Not here often, but a quick scan of the headlines shows people unwilling to do any work. Here are but a few examples: Here's a guy who wants scan parameters given to him. Never mind the long process of discovering which parameters might be best for you; https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/stock-scans.323073/ Here a guy with "no time to waste" who simply wants someone to hand him a sure-fire recipe for trading: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/how-do-you-trade-es-nq.323084/ Here's another guy that simply wants to be told what to do, and this is one of many such threads from this poster (a guy I know tried to help him, but his advice was ignored): https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/how-do-i-trade-forex-futures.323081/ And the beat goes on... Many people have tried to genuinely help with such thoughtless inquiries; they are clearly better people than I. All I want from such posters is for them to trade and provide liquidity (become food) in my markets. I'll add one small comment for such people. I was a futures floor trader in the 90's. I then made the long and painful switch to the screen and another market. You know how people learned to be floor traders? They stood there day after day after day watching, trading small, and hoping they'd figure it out before going broke. Most didn't. No one, and mean no one, helped you out unless you were lucky enough to have an established friend or work for a firm like, say, Singer-Wenger. Most had neither the friend nor the job, but yet, some still made it. So for OPs like those above, trade very small, practice, learn, and forget the idea that anyone (except someone trying to sell you "trading education") is going to spoon-feed you. Why would any successful trader do that? Back to your regularly-scheduled programming...
I understand where you're coming from but not sure why you would put forth the effort to criticize a handful of people who are looking for guidance or shortcuts. You seem to come from the perspective that every trader has to learn everything..... good and bad, on his own. But why? Do I need to re-make the same mistakes on my own that have been made by countless others if I can avoid them by asking people more experienced than myself? My grandfather had an accident with a power tool in a factory and it cut one of his fingers off. So when he says to me, "Baron, never push a narrow piece of wood through a table saw with your bare fingers.", I don't need to try it on my own and lose my own finger to understand what he was talking about. That's like asking why would any carpenter, plumber or other tradesman teach a young apprentice the skills of the craft? Why would the master ever waste his time teaching someone with little knowledge? Because there's a joy that's associated with helping someone learn the shortcuts of the trade and grow as a person. There's a satisfaction in knowing that you helped someone become a better version of himself so that he can pass along that wisdom to someone else one day. I've never met a successful person in my life whose success was attributed strictly to his own efforts 100%. In fact, if you ask anyone who has achieved any level of success in his life, he can give you a laundry list of people who influenced him and helped him in ways that he could have never helped himself in. So although I understand that you're calling out what you view as laziness, I think there's also nothing wrong at all with someone asking, "Hey, I don't know what I'm doing in this particular scenario. Can someone with more experience help me so I don't have to make every mistake on my own." Based upon your whopping 7 posts here, I'm guessing your efforts on the floor mimics your efforts here. It's not that there was nobody on the floor willing to help you out; you just never reached out for help or offered any assistance on your own to anyone else. So you got back from people what you put into them, which was nothing. Even reviewing your past 7 posts, it's clear that you have contributed absolutely zero to the community in terms of practical trading knowledge or help, which is sad since you've been trading since the 90's. So because you were too prideful to reach out to others, you think everyone else should do the same and just "figure it out".
I wonder if he's related to Ghost of Cutten: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/members/ghost-of-cutten.158006/
It's deja vu all over again. (I think this exact thread was created 6-7 months ago, including an appearance by Baron, and a Springsteen reference from V-man. Is this just me?) Assisting someone who won't help themselves only assists them in going broke. It's a hard, but not an impossible, path to tread. We're back to Tom freakin' Cruise -- "Help me, help YOU."
While agree that sharing knowledge is a good thing, I share the OP's sentiment about the sometimes laziness in which help is asked for. It is one thing for a poster to demonstrate that they have at least attempted to figure something out on their own or put in some upfront effort. If I see someone working hard and putting forth effort, I will go out of my way to help that person. If you barely show up and have put forth no effort of your own, good luck to you...I have better things to do.
If someone else has already figured out the answer to a problem I had, I'd certainly ask him to share it with me. Of course, he might or he might not, that's his choice. But I can't criticise someone for trying to find the easiest and quickest - and therefore smartest - route to the answer to a problem. I answered the OP in the first thread that GhostOf144 quoted, the one asking for stock scanners. I didn't have the specific answer but I did try to point out it wasn't the key question anyway, and this is only scratching the surface of the knowledge he'll need to trade profitably. I'm waiting to see if the guy comes back.