and he says Joe told me.

So you ask Joe and he says Pete told me.

Pete say he heard it from Lefty who heard it from Moe who heard if from Dave.

For some reason you look it up and find out they're ALL wrong.

How much Elmering goes on like that?

You just described how the bulk of information is passed along online. 

Still I think the guys in this corner of the net have some firsthand experience to share. It's been said before but this is the best ham radio forum on the net and it's just a subforum on a gun board. Pretty awesome!

I think the golden age of in-person elmering is long gone, and has been since the 70's and early 80's. There are probably still quite a few folks willing to help out, but you aren't going to meet them by asking the guy on your paper route about his antenna farm.

But that's how I got all my info about grounding
Still, i wonder why sparks hit my lips when i use the mic.
jk  
i have found most of the guys i've met to be very  helpful.  trust but verify. :)

Yeah pretty much...

Honestly I think most guys just don't know but don't wanna sound dumb so they just make shit up.

I try to seek out experten advice, which is why I ask here first

This perfectly describes how information is passed among human species.

There was a guy at the ham club last weekend that really got in to showing me all kinds of things I never knew I needed to know about my FT-857D. We actually took the case top off and looked around the innards and afterwards started going thru all the menu items seeing what they did. It was very educational for me and will help me to make better use of the radio when I get my General. Interestingly, I had to describe the funky antenna I'd brought to probably a dozen people. So, it was give and take and that's OK.

I have two Elmers and dont have that issue.  I think you can generally get a feelnfor someone and politely keep the bs flag tucked in your back pocket.  I do hear some interesting things.  The one thing i hear the most is:  "talk to the world with 5 watts and a wet noodle. "   Would be nice to see those conditions.  One interesting conversation I heard was from a very nice seasoned ham who worked in the military back in the good old days.    He said when we were doing all of the nuclear testing back in the early days created unusually good propagation.   was interesting theory...

prosise

I had Bob Heil K9EID as my elmer.....so I was well tutored.