For FAQ's Sake

What’s your opinion on….?

Opinions are like farts, everyone else’s stinks, they are hard to hold in and when you let one go, at least one person will leave the room.

How about "Nobody cares, not now or ever. Do what you want and enjoy it. Except Swatch collecting."

The brand new watch that I just received which is under warranty is:

- not keeping time

- scratched

- not the exact model I purchased

- ...

Should I return it?

Yes. Yes you should.

Adding such a section might be a good thing

Here's another....

I want to buy a watch. What should I get?

Just get a Casio Duro. It's all the watch anyone could possibly need... But if you WANT something else, get something else.

But what?

I don't know your taste... A Duro with the Pepsi bezel?

Those are my favorite threads! Now the "Would you rather have one $500,000 watch or 5,000 $100 watches?" or "Do you actually take yo luxury dive watch in da water?" or "How many quartz vs. mechanical watches do you own?", those can be banished.

Oh wait, the answers... False dichotomy, get a hundred $5K dollar watches, nuyuk nyuk. Luxury dive watches are an obsolete gimmick but do what you want and maybe grow up and get a dress watch and stop being a dunker. Quartz is best but they don't break enough or satisfy the snob mentality so the inmates lean toward mechanical.

My favorite would be "I'm looking to blow exactly $X on a watch and have no preferences whatsoever, please choose something for me!" to which the answer is "Send me the money and I will send you the perfect watch, you whimpering dullard." Spoiler alert: it will be an F-91W and no change will be given.

Although honorary mention goes to "I have spindly wrists but like to wear this comically oversized watch. [photo] Is it too big for me?" to which the answer is "We don't love you enough to tell you how obviously awful this looks, so have a patronizingly noncommital 'you do you' non-answer." (My answer would be "you know that looks stupid, stop kidding yourself, but don't worry this watch looks stupid on people with 10" wrists too. But it looks extra stupid on you, so stop it." but we don't do tough love here.)

Lastly "What do you guyz think about [this watch]?"

I don't think about it. I can't be bothered to look it up. I don't care.

Definitely think this is a good idea. I must have muted 50+ people who ask silly questions that are asked over & over again!

Now now Warrior, stupidity is currency we all use occasionally. I know I do!

Muted, only joking!

Realised !😀

I do like the "what should I buy" FAQ's although I don't reply to many as I would get a ban from here !

Ditto "does this look big on me"

"Is a smart watch a real watch" er...yup

BUT have asked a few myself in my time !

This is my point exactly! I find myself being less and less bothered about being involved here as with the exception of a few topics and proper interesting long reads, it's always the same stuff, what should I buy? Is this ok? What do you think?

It's hard to provide simple answers to such a subjective hobby, but sometimes I feel like a regularly updated section that answers the most common questions would help keep the majority of the posts about the more interesting side of watches.

Brilliant! I love it!

Just saw this one...

If you could have only 3 (or 5 or whatever small amount) of watches from your collection, which would it be?

I don't want to pick "just 5" let alone 3. That's why I have 43+ and a watch collecting problem. Leave me alone with my selective hoarding!

(PS. I don't have 43+ watches.)

MY All TIme FAv’s…

Is Apple Watch a Watch!!!

Which Watch Goes well with A Blue Suit!!

And. “For FAQ’s sake!” 😜

Honestly - I proposed a template for “what should I buy” waaaay back in April last year. Team WC were interested, but that’s about where it stopped. If it had its own section then it would be much more targeted and personal, rather than just a bunfight. I’m tired of people asking for a dress watch choice and being told to buy a diver - read the room.

The algorithm is also f*****d, and nobody uses the search bar, that’s why we are the same stuff and again and again. As @Deeperblue quite rightly points out, long-form is dead because it doesn’t hang around. It’s a shame, because we have a good selection of series, but they are just buried under the dross. Also, linked posts are not encouraged, but if you can’t successfully cultivate long-form on the platform and maintain eyes, then what should an author do. We’ve lost some excellent professional journos, and some talented hobbyists.

Btw - WRUW exists for one shot photo posts with no context, why people insist on clogging up the feed with inane photos, I don’t know. I’d much rather have bots selling me tiles.

This is an interesting question!

If we take away:

• Which watch...?

• The wrist shots that should be in the WRUW section...

• Perfect 3 watch collection for X situation...

• Plus the others you mentioned

....what would we be left with??

Some occasional posts on history, reviews (all 5*), and the very occasional thoughtful piece on watch collecting.

That wouldn't be enough for the churn of fresh content people like.

Totally agree, people get the quick serotonin boost of quick likes and quick responses choosing something that took all of a second to think up, then when you combine new members rolling in daily and each of them wanting their first interactions, it's a recipe for bland content.

There was someone many weeks ago (can't remember their name) who wrote something on the rise and fall of Casio, hugely detailed with quotes and graphs and proper research, I found it fascinating, my legs went numb sat on the toilet reading it! It was like some kind of hearty meal after lots of fast food.

Even though I like the idea of an FAQ section, as others have said, you can't make people read it, and if we kept it to long form content only, I think it would put a lot of people off and we'd get a fraction of the activity we do now.

The alternative is to create a section here for long form content, 'The Longines Lounge' or something equally as puntastic. I imagine some sort of smoking lounge, with pipes and smoking jackets and leather chairs, where we read what someone's written and mutter ' quite' ' indubitably' and 'good show' 😂

Completely agree, I was also aware when posting this that it was ironically likely that this topic in itself would have been brought up before.

Regarding WRUW, there should be a character limit. Show me the watch, I can leave the car steering wheels and dogs and artsy cups of coffee.

If I see one more five star review of a Tudor that they are just going to sell on Chrono24 in six months I am going to buy a gun and move to Idaho.

"I just can't take this off of my wrist." Yes, you can. Don't be infantile.

A G-Shock post with no content is the absolute nadir of the form.

I could go on.

This has given me the idea to create a universal "which watch should I buy" flowchart. It will, of course, align with my preferences. Anyway, if anyone wants to steal the idea, great, but I'm here to beg for a suggestion on the easiest way to throw a flowchart together. I don't want to spend much effort on this.

And yeah, for God's sake, the number of magnificent effortposts that have the ephemerality of Bede's sparrow while the more banal fodder (including my own: the stupid "how you say Longines?" poll threak is still drawing eyeballs) lingers is annoying.

Do I like watch - yes / no

Have I done my research into maintenance - yes / no

If no, do it, and you still want it - yes / no

That’s it right… that’s all you need to ask in terms of buying a watch.

The answer is E) LOOONg- John- - SeeeeelÖvah -hah

One that ultimately tells time 🤪

There is, along with other sites some total shite posted.

Personally I like to come on watchcrunch and get that visual hit looking at what everyone else has got it’s a requirement for any collector, along with a bit of light entertaining reading. I don’t necessarily want to give people advice on what to do however some requests are viable and I will reply and hopefully it helps 🤞🏻

If I want serious reading material then I go wiki or a book I think this platform should be for short snappy statements/ stories, facts etc not for the repetitive "what should I buy" "help me I’m dead and can’t make a simple decision" "this watch is perfect reviews" Shite

However we have the ultimate weapon in our control just skip over the 💩 and ignore it

I’m done……

It's probably easiest to just draw it and take a picture, like this...

(Not made by me)

I did suggest that there needed to be some way of recognising the contributions of content creators to the WC powers last year.

They said it was on their radar, but the app was the priority at that time.

Hopefully one day! 🤞

This probably took about the same amount of time but was easier to erase the more half-baked ideas.

But what else is there to talk about..?

In line with what you said about eating a hearty meal immediately after lots of fast food (Great idea! - wait - that's not exactly what you said!) maybe the best would be both the fast food FAQ and the Long Form Hearty Meal. I'm fairly new to WatchCrunch and I joined because it was a no-holds barred site for crazed watch guys of every price, genre, crystal, escapement, mainspring, battery, and tuning fork so help me God. I've asked some of the tired questions already myself. I joined the site for that reason, but also to answer tired questions (interesting ones too) if I could. Having said that, if someone wants to take the time to make an FAQ section, that would be a good thing. But some might not find it, some might not read it, and some might read it and ask the tired questions anyway.

Similarly, we could have a Long Form section, but like a 55mm Invicta, just because the content is big won't necessarily mean that it's good.

But I do think we should have them both. The best case scenario would be that both FAQ and Long Form would be useful and/or entertaining. The worse that could happen is that after a few weeks or months we would decide that one or both of them stink. But then . . . we would have something new to complain about! So there's really no downside.

I'm amazed I can still read this. Staring at the small print on watch dials my whole life must have really improved my vision. You should give your chart a name. And I'm biased, but my favorite advice is, Is just one quartz? Yes? Get the quartz watch.