

Great posts, SY, WSA, DWA, Branco, Bipedalist, and Skyla. 

 

Harming other people's reputations for the sake of a few pieces of information you could get by reading a handful of BFRO reports OR by getting off your duff and going into the woods yourself is unconscionable. 

[roguefooter]

^If they're hoaxing then they're actually harming their own reputation.

 

Also why go in the woods? Isn't Bigfoot supposed to be everywhere including urban areas? How is a walk around town any different than going in the woods as far as Bigfoot hunting goes?

[Celtic Raider]

Who has the energy to police hoaxes? It's exhausting. In the end, it is merely your opinion vs someone else's. Is it really worth the effort?

After the whole dyer saga....I for one choose to ignore hoaxers and hoaxes.Ignoring them is really the worst thing you could do to them. Any attention, good or bad is merely publicity for them.

 

I think the point is that it's not immediately obvious some of the time that a hoax is a hoax to lots of people, especially those who really desperately want something to be true. 

 

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the jist of this topic was that the Bigfoot Community should kind of 'self regulate' and investigate potential hoaxes if something is suspect. From a 'sat on the fence' point of view if the BF community debunked some hoaxes and were prepared to say how and why, that would only be good for the perception of the community as an objective group. To be fair, I have seen some debunking from very staunch believers - notably on the Todd Standing issues. This does no harm at all and if anything in my view enhances the integrity of those individuals.

[Guest DWA]

I just think that too much questioning of claims comes from people unqualified to raise the questions or evaluate the claims.  That *isn't* helping the field, one bit.  "Has Area X Jumped the Shark?" is not the kind of thing we need.

[Bonehead74]

Celtic Raider earns a plus.

People are going way out into left field with this. My question was about whether we should say something when we see inconsistencies in a claim and seek clarification or just let it go?

[Guest DWA]

Sure, as long as the inconsistencies are stuff like:  the figure has human proportions and human movements; the backstory doesn't jibe with the video; those tracks look stamped, and given substrate we should see more than three; etc.

 

Not "how can there be bigfeets in OK when the whole state was clearcut and every animal killed by 1903?" or "Patterson was TWO DAYS late on a Master Charge payment!"

...or any one of numerous such sillinesses we saw on both the NAWAC and Oly Project threads (and see daily on the P/G threads).

[Guest Crowlogic]

What I meant by hair trap was not 5 rednecks a chain and a giant cage........ but like nathan deploys, something with wire bristles on a game trail that snags hair samples.

And I appreciate your concern but a day hiking or riding my horse in the mountains is never a waste.......

The one and only course worth pursuing is the one you are on.  Everything else is just perpetuating the failed state world of bigfoot.

[southernyahoo]

I tend to agree with you, SY, but you're answering a different question than the one I asked. I didn't question whether we are able to expose or prove a hoax, but rather, should we point out questionable claims or evidence contrary to those claims, and then seek out why the conflicts exist?

 

I would say yes to that, but only when there is a means to an end and facts can be had. It's a waste of time otherwise.

 

 

Did you guys see that dress that went viral? Blue and Black or White and Gold? I saw white and gold all the way, I couldn't help what I saw and when my eyes see white and gold bygosh that's what it is and was.    They finally established the camera was tweaking the colors according to the lighting (brightness and white balance) etc. 

 

The point being, sometimes people can't see the same thing while looking straight at the subject matter, and who's right and or more right can be debated forever.

[Cotter]

Sooo....what possessed you to start a poll on this?

[Bonehead74]

Pushback from members who didn't like me asking simple, straightforward questions to clear up a discrepancy in a witnesses' testimony. I was amazed that when I noticed a logical contradiction in two separate accounts of the same incident, given by the same witness (who, btw I never accused of hoaxing), and then asked for clarification, I was told variously that it didn't matter, that I should just forget about it, etc. I was even maligned and accused of being a control freak. After that, I thought a poll might prove interesting. I was not incorrect.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Bonehead74

[WSA]

Bonehead...it is a fool's errand, plain and simple, and it stifles the sharing of information to boot. It has here on many, many occasions.  You are not going to know if BF exists or not by chasing the latest hoax, and if you think you can conclusively prove a hoax by pounding on a keyboard you are really kidding yourself.  I understand the urge and exhilaration that comes with wanting to score points as the smartest kid on the block, but it accomplishes exactly "zip" as far as establishing existence goes or convincing others of that.  If you think something is a hoax, fine. The urge to convince others of their gullibility is what grates. Even worse than that, skirting around the alleged dishonesty or just plain stupidity of someone who is disclosing their evidence is only an opportunity to p.o. somebody...which you did prove recently.  (If any failed to see that at work in the late NWAC thread, they need to get out more)  As I mentioned in that thread, all that really does is assure that there is lots of other evidence that won't be shared with you or anyone else. If that is what you want, keep it up.

 

We are all probably capable of drawing elementary conclusions on our own. We all have a search engine, and if we need to delve into it further, we know how to do it. Go play hoax vigilante somewhere else would be my take on it, and give it a rest here. 

 

Sorry to be so blunt, but you did ask.

[Guest DWA]

So.    Much.   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THAT.

 

Here's my attitude toward encounter reports:

 

1.  If it takes me more than a couple minutes to read, it better be good.

2.  Video:  seeya!  Please.  

3.  One single report?  Could be *anything.*

 

What makes the encounter reports compelling is their sheer volume and consistency.  Which means MASS.  What any one report means is...wait for it...meaningless.  Because the point here is the Las Vegas odds on the whole pile being a fraud; a mistake; a hallucination; or ...and this is by far the least likely!!!...what the skeptics think it is, some random concatenation of the foregoing.  This is most elementary probability theory talking, and I am no one's statistician.

 

Chasing Liars is not, I don't believe, a chapter in anyone's wildlife biology textbook.  Mine neither.  You can spare it with me...and yep, you did ask.

And yeah, as far as true value to the field, I take back all I said about the kinds of discrepancies OK to pursue.  Really, none of it is.  The signal is getting lost in the noise, which is bigfootery's very very fundamental problem.  As look at our window into the key people in the field right now (and this is NOT an opinion) being closed, through the work of (and this is NOT an opinion) people who were wasting time obstructing a scientific investigation and enlightening no one in the process.

(OK, fine, WSA just crystallized it for me.  Happens.)

[BobbyO]

I voted no, no because of a lot of what SY said on page one and also no because it's different needs for different folks.

The folks without a sighting etc are desperate for something to chew on so will of course vote yes as they're so hungry for something! anything to get their teeth in to whereus the people that have seen them I highly doubt would think that the research community has any type of responsibility to do this at all and even if it did have, the people that do the investigating generally aren't qualified to do it accurately anyway.

People also have to remember that the average Sasquatch witness can't have much else than extraordinary claims because what they saw was quite extraordinary.

They can't always get evidence of their encounter/sighting and more often than not can't as a lot of the time they don't know how.

To then have a small army of unqualified people then "investigate" them and their story, well all I can say is no one it's thought that the number of actual reported % of sightings of these things are so low.

I don't think witnesses should be subjected to this type of thing personally, it's not fair firstly and secondly, it will deter people from reporting their encounter/sighting, make no mistake, and I don't think that's a good thing.

[Guest DWA]

Your last sentence particularly.  The scientific mainstream is the real malefactor here; people who are just seeing a garden-variety primate shouldn't be treated like loons or liars.

 

Loonier by far is the scientists who say things like "If this were real it would be the Holy Grail of biology" When.It.Is. and they're doing, wait for it, squat.

 

And it cannot be overstated how being treated like a liar or mistaken will dampen witness enthusiasm...which is the wellspring of the most compelling body of evidence existing, by far, for anything remaining unproven.

Edited April 15, 2015 by DWA

[Yuchi1]

Another thing to be pointed out here.

 

One of our most valued commentators, bipto, left here because of a lot of brainless scofflitizing about Area X.  Such intellectually challenged twaddle has no place on the BFF.

 

IMO, the above post is a hoax, in and of itself.

I voted no, no because of a lot of what SY said on page one and also no because it's different needs for different folks.

The folks without a sighting etc are desperate for something to chew on so will of course vote yes as they're so hungry for something! anything to get their teeth in to whereus the people that have seen them I highly doubt would think that the research community has any type of responsibility to do this at all and even if it did have, the people that do the investigating generally aren't qualified to do it accurately anyway.

People also have to remember that the average Sasquatch witness can't have much else than extraordinary claims because what they saw was quite extraordinary.

They can't always get evidence of their encounter/sighting and more often than not can't as a lot of the time they don't know how.

To then have a small army of unqualified people then "investigate" them and their story, well all I can say is no one it's thought that the number of actual reported % of sightings of these things are so low.

I don't think witnesses should be subjected to this type of thing personally, it's not fair firstly and secondly, it will deter people from reporting their encounter/sighting, make no mistake, and I don't think that's a good thing.

 

Winner, winner! Chicken Dinner!