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In my opinion...

19K views 91 replies 25 participants last post by  julysun 
#1 ·
People use "in my opinion", "IMO", "IMHO" (my personal favorite) a lot on this forum. More so than on other forums I've visited (non-beekeeping).

Anyone else notice that?
Anyone speculate on why that is?
 
#5 ·
I'll admit I had formed an opinion before I posed this question and it is along the lines of what Acebird posted.

Beekeeping isn't full of many facts since there is a lot we don't know (a lot of 'variables" as people like to say). Maybe it gets used a lot because the majority of the time people are discussing mostly with opinions and personal experience?
 
#9 ·
For me, I'll sometimes offer one of my theories, that's worked, for me. But I know it's a theory not a fact even though I think it's probably correct, so I'll add, in my opinion.

Plus of course as already mentioned you are going to get attacked by somebody else anyway, so stating it as an opinion rather than a fact helps with that. AND, one persons fact may not be anothers. For example it's a "fact" that running a one deep brood box hive is best in one part of my country, But in most other areas it's a "fact" that running a double deep brood nest is best. Put two beekeepers together who don't understand the regional differences in location and you've got guys throwing "facts" at each other, opinions can be more harmony friendly.
 
#14 ·
I admit to using that quite a bit often because I hear lots of beginning beekeepers (to whom I'm often replying) whose hives have ongoing problems harken back to asking for advice from someone else and they say, "He told me to just do X." New beekeepers often believe that things they are told to do by more experienced beekeepers are stone cold rules and methods that will always 100% work. I want to dispel that belief at the very beginning of whatever I'm stating because that's rarely, if ever, the case.
 
#19 ·
I had this thought before I even saw this thread. Btu it fits very well.

Beekeeping is obviously in the dark about several things right now. Did you ever lay down in the back seat of a car and then try to guess where you where by the few things you could see flashing by through the window. Or find your way through your house in the complete dark? Even though you are very familiar with the house. suddenly everything seems to be slightly out of place.

It quickly takes on a characteristic of. " I think that chair is right about BAM!. Oh dang".

I think that beekeeping is alto like that right now. There is a whole lot that is in darkness. and many beekeepers are looking for those fleeting glimpses of just where we are and what is going on. It has been goign on for so long now and a clear picture is still not forming. that we are resorting to making up whole stories about just flashes of light.

I noticed that last year when I fed my bees on the 7th of may during a full moon with a temperature of 72 degrees and a forecast of rain that 2% more of my hives survived. IMO I have found the cure for Varroa. This is otherwise known as Paralysis of Analysis. You get so locked up in looking for the problem you become stagnant. The cure is that if you are having serious problems do something different. anything. it doesn't really matter what you change. it can't make you a worse beekeeper. The real danger is the beekeeper that has achieved good enough. and I think this afflicts nearly every beekeeper in existence. It's working good enough. I only average a 30% loss per year. I can live with that so don't mess with it.

And then you have the fertile ground for the In My Opinion discussions. And although they can erupt frequently. I believe the opinion based discussions may be the only way to really finding out the whole picture. because every one adds one more possible piece to the puzzle. If those that care enough to have formed an opinion don't find the answer. Who will? Those that don't give a diddly squat if there is a bee?

So I hope to see the IMO and it appears to me to keep coming in floods. It is the same thing as laying in the back seat. saying, I think we are getting close. I think I recognized that tree branch.
 
#21 ·
It is the shoulder shrug, the smile (or frown), the body language that makes face to face conservation flow. Those things are missing from written discussions. It is also a way to avoid arguments and maintain a discussions at a low decibel level.
 
#36 ·
It is the shoulder shrug, the smile (or frown), the body language that makes face to face conservation flow. Those things are missing from written discussions.
I think it is a skill set, you either have it or you don't. Authors have it, engineers don't have it. The push today is to retrain engineers to have "communication skills" that are not natural to an engineer. What you end up with is a salesman or a very mediocre engineer. Not someone that could put a man on the moon.
 
#59 ·
I knew a couple of design electrical engineers who fought like cats and dogs. My favorite argument was over switching transistors. One said a 2N3638 was superior and the other insisted that a 2N5356 was. They were each so certain of their facts, that the company had to stock both devices.The funny part was that, in the field, I could look at a schematic diagram and tell which one of them designed the circuit by the switching transistors. And when one of the devices failed....I could easily substitute the other without any detriment....unless the designer discovered my change.
Ha Ha great work anecdote. :)

And it got even more intriguing, when it suddenly hit me, those two engineers are both here, prominent posters on Beesource. Their writings and attitudes, to each other and the rest of the world leave no doubt at all, it's them! :eek:. LOL!
 
#61 ·
those two engineers are both here, prominent posters on Beesource. Their writings and attitudes, to each other and the rest of the world leave no doubt at all, it's them! :eek:. LOL!
I hadn't thought about it but now that you mention it.....I think I know exactly who you are referring to....:)
 
#39 ·
You won't often find me talking about my opinion, or saying "I think". It's redundant. Whenever I see "I think," I think, "who cares what you think, tell me what you do."
The really sad thing Solomon, is that you actually think that your opinions represent primary facts. Over and over and over.

Again, everybody has one.
 
#26 ·
ahhhh. but when you leave off 'i think...' or 'i feel like it might be because......', especially in the forum format, it reads more like a statement of fact.

whether a statement is opinion or fact is, well, in the best case debatable.

in forums, i think it does help to use qualifying terms like 'i think', even though it is redundent, it's more than that because the reader, (me for example), won't feel compelled to challange it as a statement of fact that i have to question....

a person isn't lessoned by admitting and saying 'i don't know', there's no shame in it. in my professional life, i have found that saying 'i don't know' has earned me more respect than the other way around.
 
#28 ·
good question. for me, i don't hold too many absolute truths or facts. not saying i don't have some, but for me, to represent something as truth or fact, (always imho anyway), is more than i can say for almost anything i've written on beesource.

i'llbeederned! maybe i'm taking this way to serious. :)
 
#38 ·
Ha Ha, that's an interesting little aside.

To me, the trade with the REALLY BAD communication skills are computer engineers. Just can't get a message across, even to an audience trying hard to understand. Although I have met the odd one who is great at it so there's no firm rule. A computer engineer WITH great communication skills will likely go far.

But as to talking only in absolutes if you believe what you are saying - no. Most of us who have grown in knowledge over our time with bees will realise some of the things we once thought to be facts, are not, and some generally accepted facts, are more likely probables, or maybes. Far better to discuss in a way that leaves things open to other opinions without obvious dissagreement.

And to the issue raised that this is a stupid thread, in who'se opinion? ;) But who cares? I'm talking on stupid threads all the time LOL!
 
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